October 2024

Hiking in Mazeppa Bay

After we showed you our lovely accommodation in Mazeppa Bay (read here), today’s post is all about the stunning views on our walk in this tiny coastal village.

We followed a path along the sea which took us towards Mazeppa Bay’s famous suspension bridge.

Footpath along the sea

Suspension bridge

On the way there, Berto stopped to take a closer look at interesting rock formations, while my eye caught the colourful little beach flowers.

Eroded beach rocks and a pretty Gazania

The suspension bridge is an iconic landmark at Mazeppa Bay. But unfortunately, it had to be closed due to safety concerns. Although the bridge takes you to Mazeppa’s famous island, it’s possible to walk to the island at low tide without using the bridge.

Iconic Mazeppa Bay suspension bridge

Local fisherman walks to the island at low tide

The (now) dilapidated suspension bridge

I’m not sure if the suspension bridge will be repaired, but I think it will definitely add value to Mazeppa Bay – especially when I look at reviews and all the beautiful photos that was taken over the years of this bridge.

Mazeppa Bay’s suspension bridge

The Eastern Cape Province has so many beautiful unspoiled beaches and we experienced it once again here at Mazeppa Bay.

Beach at Mazeppa Bay

It was just the two of us on the beach – and three birds. We watched them for quite a while. One flew away, but the other two just walked a little further towards the sea when we got closer.

Just us … and three other birds

First there were three and then only two

A beautiful beach

Few houses close to the beach

It was an interesting contrast to see the blue ocean to our left, while the area to our right was green and covered with trees and bushes.

Blue ocean to our left

Green trees and bushes to our right

With such beautiful views, one tends to rather look in the distance. But it’s also rewarding to sometimes just look down as you walk. We saw fine tracks of small birds on the soft sand and also more interesting rock formations.

Interesting patterns on the ground

Although we were the only ones on the beach, we saw quite a few eager fishermen on the rocks. Mazeppa Bay is renowned as one of the very best fishing spots in the country and is visited by anglers annually from all corners of the globe.

Fisherman on the rocks

At the end of the beach we had to climb over quite a few rocks to get to the top of a grassy hill.

The last bit of the beach

We had to find our way over these rocks

At the top of the hill we could look back over the beach and the suspension bridge where we started our hike. However, we were nowhere near done with our hike and followed footpaths to different viewpoints.

View over the beach and suspension bridge

Walking to viewpoints

The name: Mazeppa Bay:

Mazeppa Bay is named after a ship called Mazeppa that landed goods here in the 1930s.

As we watched the waves breaking spectacularly against the rocks, we wondered how much had changed during the last 100 years. I think very little, because this section of the coastline is still very unspoiled.

Breaking waves

We could feel the spray of the waves on our faces

While Berto took more photos of the lovely views, I looked at the flowers (and possible weeds) on the ground.

Flowers or weed?

*Some kind of cactus?

*Close up of this weird plant

*Update – 5 November 2024: Thank you to Jude in the UK from the blog Cornwall in Colours (https://cornwallincolours.blog/) for identifying this plant. It’s called Medusa’s Head (the fancy name is Euphorbia caput-medusae) – an unusual succulent plant that belongs to the Euphorbiaceae family.

More splendid views

Another long beach on the other side of the hill

The rugged coastline

After seeing another long beach, we walked up the hill to get a better view.

Steep uphill

At the top of the hill we were greeted by a very strong wind. We walked up to a viewpoint and could see the long white beach known as One Mile Beach. There is a rugged path that leads to the beach, but as Berto always says, we have to keep something for a next visit. So, we didn’t walk all the way down to the beach.

Viewpoint over One Mile Beach

From here we also had a view of the locals’ villages. As far as the eye could see, houses stood on top of the hills.

Villages of the locals

We were surprised to see quite a few ‘braai’ structures. I laughed and said to Berto: “It doesn’t matter where in South Africa you are, there will always be a ‘braai’ area”.

Let’s have a ‘braai’

We saw a river at the back of the hill we had just climbed. This river flows into the sea and we could now clearly see that at low tide one could walk up to the beach which we had seen earlier from one of the viewpoints.

River at the back of the hill

A last look at the beautiful One Mile Beach

From here we followed a footpath between the trees which took us back to the village of Mazeppa Bay. This is where we saw the cattle that we showed you in the previous post (read here). After walking past our accommodation, we walked up to another viewpoint where we saw more beautiful beaches.

Panoramic of another beach

We realised that a weekend at Mazeppa Bay is far too short to explore all the beaches we saw today from various viewpoints.

Cargo vessel on the Indian Ocean

After walking around for 3 hours, we decided it was time for lunch. We had so many beautiful views and would very much like to go for long walks on all these beaches. A second visit to Mazeppa Bay is definitely not ruled out.

The views on this hike were stunning