How a post-lockdown escape became a township tourism attraction in Mdantsane

What started as a way for Sisekelo Yelani to clear his mind after lockdown has grown into a township ecotourism experience built around nature, adventure and friendship.

Yelani, a tour guide with more than a decade of experience, started cycling along the riverside after lockdown as a way to clear his mind.

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“It was a way of meeting with my mind,” Yelani told The Citizen during a recent media Sho’t Left trip he was guiding in the Eastern Cape.

At first, the cycling trips were something he did alone. He later started inviting friends to join him and share the experience.

One of his friends took notice of what Yelani was doing and eventually asked to join him.

“He came to me one day and said, ‘I see the things that you are doing. Can you, whenever you go out, also include me? I also want to see what you see,'” Yelani recalled.

As more people became involved, Yelani said they began organising nature walks, which eventually developed into hiking trails. Mountain biking and kayaking were later added, with the activities operating under Uncuthu Tours.

Pictures: Supplied

Creating a unique township tourism experience

Yelani said the aim was to create a different kind of township tourism experience, one centred on nature and ecotourism rather than the more familiar township tours.

“We are offering basically township tourism in a very unique way with ecotourism, which is something you don’t really find around townships,” he said.

“I’ve been doing tours for over ten years. So it has been a similar way, if you go to any other township around South Africa. We used to go to historical sites, we go to heritage sites, taverns, shebeens, those kind of tours. So with this one, we mainly go on nature. So it’s more ecotourism.”

Pictures: Supplied

Yelani said the attraction was not built with a large initial investment or government funding.

In its early years, he and his friends funded the development and maintenance of the hiking trails themselves.

“It was mainly actually taking something from us because these hiking trails, they would need maintenance and other things. So we self-funded it from ourselves over the last few years,” he said.

Support came later, including mountain bikes sponsored through the National Youth Development Agency and kayaks provided by the local municipality.

Yelani said they now want to introduce more adventure activities, including more extreme experiences, while developing permanent accommodation units.

“We are already offering low-cost camping, but we hope to eventually take the experience a step further and give it a little bit of comfort to make it glamping,” he said.

Uncuthu Tours is a tour operator based in the township of Mdantsane, near East London in the Eastern Cape.

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