HIKING – Nahoon Point Nature Reserve, East London (South Africa)

June 2022

Walk on the Nahoon boardwalk

The Nahoon Point Nature Reserve is home to over 2km of pristine coastline, as well as a series of boardwalks perched above the fragile dune vegetation – allowing visitors to be part of the beauty without disturbing the plants or habitat under their feet.

We read that the Nahoon Point boardwalk has recently been repaired and improved. So it was a good time to take a closer look at this boardwalk. There is a parking area near the boardwalk and then it is only a few steps before you reach the white sand and continue your walk on the boardwalk.

A new addition to the boardwalk is a platform from which one can watch the sea (and whales). We hope to see the whales sometime during our stay here in East London.

From the platform, the boardwalk continues with a few turns and steps until we reach the beach.

At first glance it is a rocky beach and we found a narrow path between the rocks and dunes until we came to another parking area and a small sandy beach.

There were a few people lying on the beach, while youngsters played in the water … you’d never think it was winter at the moment!

At the end of this beach we saw another boardwalk that wound its way to the top of a dune. We decided to follow it and see where it leads.

To our surprise, a much larger sandy beach was located on the other side of the dune! The boardwalk takes you down to the beautiful Nahoon Beach. And once again we were surprised to see how many people were on the beach. If it looks like this on a winter day, I’d love to see this beach in December during summer time!

We decided not to walk further down to the beach because we had a long way back to our car again. We can always come back on another (warmer) day – then maybe we can dip our feet in the water.

At times, during this walk, the boardwalk ended, which meant we had to follow a narrow path through thick bushes to get back on the boardwalk. Oh, don’t you just love a little adventure on an otherwise easy hike!

On the way back we came across a guy and his two dogs. The one dog followed Berto the whole time. We had to stop a few times to get him to turn around … eventually he reluctantly decided to let us go.

The views back to the small beach were beautiful. It was also now downhill (and hard on the knees), but at least we could enjoy the sea below us.

Back on the small beach we noticed the popular yellow frames of which you can take photos. Unfortunately, the sun was right behind the frame, which meant that our angle of the photo wasn’t ideal.

From here we had to walk up the boardwalk again to the very top to reach the parking area. A hike that was meant to be just a leisurely stroll ended up giving us a good workout!

When we started our walk earlier, we noticed that there was a restaurant at the parking area. We needed no encouragement to head straight to the Reef Café for lunch!

We ordered two large glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice to quench our thirst. I was also the lucky one to enjoy a glass of wine (Berto was the designated driver). For lunch I enjoyed the Fish Bites Basket (filled with fish bites and scampi prawns) with onion rings and chips, while Berto couldn’t resist a Sleezy Cheesy burger with chips and a side salad … all really delicious.

Oh, and the Reef Café has a clever idea of how to make sure the beach stays clean. If you come back from your walk with a bag full of rubbish, you can hand it in to the café and get a free coffee … we’ll do our part next time!

It was a wonderful walk on a beautiful boardwalk. Although, I have to admit, my legs were quite sore the next day … it’s time we hit more trails!