Dwesa marine nature reserve, Wild Coast

Well, we're back in 'civilsation' and boy, it feels so.....primitive; to wake up to the alarm rather than the sound of the Mangrove Kingfisher, or the incessant sound of the cicidas at 4:30am.

I spent so long planning and researching this trip that it's almost a sin to keep this information to myself. A double-edged sword really as publishing it will no doubt encourage more people to visit Dwesa, and the pristine beauty and lack of people will be lost. To those undeterred by lack of electricity, no radio signal (or TV for that matter), minimal cell phone coverage and a long drive to or from Dwesa, this is the perfect spot. This blog is mostly for those who, like me, are finding it difficult to find information about Dwesa. But let's keep Dwesa the beautiful place it is.

The route to get there
Someone I talked to just days before leaving said "Don't take the shortest route, it's not always the quickest", and they were right. We approached from Dutywa side. There's 30km of tar to Willowvale, but that's where the joy ends. Everything is relative I guess, so if you've travelled to Malawi and back in a Huyndai Elantra then these roads are really quite good. Don't expect to do more than 30km/h though. Folks told us that they'd done it at 80km/h - but they also said they'd lost about a half-dozen beers and other less important stuff too (like food). There are a whole bunch of junctions getting there, but sticking to the main drag will get you to the gate just fine. Don't try to get in through any but gate 1, all the others are locked.

The facilities
Basic, but all present and correct. Perhaps not quite the same standard you'd expect in the Kruger, but the friendly staff and the beauty of the place make up for the odd cold shower. There are too few toilets to be shared between all campers, but that's not a problem if you make sure you're there out of season. We weren't, and thanks to some not-so-happy-campers, some of the doors to the new ablution block were kicked in so that they could be used (they were locked when we first arrived). In the end, I guess one could get angry, but that's people for you. There is the old ablution block which has toilets, cold showers and basins that are falling off the wall (well, some of them were), but hey, they do the job. There are no lights in the ablutions blocks, so if you want to shower before sun-up or after dark, take your own lighting.

There's no electricity at Dwesa, but if you ask really nicely, the staff will let you put your freezer/fridge or whatever at the office where there is an electrical feed. Did I mention being nice to the staff....they're really lovely people. Gas is only 52km away in Willowvale, but it's pretty unpleasant leaving the camp to go to a typical African town to get a gas refill - and of course it's re-negotiating that road. When I go back, I'll take more paraffin based stuff - it's cheap and available up the road outside the park at the local spaza shop (cycling distance). In fact, we were there so long that the staff offered to take our gas bottles to be refilled at Willowvale for us (they run their chalets on gas too).

Campsites are not numbered, so as the gate person said, "choose your best site". We certainly chose nice ones - though they're all pretty lekker really. The ones on the 'hill' (marked Caravan Sites), catch a bit more of the wind than the lower sites, but from what we were told, the previous year, the high tide combined with heavy rains put the lower sites a meter under water!

As far as the number of site goes - the booking office will tell you there're 20, but in fact they'll book up to 40 sites, so don't expect this to be limited. One can understand because this is the one time of the year when they make their dough, so cut them a bit of slack. Hey, it's NEVER going to get as bad as Nature's Valley where they pack you in like sardines.

Basins for washing your clothes and dishes are non-existent and I must confess to being a little miffed when I could not take a leak in the urinal because some woman (and I'm not being sexist), appropriated the basins in the men's toilets to wash their clothes or dishes. The local people can be paid to do these chores for you, but since we had little to wash, we never used their services. I can't imagine that it was very costly though and, if it means you can spend more time exploring the park, then they could certainly do with the cash.

Supplies
Gas in Willowvale, but the spaza shop up the road does stock some of the basics; people who are vegetarians who stayed for two weeks said the lovely lady at the shop would order in other veges for you if you asked. Cold beer is available up at the village, but don't expect discount prices unless you are fluent in Xhosa. There's nothing inside the park and while firewood is on sale sometimes at the office, they seemed to have run out most of the times I heard about it. Ice is also available in the village, but I would not rely on it; it's mostly sold out.

We wanted to buy fish, but by all accounts Summer is NOT the time to get fish. All the fisherman who stayed in the park came back empty-handed.

