Hole-in-the-Wall, Eastern Cape

On the Wild Coast of South Africa's Eastern Cape, a short way south of the village of Coffee Bay, a great slab of rock stands detached from the mainland just off the beach, and straight through its middle runs an opening big enough to sail a small boat through. This is Hole-in-the-Wall. The rock is a wall of layered sandstone and shale, its flat top green with grass, and the hole sits right where the Mpako River reaches the sea. Rather than surf alone, it is the river, pushing through the barrier for countless years, that is credited with wearing the passage open.

The isiXhosa name, esiKhaleni, is usually translated as "the place of sound" or "place of thunder". In heavy swell the waves surge through the arch and boom against the rock, and the noise carries a long way along the shore. Local tradition explains the hole with a love story: a girl from a village on the cliffs fell for one of the sea people, her father forbade the match, and the sea people rammed the hole through the cliff with the head of an enormous fish to carry her away. The roaring in a storm, so the story goes, is the sea people still calling.

What makes the place memorable is the setting as much as the arch.Grassy hills roll down to the ocean, the river forms a shallow lagoon in front of the rock, and at low tide you can walk out towards the stack. The coast here has a long history of shipwrecks: the Portuguese ship Santo Alberto ran aground nearby in 1593, and the cruise liner Oceanos sank offshore in 1991, when all 571 people on board were rescued. Seen from the shore, the hole frames a bright window of open sea in the dark mass of rock.

Getting there

The nearest city is Mthatha, about 59 km inland as the crow flies; the drive goes via Coffee Bay, and the last stretch to Hole-in-the-Wall is a steep gravel road that becomes very hard going after rain. Mthatha's K. D. Matanzima Airport (UTT), about 69 km away, has domestic flights. From Coffee Bay the arch can also be reached on foot along the coast, about 8 km to the north, along a coastal path that passes smaller coves and the Hlungwane waterfall; the path is poorly signposted, and many visitors go with a local guide.