2 June 2009: D day for Uvongo's UIP

Remember that 2 June 2009 is where Uvongo will decide on its future UIP. Uvongo residents are therefore invited to attend a meeting in which the formation of an Urban Impowerment Precint (UIP) will be formed. The meeting will take place on Tueday, 2 June 2009 at 5:30pm in the Town Hall.

You are urged to attend since at the meeting they will vote on the future of an UIP in Uvongo. The votes will decide if their are a mandate to form a UIP. Personally, there are just to many questions to ask about a possible UIP and if one goes to the Ramsgate UIP then it seems to be a disater.

Update: Land grab in Uvongo

It seems that the developers of Uvongo River Resort are not going to adhere to the demolition order of the Hibiscus Coast Municipality. In fact, the developers of Uvongo River Resort are continuing with their extending on council property. If the municipality does not do anything, then surely this land grab will create a president that other could follow. This would be a pity and only create chaos in terms of property rights.

Update: Land grab in Uvongo

It seems that the developers of Uvongo River Resort are not going to adhere to the demolition order of the Hibiscus Coast Municipality. In fact, the developers of Uvongo River Resort are continuing with their extending on council property. If the municipality does not do anything, then surely this land grab will create a president that other could follow. This would be a pity and only create chaos in terms of property rights.

Update: Uvongo Beach

Uvongo Beach is now open at low tide for bathing. I should not be long and then all the sand has rebuild itself. Anyway, there are major rebuilding works going on at all the beaches down the South Coast. We will however give more information on that later.

Land grab in Uvongo!

There seems to be a land grab going on in the heart of Uvongo. The developers/owners of the allegedly name “Uvongo River Resort”, Janex and Langan Trust have simply taken control of Wadebridge Road Reserve, which is at the corner of Wadebrdige and Pioneer Roads. Wadebridge Road Reserve belongs to the Hibiscus Coast Municipality.

According to Mr. Mandla Mabece from the Planning department which stated that: “there was a lease over this portion of land but the previous owner erroneously ceded it to the new owner”. In addition, Mr. S’bu Phili stated telephonically that he was still waiting for the different departments to send in their reports before a decision could be made on whether or not to grant a lease to the owners of Uvongo River Resort. But the problem is now that the owners/developers of Lot 2469 have continued to build boundary walls around Wadebridge Road Reserve with out a lease granted to them. This has been done against the background that the municipality has served letters on them to stop on Thursday any building work on the Reserve.

However, and against these letters the owners/developers of lot 2469 continue to build another wall making the maintaince and functionality of the Eskom substation impossible. Eskom did in fact called on the services of the planning department to investigate the newly build wall and another letter was served on the owners/developers of Lot 2469, however they ignored the second letter and continued to build it. The problem now for locals in the area is if there should be a power failure or maintaince work needed at the sub station, then Eskom will not be able to do the necessary work and one will be left without power.

It really seems if the Hibiscus Municipality is not strong enough to deal with the owners of Lot 2469 in Uvongo. The result is that land belonging to the community has been taken by these owners of Lot 2469 leaving the community powerless in more ways than one.

Please feel free to contact the Municipal Manager – Mr. Mhkize at mm@hcm.gov.za and inform him if you feel this land grab can be justified.

Lazy days

This is the one thing living in a small village like Uvongo, the lazy days like today. The world may move in an ever faster pace, but here things tend to move on their own pace. The weather the last couple of days was really sunny and hot, but today it was cooler and there was a bit of rain.

Bring on the rapids

Adventure seekers should take note, on Saturday 7 March it is the Port Shepstone Bullslingers’ tude race. The race down the Mzimkhulu River is an annual event. The cost per person is R50 and payment received after 28 February is R100 per person. Tickets can be purchased from M Electrical in Port Shepstone at 039 6824049. The Bullslingers raise funds for children’s charities

The race starts at the Umzimkulu lime Works and ends at the Batstone’s Drift low-level bridge. The course is a bout 14km long.

Each raft must have a minimum of two persons or a maximum of nine crew members. All crew members must be 17 years or older and must wear life jackets and shoes at all time.
For more information about the race you can contact 076 9773883 or visit http://www.bullslingers.org.za/.

Things to do: Oribi Gorge

Not far from Uvongo is one of KwaZulu-Natal’s most spectacular natural settings, the scenic Oribi Gorge Nature Reserve, which is a wonder of the natural world with ancient boulders at the base of cliffs formed from sandstone deposited some 365 million years ago.

