Experience the best of East London

East London lies on the Indian Ocean coast of the Eastern Cape, at the mouth of the Buffalo River, about 233 km east of Gqeberha, once Port Elizabeth. It is South Africa's only river port. The East London Museum holds the coelacanth caught off the coast in 1938, a fish thought to have been extinct for millions of years, and also keeps a dodo egg, one of the great rarities of natural history.

Eastern Beach, Orient Beach and Nahoon Beach, with its reef surf break, run along the city's coast, and Nahoon Point Nature Reserve has trails above the sea. Beyond the city, the Wild Coast stretches north-east with empty beaches, rolling green hills and Xhosa villages, and Chintsa, about 40 km up the coast, has a long beach and a lagoon. Inland, the Amathole Mountains rise to forested peaks.

Seafood and braais, the South African barbecue, are at the heart of the local food, with boerewors sausage, grilled fish and umngqusho, a Xhosa dish of samp and beans. The climate is mild and subtropical, with warm humid summers and mild dry winters. Whales pass the coast from June to November, and the winter months are bright and comfortable for the beaches.