Durban — The uninitiated can be forgiven for having feelings of fear and trepidation welling at the prospect of walking through a “petrified forest”. But not if you have Bennie Mbotho, 59, who grew up in the area, as your forest guide.
His local knowledge has proved invaluable to visitors.
Petrification is best defined as the geological process where organic material becomes fossilised when the object’s original material is replaced and pore spaces are filled with minerals.
That’s what happened to the tree trunks that were carried down river systems to the coastline in close proximity to the Wild Coast Sun resort, near the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape borders, millions of years ago.
Marine worms latched onto the trees and they became silicified, and the constant water covering caused them to petrify (turn into something resembling stone).
Those not in the know of the area’s nuanced natural heritage are likely to walk on the unspoiled beach oblivious to the rich history embedded in the ground, which is unveiled at times, especially during low tide.
Apart from the tree trunks, believed to be from Malawi, that became embedded in rocks in the reefs, and in the cliffs and overhangs with caves on the resort’s shoreline, fossilised clams, ammonites, sea urchins, bivalve shells and a sea turtle were discovered there.
Ammonites were similar in form to squid and octopus and lived in the era of the dinosaurs.
The petrified forest walk is about 2km long.
Mbotho said people had always inhabited the area, well before the Wild Coast Sun opened its doors in 1981.
“One of the first missionaries to have joined the local black people was a Mr Thompson, around the 1800s. The lagoon near the Mzamba River is named after him. He built a school and church for the community and was loved by the locals.”
Mbotho said the area became an attraction in 1824, when the fossils were first discovered by HF Finn who lived nearby in Port Edward.
“A piece of rock with a dark hole caught Mr Finn’s attention while on a visit to Mr Thompson’s home. When he reached the rock, he found a tree trunk moulded with sediment.
“After that discovery, pieces of bone from different species of dinosaurs and microsaurs (a lizard-like animal that existed before dinosaurs) were found.”
Mbotho said many of the bone finds were kept at the Albany Museum in Makhanda (Grahamstown), and the Pretoria University’s museum.
“This is not a typical beach you would find in places like Durban. There are only a few places around the world where you find fossils like these.
“They are more visible during low tide.”
Mbotho, who lives nearby, said each piece of ammonite represented a different age and they were important index fossils for scientists to identify sediment age.
Some of the clam fossils found at the forest indicated that some grew between three to five metres in diameter.
Now they only grow to the size of a human palm.
Mbotho said the features of a fossilised sea turtle on the shore were more pronounced when he was a boy, but the sea had eroded it over the years.
An eye-socket, the shape of its head and a back flipper was still visible.
Film crews have used the picturesque setting to shoot movie scenes, the most recent being for the TV series Ilembe: Shaka Zulu, which aired last year.
The most well-known movie filmed on the beach was Blood Diamond, which featured Leonardo DiCaprio.
“They were unable to film a certain scene for the movie, which involved children, in Sierra Leone, so they used this beach instead,” said Mbotho, who was given a jacket by DiCaprio.
Due to the notorious “wild” seas in this part of the world, Mbotho said the area was the bane of seafarers as their sailing vessels often ran aground there.
One such vessel that got shipwrecked in the area had Portuguese passengers heading to Maputo.
There were about 600 survivors who were forced to use the caves as their temporary abode for a few weeks, but only about 100 made it to their eventual destination.
They were either killed by mosquito-borne diseases or during attacks by Zulu King Shaka and his troops during raids.
During boyhood, Mbotho spotting fossils on the beach was common, but his grandmother Falesa warned him not to tamper with them as other boys from his village did.
“She could see I was a nature-loving sort and said ‘maybe the rain will come someday’, meaning there will be days when Indian and black people too will have opportunities to be tourist guides.”
He said his granny noticed he was often in the company of white tourists who frequented the area, talking to them because he could speak English.
“Little did I realise that my granny’s desire would come to fruition someday.”
However, when Mbotho was older he worked as an electrician for a contractor, but something sparked in him in 1999 when he saw an advert in a newspaper for a black tourist guide from the Eastern Cape.
“I decided to drop everything and applied for the job.”
He eventually started working as a Wild Coast guide in 2004, having completed a tourist guide course.
Mbotho achieved a national qualification in tourism in 2012 and spent two years with geologists from Cape Town and Pretoria.
“I joined them because I wanted to be able to date the discoveries I made.”
Independent on Saturday
