So far that has worked reasonably well as a form of narrative, particularly since I only visited most places for a short time. Once I was in South Africa though and had a car I would cover a lot more distance, and see a lot more places, so I am going to do some themed posts, rather than focussing on a chronological order of things.
As always I will try to focus on the highlights, the stuff I found interesting and exciting, and the challenging stuff that makes for an interesting tale (i.e. when things turn the shape of a heavily bottomed yellow fruit).
So for my first theme, I did a lot of hiking in a number of different places, with some really awesome scenery. The advantage for you guys that follow my travels is this post will be heavy on the photos and somewhat light(er) on me gabbing on about random stuff. But first, a little gabbing about random stuff ...
I have some friends I know from Perth who now live in Eastern Cape, in the former "homeland" area known as the Transkei (area around the Kei river). This area has now been renamed far more interestingly, as The Wild Coast, and as you will see from the photos, it is an appropriate moniker.
I spent a bit of time visiting with my friends Mark and his wife Kate, and used their place in Zithulele as a base to visit the surrounding area. Before I get into the hiking part, I have to give these guys some praise for basically being really awesome people, and that story also needs a touch of history. I first met Mark's twin sister Laura through a mutual friend, and through her, Mark and Kate. Laura worked at the Zithulele hospital as a physio for about 3 years and left last September to study a masters degree in London (about a week before I got to Africa). Mark and Kate only just moved there, arriving in December. Kate is a doctor working at the hospital, and Mark is spending time at Jabulani, one of the NGO's there which is helping the local folk to get a better education and also to get jobs. He is now also the go to person for any issues around the doctors accommodation (they had a few break ins, and he was dealing with security stuff and the police investigators etc.). He's always busy sorting stuff out for someone.
I won't go into too much detail, but the hospital is definitely a challenging place to work, but also run and staffed by an incredible team of people, who all work really hard, doing on call at nights and weekends as well as working Mon to Fri every week. I'm sure my many doctor friends at this point are thinking yeah, all hospitals fit that description, but I can say a rural hospital in Africa is definitely high on the list of challenging workplaces. Mark gave me a tour once, and while there are plenty of buildings, almost half of them, built I think in the 50's, have been officially condemned, yet patient requirements mean they are still in use. Within Kate's first couple of weeks she stitched up a guy who had been sliced and stabbed 20 times with a panga (machete), wielded no less than by his own son, I saw photos, it was pretty gruesome. She also delivered an extremely premature and extremely small baby weighing it at only 900 grams (less than 2lb in the old terms). Two months later it went home with it's devoted mother at twice that weight. See, awesome people.
Ok, now the hiking stuff (and photos) ...
The Wild Coast
From Mark and Kate's place I first did a day hike to a place known as Hole in The Wall, accompanied by Marius, who was on his summer holiday visiting his girlfriend Ashley who also works at the hospital.
There were some long beaches ...
And some cliffs ...
With some slightly adventurous climbing (I know this isn't particularly challenging, but the more difficult bits needed both hands) ...
A precariously hanging rock ...
A goat up a tree ...
And a rocky island ...
It's kind of like the old adverts for aero chocolate if anyone remembers those - it's the bubbles of nothing (the missing bits), that make it really something ...
I went away from the area for a couple of weeks (that will get mentioned in another post), but to stick with the area, I came back this way again to visit Mark and Kate again (another break in had happened), and I hiked off for a few days to a really nice backpackers called Bulungula (to be discussed in yet another post).
From Zithulele to Bulungula was a good 5+ hour hike along some pretty impressive coast.It was a hot day, so there were lots of people swimming at the beach ...
Yet I was doing a 5 hour hike in the middle of this hot day, smart man that I am, where there were no shady trees, but lots of green spiky things ...A rock with a cleft chin ...
A new island being created, also topped with spiky things ...
And some really cool looking grasshoppers ...
I stayed a few days at Bulungula and then hiked back to Zithulele via a different route. I had a recommendation to head inland and find a forest trail. At one point I came up to a ridge and realised I'd missed the trail as I could see the forest about a kilometre away in the direction of the coast, but I'd also already walked past half of it, so I carried on the way I was going. By this stage I was walking through farming area, and regularly going past clusters of huts. There were very few fences, they fence small compounds for the animals to spend the night, but during the day roam the countryside, often under the watchful eye of young boys who quite possibly could have done with a little time in school, but this is their way, and how they've done things for a long time.
At one stage I stopped for a rest break and sat down on a concrete block close to one of the huts. Coincidentally I just happened to choose a block in front of a hut belonging to possibly one of the few people along my route with really good English. Most of them have a basic knowledge of English, but as I learned this guy had gone to East London (big town on the SE corner of Sth Africa) so he could get a much better education than was offered at the local schools. After finishing school he had returned to his home area, but now was unable to get work. He approached me on this basis, hoping that there was some way I could help him with a job, (I got these requests periodically, from hitch hikers I gave lifts to, and people I passed when out for a walk.
After I explained I was an Australian and could neither provide him with employment, nor seek any for myself, I got up to set off hiking again. Asking if he could join me, we set off and continued chatting. I think more than anything he wanted to practice his English, and commented to me that all the people we passed would be surprised to see him talking to a white person, as they didn't know of his language capabilities. At one point someone called out to my companion. Although I don't understand the local language, Xhosa (X pronounced with a click), I guessed at the meaning of what was called out as it was obviously phrased as a question ending in the word Xhosa. My temporary companion confirmed that yes they wanted to know if this whitey could speak Xhosa.
