Back in Coffee Bay

We had to go back to Coffee Bay because I left my computer charger at the Four Winds Hotel. Our drive from Mantis and the Moon was done in pouring rain. What should have been 4 hours turned into 7. Todd drove the treacherous road through the thick rain, dodging potholes, dogs, kids, cows, sheep, chupacabras, the works until his luck ran out. Somewhere someone told him that the potholes are best taken on with speed. But there is no way to skim over a pothole the size of a queen size bed. We nailed this one special pothole and it felt like getting kicked in the shins. Sitting in the back, Louise and Kim watched three of our hubcaps go flying by. It felt as though we he just popped three tires. It was pouring rain, we were in a shady part of the country, it was getting dark, but we only had 10 km to go.

The little potholes you have to constantly keep your eyes out for.

We thought (as in Louise, Kim, and I) we could make it as long as we didn’t hit anymore potholes, which was pretty much impossible. Todd wanted to check the tires. But being a democratic car we trudged on to a point about 4 km from the town, so we could walk if we really really needed to and if we had our car probably would have ended up on blocks when we got back. Luckily the car had only one flat tire and two bent rims. In the pouring rain, we had the girls move to the front while we unloaded the trunk as fast as we could into the back seats and then proceeded to pull the spare tire out and change it. We were Nascar lightning fast and were back on the road in less than 7 minutes.

The Transkei (translates to across the kei river)

Pulling back into town we were relieved that our place was still available and that they had my charger. Would have been quite a pity and I know the rest of the team would of been pissed.
When we went across the street to reserve dinner at the sugarloaf backpackers we were disappointed to find that the chef we were raving about (Rocko) had moved on. Money was disappearing from the tills at the backpackers and they blamed him. He denied it and told them to fuck off. He now is a chef, last we checked, in Port Alfred. The thing is the people he worked with seemed like crooks. He was the most honest guy we had met till then in Coffee Bay and it was a shame that he was unceremoniously discharged from a good gig. So that night the girls whipped up a feast and we ate good. We needed to have a good feed because the next day we were going abseiling. But before going to sleep we went to the Sugar Shack and had a few beers listening to the full moon drum circle. We drank a bunch at the bar there but wanted to save some energy…… all of us left except Todd. Todd has a habit of getting going and not stopping. He is the life of the party and the party didn’t want to stop. So he stayed out till late and we went back to get some rest. Its so ironic that we were the young ones going to sleep when he is the 40 something year old, partying like he is 21. He makes me feel old and I hope I can party like him when I am his age….to an extent.
The next morning was a beauty. We started the day by getting the tires fixed. We tried to patch the flat one but as you can see it had a severe case of acne. This happens when you try to drive on a flat for too long. We had no spares left so we had to drive safer for the rest of the trip home.

Look at the tire! Its got pimples! This is what happens what you drive on a flat.

Once the car was settled we picked up Phil were headed to little hole in the wall to take on our first abseil. The roads were pretty shitty, the car had no more spares, and we had loaded the thing up to the brim with people and gear. Oh well, she was fine, but the passengers had to get out for me to get the car up some of the steeper hills.
The abseil was amazing. Of the 7 people that had signed up to do it, 5 went through with it, no names mentioned. The abseil proved to be a lot gnarlier than we were expecting. Looking over the edge you were faced with a drop of around 400 feet to rocks. The ropes were fastened into the rock face at the top and there was no warm up. You stepped to the edge and begun your descent on a rope under your own control. It was something straight out of the Slyvester Stallone movie “Cliffhanger”. Once you got the hand of it, you could kick off the rock face and descend some 20 feet at a time or you could run from side to side and try to grab onto little cracks in the face. Its an exhilarating feeling that I would definitely recommend and given the chance I would do it again in a flash.

This was the face that we abseiled down, you can see people at the very top

Coffee Bay is a cool little town worth a visit. The even smaller village next door at Umdumbe is perhaps even better depending on what you are looking for. The beaches in Umdumbe are larger and more picturesque but there are currently very few services in the town, wouldn’t even call it a town. But the wave out front is supposedly really good but she never turned on for us.
From Coffee Bay it was only one more big jump before we were back in Jeffreys Bay. But instead of rushing it and potentially having to drive at night we made a stop in at the Bucaneers backpackers for our final night out on the road. Bucaneers is a great mid-point for a stop and left us refreshed for our final leg back to our home away from home.
As we pulled into Jeffreys Bay all we could think of was surf, a small swell was visiting and a bigger one was due the next day.