Port Elizabeh is part of the Eastern Cape, which is Geographically the second largest of South Africa’s nine provinces. The latest News is available online in " The Herald" newspaper 

It’s beaches; lagoons; wildlife (Big Five); soaring mountains; unique African aromas; crystal clear waterfalls; friendly inhabitants; nature reserves and rolling hills … make it naturally South Africa’s best.

Our People

Today’s rich tapestry of cultures entwined started 120 000 years ago with the emergence of Earth’s first “modern people”. San hunters / gatherers followed the Khoikhoi pastoralists and later the Mfengu and white trekboers. European settlers further enriched the Eastern Cape’s cultural legacy.

The News - The Herald, Port Elizabeth

"The Herald" To view the lattest news, one of the local newspapers "The Herald", distributed in Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Cape

Sport Leisure and Adventure

Choose between sun-drenched drowsiness on emerald coastlines or adrenalin pumping leaps off the world’s highest bungee jump in Tsitsikamma. Hike the rolling hills; cruise past whales; fly with kite surfers or gallop on horseback past wild elephant.

The Madiba Province is a watersport Mecca offering sailing; windsurfing; canoeing; fly and big game fishing. Her sports include world-class golf courses; mountain biking and the perfect wave in South Africa. Most locals enjoy soccer; rugby or cricket.

All Creatures Great and Small

South Africa’s top game viewing province; the Eastern Cape offers the Big Five in malaria-free conditions and the most densely populated elephant park in Africa – Addo Elephant Park.

Sunshine Coast

When the God’s of Africa created the Sunshine Coast; they strung together a long chain of golden beaches and draped it across the Eastern Seaboard.

You can celebrate their vision with a long leisurely drive from coastal town to coastal town between Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo City and bask in the highest number of sunshine hours on South Africa’s coastline.

There is safe bathing in coastal rivers, lagoons and at designated beaches – no threat of crocodiles or bilharzias.

And with the salt water barely dry on your back you can ride on to a million hectares of malaria-free game viewing, including the pachyderm herds of the Addo Elephant National Park.

In the Sundays River Valley, the scent of citrus and roses hangs sweetly in the air, while the quaint coastal towns enjoy the clean-scrubbed smell of the seal.

Time crawls on the Sunshine Coast that foregoes mass tourism for restful guest farms, country houses and hotels are of an international standard.

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Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth • Uitenhage • Despatch)

There is a city in Africa named for the love of a woman.

She never visited this city, nor ever knew it. Elizabeth Donkin enjoyed romance and love in a marriage – rare in an age of dowries and heritage – but died in India after childbirth.

Her devastated husband, Sir Rufane Donkin, returned to England with her embalmed heart and baby son. Assigned to Algoa Bay in 1820, he erected a memorial to his late wife and named the site “Port Elizabeth”.

This tradition of love is continued today under a broader title : Nelson Mandela Bay.

The name is borrowed from South Africa’s favourite son; Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner who became a president, a man whose love for South Africa brought her a new democracy and hope.

Today it is a sprawling constellation of developments lacing the wide, curving sweep of Algoa Bay and scrambling up a sunny, windswept headland to extend a friendly hand to Uitenhage and Despatch.

Buffalo City

When the mighty Buffalo River carved a path down to the Indian Ocean, little did she know she would foster South Africa’s only river port city.

Miles of unpolluted beaches hem in this character-filled city, with its charming riverfront and still lagoons.

Billed “a family destination” where “you can feel the heartbeat”. Buffalo City now has new millennium facilities yet retains a leisurely pace.

It is a legendary sporting destination and home to many of South Africa’s greatest freedom fighters.

Outside city hall, the towering monument of black activist Steve Biko pays tribute to those who lost their lives in the struggle to free South Africa from the apartheid era.

Old painted history and ancient footprints are stamped across her rocky shelters while deep gullies and a long shoreline render her a fisherman’s haven.

Quaint buildings dating back to the 19th century charm the city’s old side while the ghosts of 150 shipwrecks haunt her seabed.

Xhosa culture, succulent seafood, cosy pubs, a warm temperate climate invite her visitors to return.

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Kouga

Sarah Bartman, the Khoisan woman who was displayed naked as a sexual curiosity in Europe in the 1800’s, finds spiritual rest in the pretty Gamtoos valley of the Kouga region, where her remains were reburied.

The twin valleys of the Gamtoos and Langkloof are now a pretty patchwork of potato, tobacco, citrus and vegetable farms. But beyond this pastoral paradise lies the massive untamed Baviaanskloof Wilderness – South Africa’s third largest wilderness area.

Here Cape Leopard Prowl the ravines and Kudu clatter along her stony paths. Vast and little explored, the Baviaanskloof continues to yield new species of plants and animals to excited scientists.

A converging point of different cultures, climates, ocean currents and biomes, the Kouga region is also recognized as the Cradle of Modern Man.
Amidst all this significance, the sleepy coastal towns of Jeffreys Bay and St Francis Bay play host to the world’s surfing gurus on their quest for the perfect wave.

Karoo Heartland

The essence of Africa, for many, is the red dust, the shimmering heat, the spiny thorns, the arid plants and the mother-of-pearl dawns of the Karoo Heartland.
Here moves a Steenbok, there a ground squirrel. Blue mountains float in hot mirages and windmills cut a trail across the barren flats to quaint Karoo dorpies.

The Eastern fringe of a vast plateau has a unique sense of timelessness – a remote air – yet her scattered people are famously hospitable.

Fleecy Merino sheep and Angora goats thrive in the hardy Carrow-veld which lays claim to 9000 species of plants and the largest variety of succulents in the world.

