Blue Horizon Bay is a coastal village and suburb in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, approximately 35 km from the heart of Gqeberha (formerly known as Port Elizabeth).
The peaceful, little village of Blue Horizon Bay lies comfortably between Gqeberha (formerly known as Port Elizabeth) and Jeffreys Bay, a seaside hamlet that offers beautiful sandy beaches and scenery to match.
Blue Horizon Bay lies almost precisely equidistant between Port Elizabeth and Jeffreys Bay, and close enough to the Garden Route to surrender to its appeal.
Blue Horizon Bay was established as an urban Conservancy and is home to a wide variety of indigenous antelope, reptiles, mammals, and insects. Several hundred bird species have been identified, some of them seasonal migrants from the north.
There are mammal migrants from the south too – Southern Right and Humpback whales arriving from the Antarctic in mid-winter, augmenting local populations of Minke and Bryde whales. Orcas are occasionally sighted, as are Cape fur seals and vagrant seal cousins from the Deep South.
The village commands stunning views of the sea and coastline, and from the coastal heights, inland to mountain ranges which anchor the eastern end of the Cape Fold mountain system.
The natural vegetation is pleasingly diverse, the predominant coastal thicket being interspersed with Fynbos. Alien vegetation has taken root in places, and efforts to control or eradicate it are intensifying.
The real attraction of Blue Horizon Bay is the allure of a seaside holiday with waves continuously crashing in the background; days spent idly reading, picking up shells, and strolling the effortless stretches of beach – and the idea of merely unwinding and relaxing in an atmosphere where little more is expected of one.
Effortless seascapes and stretches of sand are enough to get anyone’s creative juices going, but if you insist on resisting the temptation to wax lyrical, then the friendly city (Gqeberha) with its historical attractions, and city-style entertainment in the form of shopping centres, restaurants, excellent beaches, beautiful parks and walking trails; Jeffreys Bay, one of the most renowned surfing spots in the world, and numerous easy to reach attractions, are at hand.
The Addo Elephant National Park is definitely worth a day trip, if not an overnighter, to commune with the over 450 elephants that are the park’s major attraction. Lying in the gorgeous valley of the Sundays River, Addo is not only about elephants. It is also home to the ‘Big 7′, which adds lion, buffalo, leopard, whales, and the great white shark to the already appealing menu.
The Baviaanskloof Wilderness area, which lies a short distance from Blue Horizon Bay, in a valley between the Baviaanskloof and the Kouga Mountains, is a wilderness area with an incredible biodiversity that has it short-listed for world heritage site status – an amazingly scenic and starkly beautiful excursion.
