This way to Coffee Bay

The second part of last weekend was in Coffee Bay, which is a tiny little beach community on the Eastern Cape, close to East London... We had a couple good days here… stayed at the Coffee Shack Backpackers… and went on an amazing hike on Sunday morning to the natural landmark ‘Hole In the Wall.’


It rained pretty hard when we arrived but we still went for a walk on the beach to do some exploring. Here I am with my teammate Heather... as the tide creeps up on us unexpectedly.

We headed off on our hike early Sunday morning to beat the mid-day sun... the walk was about 3hrs from our hostel to 'Hole in the Wall.' Along the entire hike we had some incredible views and it was a lot of up and down hill, along the coast, over rocks and cliffs. Here we start it off - I think Pete (third in from left, normally a late sleeper) scratches his head wondering if this a good idea...

I think we could have made the hike under our own direction, but we were all of a sudden approached by some local boys who spoke little English that just decided to escort us and point the way. More or less they just stand on the path and look for hikers and hope that they can make a few Rand out of making the hike, which we ended up giving them because they did point out a few shortcuts.





A look back over some of what we had just hiked...

Needless to say, the sun was beating down and luckily we brought enough water for the walk. Here we are crossing the final major crest with the 'Hole in the Wall' rock in the distance... (right about there in the middle of the picture, kind of jets out)

'Hole in the Wall' from a distance. Amazing that over time the waves could erode a rock of such width, but I actually didn't find it as impressive as I had read it to be. I actually enjoyed some of the views from the hike much more. We did cool off, though, by jumping in the ocean here on this little cove beach! Well worth it. An unbeatable weather day.

After stopping for a short lunch at the ‘Hole In the Wall’ hotel, we decided hiking 3 hrs back in the early afternoon sun was not the best idea (poor planning, I know), especially when Team Bizana had a 5 hr drive back home that afternoon/evening. We needed to try to get back to Coffee Shack (which was 9 km away). Luckily, we flagged down a few locals who head to Coffee Bay to fish and we all hopped in the back of their pickup, as they offered to give us a ride. Here we are, all 8 of us with some of the locals in the pick up, you can’t see the dog that was lying in the middle here. If you could imagine me, holding on to whatever I could grab, balancing myself amongst 10 others, a dog, fishing rods and tackle boxes, on a winding, hilly, dirt road. A bit of a bumpy ride, but with the open breeze coming at us and the sea in the distance, it just added to the overall experience! I do things here everyday that I would never do at home!