He was very surprised when he asked if I'd ever been there before, "no", and didn't have a map. How did I know my way, without a guide, or getting lost. I explained that I had hiked from Zithulele to Bulungula along the coast, and didn't need directions as the backpackers there faced the beach. Hiking back it wasn't a concern as Zithulele was on top of a hill, I knew what it looked like from this side, and so long as I was pretty close, I could find it no problems. To demonstrate this, I point at a far off ridge line near the coast with a slope of exposed red dirt, and indicated that immediately to the left of this was the 'Wild Lubanzi backpackers' (first beach photo above is the view from the ridge). He was astounded that I could know this and recognise it from so far away having only passed by there once. I frequently hike off into the wilderness alone, I need to be good at spotting landmarks and able to know where I am and how to get back out again, something I often do by dead reckoning, rather than by having been there before.
On the topic of his first question, I didn't really feel I could tell the guy that the chances of getting a 'proper job' as he wanted, and why he went away to get a good education, was a bleak scenario if he also wanted to live with his people in one of the poorest rural areas of the country. In fact a large portion of the able bodied men work away, sending money home and only visiting occasionally, particularly Christmas time. With lots of 'young' men, relatively flush with cash, and home for a short time, Kate and her fellow doctors were kept very busy. Sounds vaguely familiar to Perth, with the cashed up bogans who work FIFO on the mines coming home with more money than brain cells, especially after they've spent the first three days 'home' at the pub.
Anyway, back to the hiking, and the photos (in a minute). After leaving the Wild Coast, I continued on to East London myself to visit with my German friends Michelle and Andy who had been part of my trip to Kruger. I spent the night with Michelle and her husband Andy (different Andy, and to avoid confusion I will refer to him as Andreas). Along with their friend Tim, we had a Braai dinner, and then proceeded to spend half the night playing Grass (a card game I taught the Germans on the Kruger trip).
The next day Michelle, Andreas, and I met up with Andy and another German working for Mercedes Benz, and headed to Hogsback to go hiking. This was my next planned destination, so worked perfectly for me, at the end of the day I just had to arrange accommodation, rather than drive 2 hours back to East London.
Hogsback is 'famous' for being the area that inspired Tolkien for the setting of the Hobbit and subsequently the Lord of the Rings books. I think that it may have just been the inspiration for The Shire, and he used other places for different settings in the book. There is also a place just near the town of Hogsback called Hobbiton.
The hiking involved lots of forest ...
Waterfalls ...
A big tree (known as The Big Tree) ...
A lady bug ...
My friends Andy ...
And Michelle ...
Both of them sitting at the top of a waterfall ...
The view of the plains below ...
The group hiking out ...
And the mountain range for which the town was named, with the three Hogs Backs ...
After we'd hiked back out to the cars, and tried 5 different places to be able to get something to eat and drink, we eventually gave up on the food, and just had a drink. Then after saying our goodbyes I set off to camp for a few nights before heading for the south coast and the famous surf break at Jeffries Bay.
Unfortunately Supertubes really only comes to life in winter, and in the summer months the surf is erratic, when I was there it was dishing up ankle high ripples, to my supreme disappointment. The surf might improve on Friday or Saturday I was told, it was Tuesday, so after one night, followed by an early run on the beach and a quick swim, I carried on to the Garden Route region.
Where I found a really big bridge ...
Not this bridge, but an almost identical one stretching I believe over the same river very close by is the world's highest bridge bungy jump of 216m. I'm not quite that crazy, but met a few people along the way who are.
I arrived at a place which had been recommended to me called Wild Spirit backpackers (run by the family of the guy who runs the previously mentioned Wild Lubanzi). I will cover this place in a different post on awesome places, so will just focus on the hiking.
The backpackers has a couple of short walks, to a waterfall, a big tree (yes very original I thought), and a magic forest. Much more interestingly the surrounding area known as Tsitsikamma had loads of great hiking, of which I didn't do as much as I might have liked, but did cover a reasonable amount. I didn't get to do the Otter Trail, which had been recommended to me. It is ridiculously expensive, and you need to book ages in advance, and then take 5 days to hike 42 kms. Two days would be tough, three however would be relatively easy, five, really? I had thought of doing the first and / or last days, in and out as a day hike, but it was exposed coast and brutally hot, so I never got around to it.
I did however do some hiking, and in the interests of variety of pictures, I saw some wildflowers ...
A spiders webbed collection of leaves ...
A view of the coast and lagoon, and a nice twisty road climbing the mountain (would have been nice on a bike) ...
Later on I was trekking along that same coast (to the right of the above picture), and came to a few difficult sections ...
And I understood why the sign at the start recommended hiking at low tide. Further on I got to some really interesting stuff that involved climbing rather than hiking, and some planning to be able to place my water bottle on a ledge, climb up to it, and then repeat. On my way out following the trail I'd come to, I realised that all the seriously difficult stuff could have been avoided if I'd just noticed a sign. Still I was happy for the challenge and a bit of mild rock climbing, but also quite glad to not have to climb back down those same rocks. The bit in the photos was part of the trail though, just along the top of the black rocks.
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