At 7am we set off for our 12 kilometre hike leaving Madakeni village after a breakfast of fried eggs with Xhosa Bread and runny corn porridge called Slap Pap.
My husband and son had decided to bail on the hike and go surfing instead so I left them behind at Madakeni Village to wait for a very long and bumpy transfer back to Mdumbi and continued the next 4 days of hiking with the group.
Stu and Val walking up the steep hill
Thorny Lantana - an invasive species from South America which has become hindrance to biodiversity in the North Coast and Wild Coast
Today’s hike was full of hills, due to the rocky cliffs and tides so we had to head inland. We started on an uphill journey of about 4 consecutive hills in the high humidity and hot sun of the early morning. Heading inland meant that we had absolutely no breeze off the sea to keep us slightly cool and this was the toughest part of the hike.
Some of our group weren’t too happy about the amount of dirt road walking but eventually we turned off onto a narrow single track between a couple round village houses (rondawels) which lead down the hill and into a beautiful rain forest.
The forest was muddy and slippery making for slow progress (or fast dirty progress if you chose to slide your way down the slopes 😂). But is was so good to be in the solid shade of the trees and see a whole new aspect of the Wild Coast.
Most of the kids walked bare foot and enjoyed the combination of sloppy mud and cow patties squishing between their toes.
We stopped under for a break under one tall tree and caught our breath.
Looking down at the beach and Mpande Village on the other side
The path led back up and through another village before we finally made a very long descent through a coastal belt of forest down to a large beach.
As we took of our shoes and then kept moving (gaping at the gorgeous waves) we came across bulls head butting on the beach seemingly competing for a female cow.
We quickly diverted the action and crossed a shallow river before stripping off and going for a LONG swim. It was such a good thing that we took this time to enjoy the beach and waves because 45 minutes later as we were getting dressed for a short 10 minute walk to our new huts, the wind suddenly came up and blew in the clouds.
Just as we were arriving at Tsweleni village in Mpande the large rain drops started to fall.
Florentine (my new roommate) and Valmer
The rush for a room with a bed was on! I was now a single with lout my family so a lovely fellow Dutchy found a lovely rondawel at the back. The others had all dashed for the closest twin rooms but we happily found out that our rondawel had its own toilet, sink and shower with running water and a working plug point!!!! Woohooo!!! The others had to share a communal bathroom so we were so happy 😁.
Mpande is the villlage known for fresh seafood and boy did it live up to that expectation. First we had a huge bucket of mussels, steamed…. R50 per bucket.
Followed by crayfish… R15 per crayfish, so Stu ordered 20! I’m allergic to shellfish so I stuck to my crackers and snacks.
Followed by fresh fish that was boiled and cut up.
It felt like we ate all afternoon and still had dinner to look forward to.
A few of us headed down to a shell beach just below our village to collect shells and the kids swam. We were starting to realise that this was what we should expect every day on our 5-day hike. Walking, swimming, humidity rain, more walking, more swimming and then eating lots of Xhosa bread.
Ella (13) came up to me asking if I had an apple? I got up and fetched it for her and then as I gave it to her she said, “Can I feed it to the pig?”
Well I laughed and then said yes… fruit is heavy to carry on a hike and so usually a luxury, but I had a few more and it was fun watching her try to feed the little black pig that had come to visit us.
It was also at Tsweleni that we met our new furry friends. A few dogs had been hanging around while we had food and they had managed to get some leftovers and scraps from the kitchen that evening. Little did we know that they would
Follow us for the next 2 days of hiking. You can read more about their journey in my next blog.
We had a fun evening of banter and games before heading to bed early. The next day was going to be a long one.
I didn’t manage to get a map recording of this days Hike due to a dead phone and no electricity the previous night, but the following days we managed to get it right.
Read my previous blogs leading up the Wild Coast Hike on my profile and watch this space for the final 3 days of the hike too! It just kept on getting better. 😃
[//]:# (!pinmapple -31.753058 lat 29.367254 long The Wild Coast Hike: Day 2 Madakeni Village to Tsweleni d3scr)
