Eastern Cape

#Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape has an extremely beautiful ±820 km coastline with long stretches of deserted sandy beaches interspersed with rocky and sandy cliffs. Huge shifting dune fields are found in some areas and vegetated dune fields in others. It is a diverse Province with natural scenery ranging from barren semi-desert Karoo landscapes to rain forest covered mountain ranges.

Visitors to the Eastern Cape enjoy the diversity of attractions in coastal holiday towns and nature reserves that include the semi desert regions, forests, marine life and a variety of game reserves, of which the best is probably the Addo National Elephant Park.

The Eastern Cape region has played an important role in South African history over the last few centuries. It is known as frontier country, this is where the migrating Boer farmers and the Xhosa people met and clashed in the early 1800’s. The British government imported British settlers as a buffer between these two groups. This is also from where some of the 'Voortrekkers' (first white farmers to settle in the Northern regions of South Africa) departed on their migration to the North. Ultimately this region also played a key role in the struggle for freedom and a democratic South Africa as this is the hinterland of leaders such as president Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and his son, former president Thabo Mbeki as well as the black consciousness leader Steve Biko.