After a very long ten hour journey we finally made it to Kwelera in the Eastern Cape. We arrived at Yellow Sands Caravan Park which soon became one of our favourite parks in South Africa.
It was tough riding through the Transkei especially travelling all the way from Margate. We managed to push through only stopping at Kokstad and Mthatha for fuel and some much needed coffee.
When we finally did arrive and started coming down the dirt road towards reception we had the most epic view of the ocean. We were so excited to know we are going to be living so close to the beach. Little did we know it got even better as most of the campsites down here at Yellow Sands have an ocean or river view.
Here was our breathtaking view:
The beach is just below the caravan park and because of the lagoon it’s not easy to access for the general public. Thus, making it feel like a private beach for the caravan park! This made it really easy to be the only people on the beach especially early in the morning. The beach is absolutely stunning and great for swimming and surfing and what’s more is it even has a lagoon that the ocean flows into. The water was crystal blue all the time and super picturesque.
All the camping stands come with electricity hookups as well as easy access to the very modern and clean ablution blocks. Lots on offer including a lovely swimming pool, beach and some river activities such as surfing and canoeing and much more. If you love the outdoors and most of all the ocean as much as we do this is definitely a place to stay.
Rates at the park are R150 - R170 per night but if you stay for a month they will charge you R4500.00 per site for the month. Slightly more expensive then some other parks but in my opinion every bit worth it.
In terms of location the park is quite remote here are some of the nearest attractions and shops near by:
1) Crossways Spar and tops - 15 minutes drive
2) Blue goose Cafe - 15minutes drive
3) Gonubi beach - 32 mins drive
4) Nahoon beach - 31 mins drive
5) Hemingways Mall - 28 mins drive
6) Built It - 32 mins way
Some scary and now funny memories while being here included the time when we tried to move our caravan to a new spot and ended up pushing it down a small slope into a tree. Luckily, it wasn’t going too fast and so it didn’t leave a dent (the tree was fine too!). To top this all off in our heist to pull Stan the Van back off the tree I ended up leaving the jockey wheel down stripped the tightening wrench attached to it. Basically for people that don’t know, if we had left it we wouldn’t of been able to unhook Stan the Van as the jockey wheel supports the caravan up when its not hooked to a car. There was definitely a moment when we thought it may be the end to our journey as we didn’t know how serious the damage was but some of our neighbouring campers came to our rescue and soon we found someone with a angle grinder and we managed to get it fixed super quickly.
I think one of the many things we are starting to learn as we travel with our caravan more is to be able to ask those around us for help. We are learning that it’s important to press into the community around us. Its often easy to suffer on your own and want to deal with things independently but it turns out things can sometimes go much easier when there are many of you. Sometimes making friends with your neighbours while you are at these parks is the best thing you can do.
Overall I think this has got to be our favourite place yet, we very nearly decided to stay here even longer but decided we have many other amazing places waiting for us in the near future.
If ever you get a chance to come here take it with both hands. We will be back!.
By Josh Betts