The Sunshine Coast (Eastern Cape)

We liked Chintsa so much we ended staying for 4 nights, that's one great thing about this sort of trip you can go where the whimsy takes you and stay as long or as little as you like!

Chintsa West is one of the little enclaves which hug the coastline hereabouts well away from the main roads. The atmosphere is very relaxed and the scenery stunning hence why Ralph enjoys it so much. Once we had Rupert sorted then there was nothing else but to chill out in camp or take walks down the beach usually to catch the Sunset and usually accompanied by Whisky, Ralph's Jack Russell. 

Due to a heart complaint Ralph can no longer manage the steep stairs down to the beach on a regular basis so Whisky seems to have developed an uncanny 6th sense when anyone is about to take a walk and joins up with them.

One evening a storm out at sea kicked off so we went down to the beach, Whisky in tow, to take a look and were treated to a spectacular lightning show out at sea- truly magical and only in Africa.

On our last day (Sunday) we drove the few miles up the coast to Chintsa East and had lunch at a lovely and unusual restaurant called Michaela's. It is perched at the top of a sand dune and is reached by a funicular rail carriage, the food & wine is excellent the atmosphere relaxed and views from the veranda out to sea  stunning so we spent a very pleasant lazy Sunday there.

However, all good things must come to an end and next day it was time to move on. After packing up the camp we stopped to say our farewells to old Ralph and he surprised us by giving us a jar of his homemade orange marmalade - marvellous stuff Ralph we are still using it 3 months later. 

Our next destination was to be a long drive up to the Drakensberg. The only realistic way through in a day is to cross the Transkei but we had been warned by a number of people that it is not safe to drive through the Transkei over the weekend as amongst other things there are a lot of drunks on the road (soon made evident by the amount of car wrecks we passed).

The Transkei is one of South Africa's old 'Homelands' set up by the government during the Apartheid era when it was governed by a black President in name only. The area was and still is very poor and is somewhat desolate set on the high veldt between the Cape and the Drakensberg region.

Till now we had never met anything but friendly faces but it was clear in the Transkei at least that there remains some resentment towards whites and to some extent who can blame them. Thankfully we drove through without incident, we left Chintsa at 10.30am and it was 4.45pm before we reached the fringes of the Drakensberg and that was driving non stop averaging a 100kph on goodish tar roads so it gives you some idea of the distances you quite often need to drive out here!

The difference in the scenery between the Transkei and the Drakensberg is quite something. The Transkei is mainly grass plains set amongst the hills with very few trees, the Drakensberg is more like Switzerland with Mountains, rolling green hills and valleys. It was 6.30pm by the time we arrived at our camp site called Silverstreams, just North of Underberg.

The site was very quiet, in fact we were the only ones camping that night. It is prettily set amidst the foothills leading into the Drakensberg.  We only intended staying the one night so we put up the roof tent and camped next to the tinkling stream from which the site derives its name. It was a lovely evening with the views of the surrounding mountains with the late sun casting shadows on their sides was stunning - now this is a bit more like it we thought!

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