Walking through the wilderness with the wind at your back and the sun shining warmly on your face is in our family’s opinion the perfect way to spend a day. The combination of clean air, pure silence, breath-taking views and some healthy cardio works magic on our souls. We are so lucky to be literally surrounded with hiking opportunities and have made it our mission to get out there and discover the trails in and around Nelson Mandela Bay.
Here are four of our favourites so far:
The Zuurberg section of Addo National Park is home to one of the prettiest hiking trails we have done. The trail starts in the mountains and winds down verdant valleys, through woodlands and streams and back up again to the rolling Zuurberg mountains peppered with cycads and beautiful vegetation.
The trail starts at the Zuurberg office of Addo National Park, located about 16km from the main entrance, up a gravel road (directly opposite Zuurberg Mountain Inn).
See more – Hiking Addo’s Zuurberg Doringnek Trail (Photos)
Trail length – 10-12km, 4-5 hours
Difficulty – medium
Terrain – mountainous with much of the trail being relatively flat and a couple of very steep declines/inclines
Cost – Included in the park entrance for Addo National Park. See tariffs here
TIP: Keep an eye out for the endangered cycads along the way
One of our favourite things about Nelson Mandela Bay is the gobsmacking beauty of its pristine coastline. There is no better way to appreciate the phenomenal open stretches of sandy beach, rock pools filled with interesting sea life and abundance of sea birds like Oystercatchers , Sandpipers and Gulls than by hiking the coastline from Kini Bay to Sardinia Bay (or vice versa).
This is a one way trail, so you would need to be dropped off at the starting point and fetched from the finish. You can start at either end, we prefer to start at Kini Bay and end at Gunther’s infamous Wurst Wagen at Sardinia Bay.
See more – Hiking Kini Bay to Sards (Photos)
Trail length – 13km, approx. 4 hours
Difficulty – Relatively easy
Terrain – flat, most of the trail is on the beach with a couple of rocky sections and some swampy areas near Kini Bay
Cost – free
TIP: Take along your swimming costume and towel, some picnic food and lots of sunscreen.
Tucked between the country farms of Seaview, the Island Nature Reserve is an oasis of untouched indigenous milkwood forest stretching for kilometres in every direction. It is the perfect spot for a day visit with its lovely picnic and braai area and series of hiking trails. It is a great hike for beginners as it is broken into sections ranging from 1km up to the full 16km and you can choose to do as much or as little as you like. The Island will energise and delight you with its enchanted forest magic and clean air.
The Island is located around 25km from Port Elizabeth on the Seaview Road. It consists of 480Ha of indigenous coastal forest and 16 km of hiking trails, which can be done in smaller sections or as one long hike.
See more – Getting Lost in The Island Nature Reserve
Trail length – From 1km – 16km, approx. 4-5 hours, broken into multiple smaller trails
Difficulty – easy to medium
Terrain – Relatively flat with a few small inclines. Sections 1-3 are in the forest and sections 4-5 have some open areas as well as forest paths and roads.
Cost – R20 per adult, R10 per child
TIP: Don’t forget to spray yourself with bug spray like Peaceful Sleep as there are a lot of tiny ticks in the grassy areas.
Groendal Wilderness is a verdant, craggy little piece of pristine paradise, just North of Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape. The area is known for its rugged beauty and boasts a few multi-day hiking trails and one day trail – the Lower Blindekloof. The trail leads into a river valley with a series of natural pools, perfect for a hot summers dip.
The trail is linear – so you can hike as far as you like and turn back when you have had enough.
See more – Groendal’s Lower Blindekloof trail in photos
Trail length – 16km, approx. 4-5 hours
Difficulty – moderate
Terrain – The trail starts with a hike up towards the monument, then a steep decline into the valley. Hiking along the riverbed is shady and flat, but you end off with the steep return hike out of valley and back down the jeep track.
Cost – R56 per person
TIP: Watch out for the many species of small fish in the crystal clear water and don’t step on their breeding grounds
So there you have some healthy hiking inspiration for your next day off or holiday to Port Elizabeth.
Have you done any of these hikes or others in the area? We would love to hear some of your suggestions on day hikes in and around Nelson Mandela Bay to add to our wanderlist – please drop us a comment below.
Yours in travel
Vernon says: Interesting collection of options! Would be good to explore further. I’m not sure if some distances especially the 16km ones are accurate though. They must have originated in “imperial measurement” times when this would have been expressed as “about 10 miles” which before rounding off could have been anything between 7.5 to 12.5 miles.
Andy Gouws says: Hiked to Blindekloof many many times in the 70’s before it fell under nsture conservation. The best pools are at the end of the kloof. 16km is the correct distance. We knew it as 4miles from Kleinhans Farm.
Wow, I wonder if it’s changed much since then. We didn’t make it to the pools at the end as we spent too much time admiring all the fish in the first pools. Will have to go back for another hike!
Sean Collins says: We two strollers went for a morning hike at Groendal: blindekloof, ( shortest option ) may 2019. Markers and markings en route are virtually non-existent; it was disturbing and bewildering to have so often missed the markers, and walking into dead end paths.
Unnecessary to have to stress this way : and threrfore certainly poor reflection on lack of maintenance by Parks’ Board. Certainly not worth R56 per head .
Fr Sean Collins,
Uitenhage
We too have discovered that not all hikes are clearly marked. We didn’t get lost at Groendal (we took a photo of the trail map on the wall at reception), but have gone off the track on quite a few others. Now, I always google the route first and Ralph has a hiking app with trails loaded on it to help. I still think it’s well worth the spend for a fabulous day out, but thanks for the input – great advice for other hikers to do some homework first.
Dawood says: New markers have been made recently
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