"Marget - Hot days and cool waves!" a Margate Travel Page by MikeAtSea

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The Banana Express

Margate on the KwaZulu Natal South Coast is a holiday maker’s paradise. Situated along the Hibiscus Coast around 90 minutes drive from Durban.
The area is quiet busy during the South African summer month of December and January but is also pretty year around.
The land surveyor involved obviously hankered after the holidays of his youth at the bustling seaside resort in Kent...for in 1921 very little was happening in this Margate when he changed its name from Inkongweni. The land had been purchased by Hugh Balance, who recognized its tourist potential, but could persuade only one fellow- investor to share his dream. Publicity was needed, and in 1922 millions of newspaper readers around the globe suddenly 'discovered' Margate when Balance wrote to the world s press about the beached remains of a 'mammoth', hairy and bloodless monster he had witnessed being killed by two whales in a titanic struggle just beyond the breakers. A spring tide removed the evidence before a flurry of scientific enquiry could descend on the town and quite possibly ruin the author s credibility. Current days Margate was now highlighted on every atlas, though, and has never looked back. Dubious marketing ploys have been discouraged ever since! The Greater Margate area includes the following former villages, scenically situated along the coast.
Shelley Beach
St Michaels-on-Sea
Uvongo
Ramsgate

Margate is also the gateway to Oribi Gorge a beautiful canyon situated a few kilometers inland. Rail lovers could take the Banana Express a vintage train that operates from Port Shepstone winding also inland to a little town called Harding.