Cape Recife Nature Reserve

We've been lucky enough to be able to do a few road trips around South Africa over the past few months. I like to escape the crowds and explore the dramatic scenery and natural environments that this beautiful country has to offer. We recently drove down to the Eastern Cape and visited Cape Recife which is a nature reserve just South East of the city Port Elizabeth (now called Gqeberha). You can enjoy amazing unspoilt beaches, natural dunes and their vegetation, and there is an old lighthouse. The coastline there was indeed spectacular, and quite rocky in places which was full of rock pools to explore with weird looking plants and creatures. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Beach scene - showing colourful washed up seaweed and debris and a backdrop of vegetated sand dunes

A close up of the red seaweed

Rocky beach view

A very unusual discarded 'shell' - I wonder what this sea creature was like!? Almost alien like!

A sign of our times - a washed up mask on the beach

An interesting coral

The old lighthouse

Sand dunes coming to life

Interesting rock pools

An empty beach that stretches on and on

Hope you liked these photos. It's a wonderful place to spend a couple of hours. There is also a seabird rehabilitation centre that you can visit and see some entertaining Jackass penguins!

Thanks for reading!