THERE are times during the busy December holidays when I’d love to get away from the KZN South Coast where we live and to celebrate Christmas under canvas.
During this, one of our main holiday seasons, the road are congested, our beaches are busy and the shops are impossible. Although getting away from it all has some appeal, December is not a good time for us to travel. Firstly, if you look past the crowds and the noise and the congestion, the South Coast can be great fun over Christmas and the vibrant Christmas spirit, engendered by hundreds of happy families enjoying a seaside holiday, is very catchy.
Then there is the difficulty of travelling during December, what with the high, in-season prices and with most popular holiday destination completely booked out months before the festive season starts.
Generally, Bill and I are home for the holidays. Like many South Coasters, we mingle with the crowds, soak up the holiday atmosphere, put up with the traffic, do out Christmas shopping early and retreat to our shady verandah to enjoy a respite from the crowds and the steamy summer heat.
We also have easy access to plenty of quiet little urban beauty spots and nearby nature and game reserves that allow us to escape the madding crowds (crowds of nature lovers who also sometimes flock to these places are seldom madding) and to commune with nature to for a while.
So after our virtual trip through KwaZulu-Natal, let’s stay home for Christmas and spend a couple of weeks, virtually exploring some of the South Coast’s green treasures.
But first, let me share a happy memory of a Christmas, not too long ago, that we did manage to spend under canvas, at beautiful Cobham, in the southern Maloti-Drakensberg Park. This transfrontier park boasts the distinction of being both a cultural and environmental World Heritage Site.
If you asked a child to draw a campsite, the finished work of art would probably resemble Cobham’s delightfully rustic one. It is a sort of a prototype of everyone’s idea of a perfect campsite. Old, shaggy trees provide shade and, in summer, lush green grass grows underfoot. Horses graze among the flowers in a nearby paddock. Rickety bridges and little wooden fences complete the pretty picture. Cobham’s setting, in a ring of mountains, is just magnificent and the crystal clear Pholela River sparkles its way through it.
Together with a big party of friends and family we had celebrated the advent of the new millennium under Cobhams starry skies and we’d spent another New Year’s Eve there a few years later. My large extended family goes big over Christmas and we usually all get together at one of our homes for a festive celebration and a huge, traditional turkey-and-all-the-trimmings family dinner.
Then one year, we decided to do things a little differently and the whole extended clan plus assorted friends booked for a Cobham camping Christmas that year. As we’d only been to Cobhams during its busier times the idea of the crowded, festive camping area did not phase us.
Cobham is the domain of the hale and hearty, of cheerful outdoorsy families, happy hikers and gung-ho nature lovers. Don’t bother asking for a site with electricity! And cellphone reception? It’s sometimes obtainable near the office. As for ablutions, they have improved dramatically since the days when there weren’t even showers, but they are still rustic to say the least. Still, for people who appreciate the simple life and the rugged beauty of the place, Cobham is nothing short of heaven.
Cobham regulars scorn elaborate caravanserais. This is the domain of the little dome tent, Heath-Robinson canvas constructions and modest, travel-worn caravans. During the Christmas holiday season the camping area is packed with these cheerful temporary homes and, with all the happy families out and about and having fun from dawn to dusk, the atmosphere is magic.
Cobham has much to offer happy families. There are beautiful mountain walks and hiking trails to suit all levels of physical fitness. One of the hikes is part of the southern berg’s self-guided National Hiking Way, which provides a string of five mountain huts, including Cobham’s Pholela Hut, along its route. Various caves in the vicinity serve as overnight accommodation for the more adventurous Cobham visitor.
A stay at Cobham offers birders the chance to tick off some of those high-altitude specials – and the flower people a chance to wonder at the amazing biodiversity of the flora. In the summer months the mountain sides are veritable flower gardens. At night, the jackals call. The other four-footed residents in the mountain reserve include eland, baboons, common and mountain reedbuck, grey rhebuck, oribi and grey duiker. Just a valley away is Sani Pass – the 14km gravel road to Cobham connects with the main road between Underberg and Himeville – and this makes Cobham a perfect base for those who wish to do a day-trip up the pass.
During the summer holidays the icy crystals clear pools in the Pholela River are magnets and the natural pool a short walk from the campsite becomes something of a social gathering point when the weather is hot. And the weather can be hot; or icy cold; or windy; or stormy; or very, very wet. In fact Cobham’s changeable weather is notorious and visitors are advised to watch conditions carefully when walking in the mountains. Always pack warm clothes, even in the middle of summer.
The weather was fairly kind to us that Christmas and, apart from one fierce summer storm and a few gentle showers, we had sunshine most of the time.
Our large encampment was close to the river and offered magnificent views of the mountains. A roomy gazebo-with-a-view became the official dining room and everyone joined up their camping tables and chairs to form a beautifully decorated U-shaped festive table for the main Christmas meal.
We also set up an impressive camp kitchen and, apart from the few pre-cooked items like the Christmas ham, we produced a five star meal. Considering our rudimentary, fire-fuelled cooking facilities, it was a miracle of amazing cuisine. Good wine complemented the excellent courses and there were toasts and speeches and great decorum – at least for a while. The mountains echoed our happy voices and the world was just so beautiful we knew we’d remember that Christmas celebration for a long, long while.
Of course it wasn’t just our official Christmas celebration that made that little holiday so memorable. Cobham was just so summery and beautiful that year and we all have memories of the busy, happy campsite, the emerald green mountains, bright flowers, sun-burnt hikers and the fast flowing river teaming with shoals of youngsters on tubes.
One of the youngsters in our group brought along George, a luminous pink and green blow-up octopus, to supplement the collection of tractor tubes. I have vivid memories of seeing George carried aloft, bobbing above the grass lining the pathway to the pool, then sailing merrily downstream, a gaggle of giggling children hanging onto his limbs.
All in all, our sun-filled mountain Christmas was a great success and Bill and I were even more delighted with the beautiful mountain resort by the time we packed up and went home. With so many happy summery memories of the busy family holidays in the mountain resort, we always meant to go back, perhaps for another Christmas visit, but southern Africa has just so much to offer the traveller. Somehow or other, we always seemed so busy and a summer return to Cobham, just didn’t happen.
Then, one wintry, out-of-season August a few years ago, we found ourselves back at Cobham. Amazingly we were the only people in the campsite. Gone were the hordes of happy families. How quiet it seemed!
The mountains around us were all shades of khaki and brown. The air was crisp and the winter sky, a perfect shade of blue. Our bubbling Pholela River was reduced to a sombre stream, sedately winding its way through the dusty blonde grass.
How pretty Cobham had been, all decked out in its green summer finery and filled with happy families, but this austere, rugged, wintry scene, coupled with the solitude of the luxuriously lonely campsite, had a beauty and grandeur and drama of its own.
We’ve been back to Cobham a couple more times since then and have decided that any visit to this mountain retreat, whatever the season, whatever the reason, is always a new and exciting experience.
Beautiful Cobham is a place for all seasons.