Oribi offers many delightful walks and self-guided trails to scenic spots in the nature reserve. Some of the hiking trails are the Baboon trail that is a two kilometer trail. A bit longer trails there are the Overhanging Rock Trail at five kilometers and the Trail to the Oribi Heads at nine kilometers.

Besides the beautiful views, Oribi has a wealth of other attractions as well. Wild life to be seen in the reserve includes mammal species such as buck bucks, common reedbuck, orbi and blue and grey duiker. Leopards also occur in the area.

Oribi Gorge is ideal for bird watching as there are over 300 different species of birds in the area. Some of the birds are the rare frican Finfoot, Crown Eagle, African Broadbill and a variety of Cuckoos.

And if you are an adrenaline junky then Oribi Gorge has it all. With the wild gorge swing that allows you to fall in 100 meters (33 storeys) arc above the gorge floor and the highest swing in the world. Furthermore, there is the wild slide, abseiling, water rafting, horse riding and go-karts. The wild slide slides along the cable that spans across the gorge and will leave you feeling like a bird, 160 meters above the treetops. The abseiling takes place 110 meter’s beside Lehr’s waterfall. This is one of the world’s highest natural commercial abseils. As for the water rafting, there is grade 2 to 4 rapids in a one and two-day expedition down the raging Umzimkulwana that you could experience.

And if you are not an adrenaline junky then there are numerous idyllic picnic spots on the banks of the Umzimkulwana River where you and your family can enjoy a picnic.

Things to do: Driving at Aliwal Shoal

Just five kilometers offshore lies the Aliwal Shoal. The Aliwal Shoal is a fossilized sand dune of sponges, soft and hard coral. At Aliwal Shore is also the wreck of the steamer Nebo and that of Produce. Together these two ship wrecks add an interesting dimension to this kilometer-long under water wonderland.

At Aliwal Shore you will find a wide variety of warm and cold water fish. There are also many Ragged-Tooth sharks, however, even with the sharks it is a surprisingly safe adventure. In fact, there have not been any shark attacks on scuba divers visiting this internationally-renowned spot.

Announcement

If you have any news or events that you would like us to mention on this blog, please contact us at uvongoblog@gmail.com and we will see what we can do. Please make sure to provide full details of events as well as your contact details.

Also, if you had a celebratory event and would like to share it with others, you are welcome to send your information to us and we could place it on this blog. Just be reminded that if you send pictures, that they should be resized to a smaller format, and limit the pictures to a maximum of three pictures only. The picture should also not be copyrighted or have any wording, what so ever on, since such pictures will not be posted. Pictures with nudity or pictures showing intentional cruelty to animals or people will also not be posted, unless the photos are of an educational value.

We hope to hear from you soon!

Uvongo Beach: 11 February 2009

Great news: Uvongo’s beach is returning, although only at low-tide! Above are photos of Uvongo Beach taken round, about noon, on 11 February 2009. You can clearly see how much the sand has built-up, especially at the back.

We will periodically keep you up-dated about the state of the beach.

A tranquil Saturday

Nothing really interested happened to day, but this is a small little village after all. Anyway, it seems like there is a cold front on its way, so we will most likely have some rain later tonight.

We will post new photos of Uvongo’s beach tomorrow. There is some great news, as it seems like the beach is gradually building up again. But you will have to wait till tomorrow to see the pictures.

The tidal waves of 2007

In March 2007, tidal waves created immense damage along the whole of Kwa-Zulu Natal’s shoreline. The freak tidal waves were because of the equinox and the movement of the planets that happened on the same time. Tons of sand was eroded from beaches, and infrastructure was damaged. Some of the damages have been repaired; however, there are still reminders visible of the damage coursed by the powerful waves that struck the shoreline in 2007.

Above are pictures from 2007. Three pictures are of Durban harbor and the other two pictures are of Uvongo. The strength of the waves can be clearly being seen in all the photos.

Welcome

Welcome to our blog that all about the small little village named Uvongo. Uvongo got its name from the Ivongu River that runs through the village and ends up poring over the waterfall at the lagoon. It is in fact the sound that the river makes that of a loud roaring sound, what the village is named after.

Uvongo is ideally located between commercial Shelly Beach and the traditional holiday spot of Margate. However, Uvongo offers more than just its ideal location, Uvongo is also rich in bird life thanks to three nature reserves in the area: that of the Uvongo River reserve, Skyline nature reserve and the beach reserve.

In this blog we will post what is happening in Uvongo and surrounding areas, tourist spots will be highlighted and issues that need to be addressed by local government will also be posted.

We hope that you will visit this blog regularly and please don’t be shy we love to hear from you and the time (good or bad) you have spent in Uvongo.