Travel Diary: Wild & South Coast

We had really enjoyed our time over December 2020 at Mdumbi on the wild coast and with the knowledge that the wild coast is even more magnificent during the early winter months we took the decision to head back there for roughly a month. Stuart was more than happy as that meant a month of unlimited surfing, of course Mother Nature doesn’t always play along and initially seemed determined to disrupt the surfing plans.

Roughly 2 weeks into our stay, a chance conversation over sundowners resulted in Tania returning to gainful employment for the first time in 2 years. Employment is perhaps a bit of a stretch for her volunteer role, as part of the reception/office staff, but it was gainful as in return for her time we received free camping and whenever she had an evening shift we also received free dinner.   As her shifts either required a short stint opening in the morning or working the evening it left our days largely free to do as we please, i.e. visit the beach.

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Feeling a little left out from the working scene, Stuart took on the responsibility of daycare for Zanzi, the owners 1year old Swiss German Shephard.  Zanzi would go home at night but be back outside Mr Jones door in the morning waiting for us to get up and then spend the whole day with us: following us to the beach, on walks and even to the kitchen when we went to wash dishes.  If Stuart popped down for a surf when Tania started her evening shift, Zanzi would come along and once even followed him far out into the water only going back when she got shouted at!

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Winter on the East Coast is synonymous with the Sardine Run where large shoals of sardines push up to the surface along the wild coast and then head northwards towards Durban.  Along with the arrival of the sardines come many predators in the form of Dolphins, sharks, game fish and birds plus further north around Durban – Humans.  Often on the beach we would watch a flurry of activity out to sea in the form of large pods of dolphins circling and diving gannets and instantly know that the sardines were in the area. If you wish to learn more about the migration and “the greatest shoal on earth” the Natal Sharks Board have a nice write up found here: https://shark.co.za/Pages/Sardinerun

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When the dolphins weren’t eating they were playing in the ocean and Stuart got to share the lineup with these gorgeous creatures on more than a few occasions with the most memorable time being when they swam around within metres, for over 20 minutes, even sometimes swimming directly underneath the group of surfers.

Our planned one month stay quickly turned into two when Tania offered to help out for a further month and it would have been quite easy to extend our stay even further as the lifestyle is very idyllic, serene and almost meditative, in which days and weeks can blend into each other and pass almost unseen but we did start to miss the feeling of freedom you get from moving every few days and having constantly changing vistas. 

Apart from a wonderful two months spent at Mdumbi our one takeaway from the time there is that the hospitality industry is not for us, way too many people (but certainly not all) think they are very special and should be given extra attention even if they are only paying to stay at a backpackers.

Having finally uplifted ourselves from the campsite and left a rather forlorn looking Zanzi in the rear-view mirror we took a gentle amble up the coast on the backroads, including a rather interesting and technical track which we had to backtrack on (thanks to the GPS leading us astray), to a lovely little spot called “The Kraal” which is just south of Port St Johns.  The Kraal sits in a small little depression between rolling grass hills overlooking the ocean and has been built to be totally off-grid and sustainable, from composting toilets, harvesting the rain water into huge catchment tanks and finally solar power for all electrical requirements.

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While at Mdumbi we had taken the decision to take an Airbnb in Tania old hometown of Warner beach for the month of July which meant for a change we had a deadline to meet and so only spent 2 days at The Kraal.     We did however still make one more stopover for a couple of nights at T.O. Strand near Port Edward.

Apart from our forced long term stays in family homes thanks to the Covid lockdowns and a couple of short stopovers at friends along various parts of the journey, we have lived out of Mr Jones for almost 2 years and certainly have never paid for accommodation with four walls and a roof so the Airbnb stay was somewhat of a new experience.  Mr Jones is our home and because he is so small we have to be very clever and efficient with our packing which means everything has a specific place and is easy to reach when needed but this also means that when we move out of him for a short stay we invariably make multiple trips back to him because something like a toothbrush has been forgotten, there is no grabbing of a suitcase upon arrival at a destination.  Our first few days at the Airbnb were exactly like this, with us running down the stairs to fetch this or that but once settled we also enjoyed the convenience of a bathroom en-suite etc.

One of the reasons for choosing Warner beach for a long-term stay is the great beach and good surf break it has and so our days very quickly settled into a routine of walking down to the beach to spend the morning surfing and reading before walking back for lunch and then sometimes down again in the afternoon for a beach walk.  Roughly a week into our stay, we commented halfway through the morning on how we were basically the only ones on the beach, little did we know about the chaos that had erupted behind us and throughout the province. When we got back to the Airbnb we learnt of the civil unrest that was underway and sadly would continue to take place over the next week with shops, malls and factories being looted and often set on fire.  A really sad blot on our history and certainly the worst unrest the country had seen since 1994, all in the name of #FreeJacobZuma the former president found in contempt of court and imprisoned.  As things settled down it would come to light that the unrest had even more sinister undertones.  The one positive that come from the whole experience is how communities across the country banded together to initially protect property and then to later help each other out as food supplies and other essentials ran critically low.  Even the commercial sardine netters offered their catches free to the community on the days subsequent to the looting.  See our July Captain(s) log for the roller coaster of emotions experienced during that period.

We mentioned the sea and bird life activity around the sardine run during our time on the Wild Coast but it is on the beaches in and around Durban that the it really comes into its own as the little fish come closer to shore and the netters can catch and bring them up onto the beaches.  Once that happens all hell breaks loose with fisherman casting lines hoping to catch the game fish following the shoal, the netters and their crew trying to pull the massive net in while battling the shore break,  your average Joe Soap trying to scoop as many sardines as possible into any manner of receptacle (shirts, skirts, hats, cooler boxes, buckets, you name it) all while getting dumped in the shore break as a wave comes in from behind them.  Being an inland boy Stuart had never witnessed this before and so when one day he spotted a fast growing group of cars and people, a sure sign of a catch, down by the beach he headed down to witness this first hand. 

Before we knew it our month at Warners had passed and so we headed up to Jan & Nicole’s farm at Drummond with the intention of leisurely tackling a long list of maintenance and improvement items. We did this throughout the month of August interspersed with some day trips down to the beach and visits with friends and family. The maintenance log  details most of the items we attended to.