StormsRiver Village

The Story of Stormsriver Village – Written by Johan Brink

Storms River…a little village set in the heart of the forests and in the foothills of the majestic Tsitsikamma mountain range. Centuries ago, long before the Village was ever dreamt of, herds of elephants traversed the land on which it now stands. Every year, for thousands of years, they would migrate across this area en route to the drier lands north east of the now Port Elizabeth to return at the turn of the following season to the cool tranquility of the coastal forests. Living in total harmony with these gentle giants were the San, hunter‐gatherers who periodically lived in this area and at the coast, migrating, like the elephants back and forth as the seasons dictated.

And so life went on down the centuries, observed silently by the giant trees of the forests, gently nodding their green heads in the soft Tsitsikamma breezes.

Then one day a strange new sound was heard in the forests…the ringing of an axe on hardwood and the thunder of the shot of hunters. The modern era had begun.

In 1879 the now famous pass builder Thomas Bain first surveyed the area known as Zitzikama and found it to consist of almost impenetrable forests eastwards of Plettenberg Bay. By 1884 the pass through the Storms River gorge was completed and the village of Storms River surveyed and laid out.

Labour for this arduous task was provided by convicts …the graves of some may still be seen on the outskirts of the Village. In order to easily traverse the imposing gorge, Thomas Bain followed, in many places, the trail of those ancient elephants that had centuries earlier navigated a way across the abyss.