Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Morgan’s Bay



Described as an 'Eastern Cape paradise', Morgan's Bay lies 10 minutes' away from the Kei River mouth and an hour from East London. This is a beautiful part of the coastline that unsurprisingly forms part of the Wild Coast given its dramatic, rugged cliffs, known as Morgan Bay cliffs. A long stretch of sandy beach reportedly offers a mile's worth of walking, beachcombing (look out for Cornelian beads and the odd piece of Ming china along Bead beach where the Santo Espirito is thought to have been wrecked) and swimming.


What makes this part of the world particularly beautiful is the wide diversity of fauna and flora, mainly due to the fact that it lies in a portion of the Eastern Cape in which 5 different biomes meet. This means that you're surrounded by fynbos, grasslands, forests, valley thickets and semi-desert scrub. In turn this supports a myriad animals and just the bird list for Morgan's Bay is 271 species.


Morgan's Bay boasts one of the prettiest lagoons, which allows for protected swimming but also gives one access to an incredible bird life that includes the call of the fish eagle, for this is the seasonal breeding ground for these birds as well as crowned cranes.


On the other side of the beach from the lagoon rise the dolerite cliffs that extend for about 4 kilometres along the beach to the Double Mouth Nature Reserve and provide hours of rock climbing. There are guided walks and eco horse trails among the myriad attractions for the little beachside village and a hikes to Double Mouth. On the other side of Morgans Bay from Kei Mouth lies Haga Haga and the Cape Henderson Nature Reserve.

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