Coffee Bay

Introduction

Situated on the South African Wild Coast, Coffee Bay is a small town with a nice chilled-out atmosphere. With no grocery shops, banks or ATMs, make sure you come here stocked up on supplies.

Sights and Activities

With stunning cliffs and sandy beaches there's plenty to offer for those looking for a scenic stroll. The Hole in the Wall village is definitely worth a visit, with great snorkelling, swimming and plenty of spectacular walks and hikes in the area.

Getting There

By Plane

SA Airlink has daily flights from Johannesburg to Umtata FlySAA. You can hire a car from Umtata airport with Avis.

By Car

It's quite a drive from any of the nearest cities, but it's obscurity is part of it's charm. It's only reachable by road, and many of the roads aren't paved, so it's a good six hour drive from Durban and even longer from Port Elizabeth. Take the N2 south from Durban or north from East London and turn off at Viedgesville.

By Bus

Coffee Shack and Bomvu Backpackers offer a shuttle service from the Shell Ultra City in Umtata. Take one of the following buses to the Shell Ultra City Umtata:

Bazbus Baz Bus - hop on hop off backpacker bus service from Port Elizabeth or Durban. +27 21 439 2323.
Intercity coaches: Greyhound, City to City, Translux, SA Roadlink.

Eat

Papazellas - great pizza & good company. At the Greenhouse. Bookings essential.

Sleep

Coffee Shack, ☏ +27 47 575-2048, ✉ [email protected]. Camping from R70 per person, dorm beds from R120 and private rooms from R300 for a double.
Ocean View Hotel, ☏ +27 47 575-2005, fax: +27 47 575-2083, ✉ [email protected].
White Clay Resort (SC and DB&B) (1,5km on the road to Hole the Wall), ☏ +27 47 575-0008, ✉ [email protected]. Nestled between cliffs above own private beach and bay. All accommodation offers sea views 100m from the beach. Fully licensed restaurant specialising in seafood, with pub. From R165 pp.

Keep Connected

Internet

Big cities and most of the popular places in the country usually have an internet café though they are not as abundant as in, for example, Asia or South America. It's also relatively expensive, usually 20-30 rand an hour, sometimes even more. Many of the accommodation options have internet access available, either wireless with your own laptop or by their own computer(s). Wireless access is also available throughout the country in more and more cafes and eateries, sometimes free and sometimes for a small fee. Note that you usually have to login anyway and agree with the terms and conditions. It is cheapest to buy a prepaid cell phone starter pack (less than R10) and access the Internet with GPRS or 3G. Generally R2 per MB for out of bundle data from most providers (50c for Virgin Mobile), but it becomes a lot cheaper if you buy a data bundle. In general coverage is good except the more rural parts of the northern and northwestern parts of the country (especially Northern Cape).

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

South Africa's country code is 27. Telephone numbers in South Africa are 10 digits, including the local area code. There are also some prefixes like 0800 (toll free), 0860 (charged as local call) and 0861 (flat-rate calls). The general emergency number is 10111, ambulance is 10177 and police is 1011.

South Africa has very good phone facilities, which are also becoming more and more competitively priced, now that more operators are active on the market. The main ones are Neotel and Telkom South Africa. Local phone calls are cheap (about one Rand an hour), domestic long-distance calls are about twice as expensive. International calls start at around 6 Rand an hour but can be (much) higher to less usual countries. Note that public phones are about twice as cheap as new private phone centres. Phone calls tend to be the cheapest during the weekend and during business hours (8:00am to 5:00pm) on weekdays and more expensive during the evening and nights at weekdays.

There are also good mobile-phone facilities, with GSM and 3G networks. There are five cell phone providers in South Africa: Vodacom, MTN, Cell-C, Virgin Mobile and 8ta. SIM card prepaid starter kits are available from R10. You will need a passport and a proof of residential address and it has to be registered before you can call or receive calls. You can buy credit for prepaid phones just about everywhere, remembering you will usually need cash to do so from service stations.

Post

The SAPO (South African Post Office) is the nation's postal service. They have a track & trace system for parcels as well. Post offices are open from 8:30am to 4:30pm from Monday to Friday, and 8:00am to noon on Saturdays. Domestic and international deliveries are reliable but can sometimes take up to several weeks. If you want to send something oversees of any value, try using one of the private mail services, like Postnet. Also international courier companies like TNT, UPS and DHL tend to be fast, very reliable and competitively priced.

External Links