Water is quite drinkable from the taps, so don't bother with bottled water.

Things to do
Beach, birdwatching, walks, cycling in the park (see below for the rules), walking on the beach, fishing (outside the boundaries of the park) or just relaxing. In some ways, this was the one downside of the reserve. Officially, you're not allowed outside the 'boom' without a game guide - and that certainly holds true since you can't drive through the locked boom. However that does not stop you walking on the roads or going for a cycle. You need to be warned that there are Buffalo, and they're said to be very aggressive; though we only saw evidence of them and never spotted a single one. They claim to have over 200 in this little reserve. They have 13 rhino's and then a whole lot of Wildebeest, Zebra, Eland and a smattering of croc's. The birds are fantastic though. From our campsite we spotted 7 of the 9 Kingfishers, and then a whole host of others like the Thick-Billed Weaver and the Olive Sunbird - which I might add, has a phenomenal call.

Walks along the beach are great too, and we took a regular stroll to Cobolo mouth. Swimming is limited. One day in the time we were there the surf was so big it washed open the mouth of the river and pushed back up the river to where our campsite was. Swimming is generally somewhat dangerous with strong rip currents almost every day. No surfing or boogie-boarding to speak of and in Summer, the Easterly blows every other day but not strong enough to kitesurf - I think I had 4 kiting session in toto. Life guards are provided for about 10 days between Christmas and New Year, but from what we could see, they probably would not be able to rescue you if you got into trouble.

On this note, we spoke to someone who broke her hand while in Dwesa and they had to drive back to Dutwya to get it cast, so be careful when swimming as there's no NSRI that will come to your rescue. You'll become shark food pretty quickly.

While the boom is closed most of the time, there are 2 days (26th December and 1st January) when the staff open the boom and allow all the residents free roaming in the park. This is the day when the local people converge on the beach for the day and certainly an interesting experience. Sadly there's quite a bit of alcohol abuse over these two days, so we were advised not to get too involved on the beach. While we did go down to take a look at what people were up to, we took their advice and gave the beach a miss on those date, rather heading into the park to explore a bit without the guide.

The guides (Vuyani or Boy-Boy) come at around R45 per adult whether walking or in the car. We used Vuyani quite a bit and he was a very obliging guy who certainly knew his stuff. From what I understand, Boy-Boy is less knowledgeable but really very nice too.

Access to the Haven hotel can be done. Margot, Brenda and Kara did go there one day, but came back without praises. We never bothered. It seemed that the Haven, who have boats to lift one across the Mbashe river were charging R50 per adult to cross.....You could swim, but I guess the current is pretty strong and there are sharks and crocs to contend with (or so were were told).

While walking was limited to taking a guide, we did go on an outing one day where we walked over the headlands. It was a lovely walk, but Vuyani did have a hernia when he heard where we had been. There are rangers who wander all over and they would certainly have chased us back had we run across them.

The weather
As stated, the Easterly is the predominant wind. It did blow strongly some days, but on the whole the campsite is pretty sheltered. This is a summer rainfall area, and judging by the green forest, it's pretty evident that it DOES rain regularly. There was hardly an evening that we didn't have a shower of some sort (light drizzle or a thunderstorm or whatever) - but happily they were mostly short-lived. There were probably two nights when it bucketed down for a couple of hours, but then by morning it had stopped (if not cleared completely). It's warm though, so you can easily walk around without being wet and cold.

Other factors
One of the things I was concerned about was crime. I'm happy to report that crime inside the park is non-existent - except that the monkeys will steal your food if you leave it lying about. Open tents, trailers and cars are an invitation to the Vervets. We took rubber snakes which we dotted around outside our tents and in the trees and that, for the most part did keep monkeys at a safe distance.

Snakes were a factor too. On day 3 or 4 a smallish puff-adder slithered into our tent. Fortunately we spotted it and encouraged it on it's way. It did concern us that there were more about, but we didn't see another for the rest of our stay. We did however spot a very large Boomslang raiding a Weavers nest in the trees above us....but they're harmless to humans unless you go pushing your finger down their throat!

Summary
Would I go back? Absolutely! Was it a great place? You bet. Were the small issues with the facilities a problem? Nope, not for us.

Have a great time if you do go....you may even bump into us there!