Reader Travel Story: Gillie Cullem Falls, Elliot
We were going to spend Christmas in East London. After checking the distance to that city, we decided that we’d spend a night or two at Elliot. And, once that decision had been made, we looked up that town in the book On Route in South Africa to see what there was to be seen there.
The answer, we found, was Gillie Cullem Falls, a spectacular 80-metre-high waterfall surrounded by lush indigenous forest, just 18 kilometres from the town. We googled the falls and found a few mentions, but not a single photo. This intrigued us, and made us determined to see the falls, so we set off to East London. (For those of you who don’t know the drive down to Elliot, in the lower Drakensberg, the views are spectacular − mountain passes overlooking endless valleys.)
On arriving in Elliot, our first mission was to find the route to the falls. We chatted to a local resident, who disclosed that the only waterfalls he knew were the Tsitsa Falls, some 100 kilometres away. We decided to ask at the Spar, but no-one knew where the falls were because they’d never heard of them before!
We walked into Parcel Fast Deliveries, as we reckoned that they must surely know the area. Nope, they didn’t know ‘…but Andrea would’. Well, Andrea was called and said that, yes, he knew about the falls, but didn’t know the route there. He would find out from another guy and get back to us.
