From the air, it’s easy to appreciate the true beauty of the Wild Coast and its many river mouths.
Here’s my mate Rod Hossack and his posse out in the surf off Jeffrey’s Bay, hanging out on their boards, soaking up the sun and chewing the fat between waves. Middle-aged warriors who’ve lost very little of their hippie mojo.
Suddenly a sleek Eurocopter-120 swoops over them, with a Cessna 210 hot on its heels, both aircraft dancing in the skies not very far above the surfers’ heads.
“Look, they’re dicing each other!” Rod cries to his fellow wave riders, and they sit back and enjoy the aerial show ...
The only guy currently having more fun than Rod and his gang is me, up there in the sky.
I’m on a two-day assignment with 5th Dimension Helicopter Safaris, riding the “dead-leg” along the Wild Coast from Durban down to Plettenberg Bay to pick up a British family who are going to enjoy the full facilities of a super-helicopter and South Africa in all her magnificence. Alongside the Eurocopter is the Cessna, so we can do air-to-air photography.
Materially speaking, Gauteng is South Africa’s richest province. I’m travelling in the Transkei, one of its poorest regions. From where I’m sitting, however, the Transkei coastline is natural wealth beyond imagination.
And as we travel south into the Eastern Cape, the swanky housing estates look like rat-boxes from the air, while modest little kraal settlements in the country look like heaven on a stick.
I leave Durban just after dawn one morning, and the southern parts of the Drakensberg loom within minutes. Everywhere in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, hut doors open as we swoosh over and children peep out, yawning. The Eurocopter-120 is a five-seater helicopter with huge space devoted to windows, giving pilot and passengers an all-round view of the world they’re flying through. It’s also a very quiet helicopter, so it doesn’t flatten the scenery with sound.
Near KwaZulu-Natal’s own beautiful, craggy-topped Table Mountain, glowing orange in the rising sun, we hover over a sloping hilltop over a place few people have ever been. Pilot Robin Mathieu lowers the helicopter slowly onto the mountain, letting the skids settle on the grass. We climb out, slightly dazed, like film stars on a strange location shoot. We walk among the wild dagga, the yellow-crowned wild fennel and the fragrant wild mint. The Cessna passes overhead, and we wave from the crown of this hill, miles from nowhere.
Minutes later, we are refuelling at Margate Airport, having breakfast with a crew of friendly Air Force guys taking a break from manoeuvres.
“Next stop Paradise,” says 5th Dimension’s Margie Adcock to her husband, Mark (they’re known in the travel business as “M&M”).
Not long after breakfast, we’re over Mkambati in the Transkei. We see eland, blesbok, blue wildebeest and red hartebeest cantering lazily away on the smooth green stretches. We can’t land, but we can look. On we fly, past waterfalls dropping directly into the sea over high cliffs.
I’ve never seen anything like Waterfall Bluff.
We land at M&M’s favourite spot in the world (this is a likely candidate-spot for Paradise indeed), next to cascading little waterfalls, a great stretch of beach and green hills to the west. It’s a heavenly garden of mosses, wild bananas, milkwood and streams with sweet waters. We drink in small, dainty sips from my empty film canisters and have a laugh. Cowbells tinkle and a line of livestock appears on the horizon. Frangipanis, surgarbushes, ferns, succulents and milkplums. At the edge of a rockpool, a damselfly whirrs back and forth, finally settling on a stem, folding its lace wings forward like a miniature Art Deco helicopter coming to rest.
A little cowherd walks wordlessly up to us, through our midst, across the river, disappearing over the hill. We cast for fish, we drink beer and watch another herd of Transkei cattle pass on the beach. Their horns are huge, their movements ponderous as they are listlessly driven on by youths on horses. Locals and visitors gaze expressionlessly at each other in passing. Two foreign hikers stride past on a long trek south, also in silence. Quite bizarre ...
But not for long. Soon, we head down to Port St Johns and park the helicopter in a local luminary’s backyard. John Costello, who runs the Outspan Inn, doesn’t bat an eyelid as we set down next to his pool. We refuel the chopper with paraffin, drink something cold with John and head off for Hole in the Wall.
The sunset flight down to Mazeppa Bay is unforgettable. I’m working with backlight now; half my pictures are blown out by the sun. The other half are very precious. We pass over many rivers, settlements, idyllic scenes, fishing lodges – everything breathtakingly beautiful except for the tragic silting taking place into the Mzimvubu and Mbashe rivers. Like Lesotho, the Transkei seems to have topsoil as a major export.
We land in the little village of Mazeppa and check in at the local hotel for a bit of a party. But we’re tired, and within three glasses of wine it’s bedtime. The next day’s flying is splendid, following bottlenosed dolphins in the waves, hovering at 300 metres over Bird Island and scooting back over the spectacular Alexandria beach dunefield. The Eurocopter’s shadow is like a pilotfish on the sand below: it literally dances and changes shape and direction in a merry jig under the helicopter.
Too soon, we have to hand over the magnificent aircraft to the paying customers, but there is a bonus. Bad weather has delayed our stay down in Knysna, and we play tourist-tourist for two days until it’s clear enough for the Cessna to head north.
Along the way, we hear reports from Robin and his guests. They stopped to look at wild crabs somewhere on the Wild Coast; they met locals at Hole in the Wall; they did some cliff-flying near Port St Johns; they had, in their own words, “a life-altering experience”. – Chris
The southern Cape’s thick vegetation, watered by year-round rain, has been cleared for grazing for dairy cows.
On we fly, past waterfalls dropping directly into the sea over high cliffs.
The Wild Coast is one of very few places on Earth where waterfalls tumble directly into the sea.
Everywhere in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, hut doors open as we swoosh over.
Left The helicopter’s shadow dances on the tideline.
Right Overflying Bird Island.
The shimmering spread of the Alexandria dunefields..
Nearly 20 per cent of South Africa’s coastline falls within a Marine Protected Area.
One of the best-known rock formations along the South African coast: Hole in the Wall.
From where I’m sitting, the Transkei coastline is natural wealth beyond imagination.
Thousands of ships have come to grief on South Africa’s shores.
A heavenly garden of mosses, wild bananas, milkwood and streams with sweet waters.
Healthy estuaries are critical for sealife: dozens of fish species use them as nurseries for their young.
