Oliver Keohane’s ten-day journey through the Transkei started at Bulungula Eco Lodge, a wonderful site of sustainable living tucked away on the shores of the Wild Coast.
Image: Oliver Keohane
Parked on the pristine coastline of the Nqileni village, where even diesel and petrol-powered vehicles are few and far between, a Mercedes-Benz EQB tackles the Trankei’s dirt roads charged up on coastal sun.
As my partner and I navigated the roughly 600km stretch from our rest camp near Hankey to the Bulungula Eco Lodge, we stopped twice to refuel our old diesel-heavy Land Rover. What was meant to be an eight-hour drive turned into 12 hours behind the wheel and lots of bundu-bashing in the dark. After the second stop, we started discussing the difficulty of attempting such a long and volatile drive in an electric vehicle. The previous week, we had driven a Mercedes EQS SUV to Montague, and trying to charging station anywhere over two hours outside of Cape Town is a tough ask. Thankfully, there is a 22kW DC charging point at the Montague Country Hotel. Your next best bet on the way back to Cape Town would be Worcester.
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The reality is that between 400-500km is what you can expect to get from Merc’s EV range, driving normally, and after about 400km out of a city, charging stations are not exactly easy to find. So it was quite a surprise, after setting up our rooftop tent in the dark, to wake up at the Bulungula Eco Lodge looking at an electric Mercedes (The EQB 350 4Matic), fitted with a Thule roof box and looking like it had just spawned next to one of the huts. I couldn’t imagine where it would have last charged before getting to Bulungula.
Some of the solar panels responsible for powering the lodge
Closer inspection would reveal that the electric SUV is fully solar-powered. Since 2004, Bulungula’s electricity has been supplied by solar panels, and in 2012, a second large solar system was bought. The panels live on the roof of the first store room and above the bar, as well as right next to where we had set up camp, at the entrance to the lodge. Bulungula’s website reads, “Paradise is by definition hard to get to”, but we certainly made it harder than necessary for ourselves. A suggestion to anyone planning on visiting any part of the Wild Coast: Make sure you have a 4×4 vehicle (or an all-wheel-drive system, at least) and decent ground clearance.
If you do not have a four-wheel drive to get down to Bulungula’s stunning coastline, the lodge has a solar-powered tourist shuttle to fetch guests from Mtatha and Coffee Bay (slightly easier areas to get to in a normal vehicle). That shuttle is… The black Mercedes EQB, parked peacefully next to the huts.
Image: Oliver Keohane
Bulungula uses the Wild Coast sun to run lights, music, a satellite phone, computers, water pumps, battery chargers and a very impressive electric Mercedes, sponsored to the lodge – according to the sticker on the door – by “The Industrial Development Corporation, Aeon Investment Management, the Lion and many friends of Bulungula”. The EQB 350 4matic is the range-topping EQB, ahead of the 250 and 300, and runs an all-wheel drive system using a pair of electric motors. At the time of its release in South Africa, towards the end of 2022, Co-CEO of Mercedes-Benz South Africa, Mark Raine, described it as “the perfect outdoor-lifestyle-oriented SUV for families and young couples”. Deep in the Wild Coast, it has become the perfect vehicle to shuttle tourists to and from Bulungula Eco Lodge, and support the local community.
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The lodge is 100% owned and managed by the Nqileni village, a Xhosa community, and boasts a carbon-neutral status. Outside of running on solar power, the lodge makes massive efforts in water conservation while also running a recycling initiative and ushering in a new generation of mangrove trees to the area.
Absolute calm on the private coastline
An electric Mercedes is not the first means of transport that springs to mind when one encounters the rocky Transkei roads, but it seems to do the job. The interior space and luggage box fitted to the roof make it ideal for transporting tourists and their bags, and the all-wheel-drive system would aid traction and handling over stretches of dirt and gravel. Granted, there are easier routes into Bulungula than the two hours of rock-crawling that we did in the dark of that first night, and I would imagine these are the routes preferred for the tourist shuttle. If you are doing a self-drive, the directions on Bulungula’s website will serve you much better than blindly typing the name of the lodge into Google Maps, and they can be found under the “location and contact” tab on the website. Here, specific Google Maps links are provided by the lodge, unique to the area from which you are travelling.
Our camping situation
We weren’t so careful, and it is thanks to a capable 4×4 and a lot of patience in the face of dirt, ditches and the night-time traffic of a herd of cows that we did make it safely down to the incredible coastline. Our nighttime arrival made for an awesome surprise the next morning, greeted by the unfamiliar beauty of the area as the sun rose. Bulungula is nestled along the most spectacular stretch of shoreline, where the sand meets the sea and wild vegetation in a scene reminiscent of an untouched tropical island. While we paid to camp – and set up in a rooftop tent, which should not actually have made it to the camping area (no camper vans allowed) – accommodation ranges from four-sleeper rondawels to forest cabins and mixed dorms.
It is enough to just walk the private beach at Bulungula, or sit on the benches with a cup of coffee and a book, watching the waves roll in. But for those intent on adventure, there is also so much to do at Bulungula. From hiking, fishing, surfing and canoeing, to taking tours of the village guided by locals and eating pancakes at sunrise on the beach, the Lodge facilitates a vast number of activities to integrate into the environment and authentically experience the area. There is also a communal area to relax and use the kitchen facilities, while breakfast and dinner can be ordered at reception. Don’t leave without trying the local cooking.
Breakfast at Bulungula
Our week-long journey through the Wild Coast began at the Bulungula Eco Lodge, and it is a must-visit if you are interested in exploring the wider area and fully immersing in the beauty and wonder of the natural environment. Make sure you’ve got some ground clearance and chunky tyres, or look into booking the awesome electric shuttle that “runs on Wild Coast Sun”.
Images: Oliver Keohane
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