South Africa’s Wild Coast truly is a place to visit if you want to escape it all. In this coastal paradise, golden sunlight kisses grassy green hills, a rough and rugged coastline meets sheltered lagoons and between craggy cliffs, tumbling waterfalls and patches of indigenous forest offer cool and verdant shelter. On the Wild Coast, life is simple, its pace set by the rising and setting of the sun and the endless rhythms of the seasons. It is a place of healing, a place of solace and incredible rugged beauty.
In this post we pay homage to the natural beauty of the Wild Coast. Pictures speak louder than words, so here are ten of our favorite images of all time.
Surfers get ready to paddle out for arguably the most beautiful session of their lives
Aloes cling precariously to the sandstone edge at Lwandile, another Wild Coast gem.
A hut silhouetted against the fading pink and gold sunset skies
Early morning light bathes a rocky shoreline. Look for a while at the warmth of the light on the rocks and imagine yourself standing there, with the new day warming your face and the salt air cool on your skin
The Wild Coast is as much about the people living there as it is about the scenery. A Mpondo lady uses the pont to cross the mightly Kei River, her face painted with clay as a protection from the sun and coastal winds
A favorite sundowner spot, the grass-covered cliffs that fringe the Wild Coast offer spectacular views to the beaches below
The blue sky of a calm winter’s day on the Wild Coast juxtaposes with the red of the flowering aloes that decorate the shoreline
Ready, steady, jump! Cliff jumping off the Mapuzi Cliffs into the sea below is a huge thrill for the adventure-seeker
What a welcoming sight – light bathes the grasslands and thicket while your eye is drawn towards an empty and beckoning coastline
Sunrise is a wondrous time anywhere on the coast, but nowhere more so than here on the empty, unspoiled beaches of the Wild Coast
Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Grant Christie, a mild-mannered explorer from Dullstroom, recently completed an epic hiking trail called “The Coast of South Africa.” An outline of the route can be found on any map of South Africa. Simply find the…
The Namaqua region of the Cape West Coast is home to some spectacular stretches of coastline – calm protected bays with white sand beaches, or rocky wild points. The sea along these stretches is alive with kelp forests that line the shallows, flocks of birds like cormorants and waders, as well as bigger animals like…
Early in February, my Facebook home page was alive with posts about a weird but natural phenomenon that was happening in the coastal waters close to False Bay along the Cape coastline. There had been a bloom of bioluminescent plankton, and at night, the water was shining turquoise blue! Now maybe it’s an indication of the…
From the time that we started planning our Ultimate South African Road Trip, Bevan and I were looking forward to exploring our country’s west coast from Cape Town up to the Namibian border. Perhaps it is because we have grown up in KwaZulu-Natal that the west coast has this allure for us – it is…
Hi everyone. We left things off last time inside the Hluhluwe/iMfolozi Game Reserve. Since then, we’ve headed back into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and had a week characterised by extreme weather that changed just about every plan we had. Somehow though, things have a way of working themselves out. We were sad to leave the Hluhluwe/iMfolozi Game…
Beautiful scenes. Thanks Bevan. I’ve never managed to get to the Wild Coast – more the West Coast but these scenes have inspired to definitely add to my bucket list. All the best
Beautiful scenes. Thanks Bevan. I’ve never managed to get to the Wild Coast – more the West Coast but these scenes have inspired to definitely add to my bucket list. All the best
Thanks Richard
It’s well worth putting on the bucket list – and it’s not that far from Durban 🙂