Above this palaeontological treasure-store, littered with dinosaur fossils, the Karoo night sky reveals a massive black canvas sprayed with billions of bright stars, making the Karoo the best stargazing destination in the world.

Zebra galore and other indigenous beasts can be viewed in full splendour at the Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock.

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Tsitsikamma Adventures

Tsitsikamma. The ancient San people called her “place of sparkling waters”. She is Eden, a verdant place where Garden Route tail enders can sooth their tired feet in balming waters.

Steep mountains, carpeted in green, tumble down to a rocky shoreline that is pounded by wild breakers of the Indian Ocean. Barnacle-encrusted whales “spy-hop” offshore and sharks cruise the rich oceanic larder.

Fittingly, this is South Africa’s first national marine park. Adrenalin junkies make pilgrimages here to experience the highest commercial bungee jump at the Bloukranz River Bridge, to swing high above the forest floor on tree canopy tours.

Frontier Country

Frontier Country is where Britain once fought her longest and most expensive colonial war against Xhosa warriors.

Her plains are steeped in the blood, sweat and tears of bitter conflicts and countless sandstone forts along the Fish River testify to the legacy of British Settlers. Only the tough survived and their descendents still reside here – fifth generation farmers who have diversified to survive the changing socio-economic landscape.

Sheep farms have been pooled to form large private reserves hosting the Big Five in malaria-free territory.

The lion silences the lamb and settler stock families who once shivered at the sound of a cowhide drum, now raise the drum beat for foreign tourists.

Grahamstown “that sweet city with her dreaming spires”, is known as the Festival Capital of Africa. It has top-class private and government schools, and, its Observatory Museum houses one of only two cameras obscura in the world

Frontier country includes pineapple farms, old missions, ghost towns and pretty country routes at the foot of the Winterberg.

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Amatola Mountain Escape

Nothing can quite describe the raw, woody essence of Eucalyptus, the wind whining through the pine treetops or the crisp mountain air characteristic of Amatola Mountain Escape.

Cutting a jaggered purple line across the horizon, the Amatola Mountain range stretches from Stutterheim in the west to Adelaide in the east, providing nature lovers with an unprecedented escape into the soul of Mother Nature.

Ice-cold bubbling brooks and Rooibos tea-coloured pools cool the restlessness of city life so visitors return home relaxed and centred.

The tiny village of Hogsback, with her misty goblin forests, cascading sheets of water and soft dappled light on virginal arum lilies, is the region’s trumpcard – even in Winter when frost laces the ground and cosy firesides beckon in country pubs.

The popular mountain village get away, with cascading waterfalls, is said to have inspired JRR Tolkien’s famous book. The Hobbit.

The rich history of the area has been captured and framed in small town museums, in San Rock art, in colonial forts and battlefields and in the legends of the Xhosa.

A stunning selection of African arts has been showcased at the University of Fort Hare in Alice – Nelson Mandela’s alma mater.

Wild Coast

There’s a pearl in the great oyster of the Eastern Cape that illuminates all who find her. It is the timeless Wild Coast, the Great Unspoiled, comprising of miles of rocky shores, sweeping beaches and deep blue lagoons cradled by white sandbars.

Seabirds wheel over forested headlands, fattened on the sea of plenty and the rural grasslands are dotted with Xhosa villages, cattle and pipe-smoking women.

Dirt roads meander to private resorts, sometimes via rustic ferry crossings and give the traveler to sunshine, sand and seafood platters.

Formerly a Transkei homeland, which received little governmental input during apartheid, this rural Xhosa region has retained its authenticity.

Qunu is the birthplace of South Africa’s much-loved son, Nelson Mandela, and an Umtata museum celebrates his life.

Surfers have dubbed the sun-drugged, lazy mood that takes over at the Wild Coast “Pondoland Fever”

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About the Eastern Cape

Climate

The coastal area of the Eastern Cape lies between the sub-tropical conditions of KwaZulu Natal and the Mediterranean conditions of the Western Cape.

Its inland area is bisected by the Great Escarpment, resulting in the southern reaches being defined by a series of rivers and corresponding wetland fauna and flora.

The northern areas are those of the altitudinous plains of the Plateau and the Great Karoo. The Eastern Cape has warm summers and mild winters along the coast and snow in the mountains.

The Eastern Cape climate is kind to visitors all year round. This is where summer spends winter.

Banking

Most banks are open Monday to Friday 09h00 –15h30 (excluding public holidays) and Saturday 08h30 – 11h00. Automated teller machines are found in all main shopping centers and many large petrol stations.

Safety Information

We urge you to take the same precautions you would in any other international city or town, particularly if sight seeing in built up urban areas.

Do not walk in deserted places or go out alone at night; always lock your doors and keep your windows closed.

The use of traveler’s cheques or credit cards is more advisable than that of large amounts of cash.


Vanilla skies’ tranquility whispers peace to my Eastern Cape.
I walk,
searching for home in a land healing its scars.
My destination offers unity’s joy
replacing division’s weeping,
No more nightmares of nation’s demise due to vicious divides …
I pray I awake to lands of Eastern Cape.

Lands re-calling my ageing soul
Promising rest from searcher’s toil;
This land my fathers called home.

I remember, vivid as the passed second’s moment
The way my father would describe
My origin, my home, my tribe:
Words rich in memory – I felt it.

I remember now the home I once neglected
Dust road soccer games,
Suburbs green, street names ….
I awake with wide smiles
Living my dream though Eastern Cape.

Mayihlome Tshwete

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