Riet River is a small gated community, just outside Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Good friends invited us to stay in a rustic cottage on the beach, with the encroaching sand dunes pushing up to the doorstep. You can access the beach as a pedestrian. We met several fishermen, who had come for the day as part of a regional fishing competition.
Our kids had an absolute ball here. They never stopped running, fishing, digging, swimming, sand-boarding throughout the weekend. The unspoilt coral and shoreline are the best that I have seen in South Africa. We watched octopus hunting crab in pristine rock pools while strolling along kilometres of untouched beach.
The river mouth has been closed off due to the natural shifting of dunes and the low rainfall in the Eastern Cape, but it is still great fun for the kids. Swimming, paddling and fishing for little fish from the river banks provided hours of entertainment. We tried our luck in the ocean, hoping to catch a nice fish for the braai, but they evaded us this time.
Sunsets here are exquisite. The golden sand of the dunes and the golden- pink light of the sunset are a wonderful way to end the day, having sundowners on a dune with close friends and family.