On the Sunshine Coast
Port Elizabeth, the Friendly City on the Sunshine Coast, is an underrated holiday destination. It is clean, compact and rather pretty city, but it is often left off the holiday itinerary. One of the reasons for this is that the N2 by-passes the centre of P.E., so you have to leave the highway to get into town.
It’s worth the detour, however, and if in doubt about which turn-off to take, just follow signs to the beaches of Summerstrand. Port Elizabeth is built around the Cape Recife headland, the tip of which is now a beautiful nature reserve. From this Point, the main face of the city extends up the Eastern shores of Algoa Bay, through the suburbs of Summerstrand, Humewood and South End, to the City Centre.
The City itself is built along a narrow coastal shelf which rises steeply to a plateau, along which the inland suburbs sprawl. The Central Business District CBD looks onto the harbour and the docks but, sadly, the city centre seems cordoned off from the sea by a knot of highways, railway lines and over-passes.
The main commercial thoroughfares of the city run parallel to the coastline, on a narrow strip of low-lying land. The ground then rises steeply above the city, to the suburb of Central – not the most imaginative name, perhaps, but accurate! The other residential suburbs of P.E. "Port Elizabeth". extend Westwards from Central, all the way to the N2.
The main swimming beaches, the casino, the shops and most of the tourist attractions are draped along Marine Drive in Summerstrand. This road, which starts below the harbour mouth, is lined with apartment blocks and retail complexes on the one side while, on the other, grassy dunes and a brick-paved promenade run adjacent to the warm sea.
Impressive Game Parks
Within a 100 k’s of P.E. "Port Elizabeth", there are several impressive game parks, including the ever-increasing Addo Elephant National Park and luxury lodges like Shamwari, which also takes day visitors. The smaller nature reserve of Schoenmaker’s Kop can be found on the far side of Cape Recife.
If you want to go to Addo, head East on the N2 towards East London. Alongside the road, you will see a concrete jumble of white dolos, those strange anchor-like constructions, that line the sea-front. These curious objects were developed by a local tech student to break the power of the waves that pound the shoreline.
They are so effective for this purpose that they have subsequently been used all over the world to protect harbours and other sensitive seaside developments. From the N2, follow signs to the Addo Elephant National Park on the R335. From P.E., you can return to Cape Town via the N2, or you can head up the Long Kloof, R62, to Oudtshoorn and the Klein Karoo.
By David Fleminger