Leon de Kock scouts the area between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth

Coming out of a bone-rattling chill at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, or at any other time of the year for that matter, you could do worse than explore the area between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth.

In Grahamstown, stay at the Cock House if you can. Built in the early 19th century, it was once the home of writer André Brink. The main suite makes you feel like you're the colonial governor. And the lamb shanks are absolutely the best I've had in a long time. I ate them five days in a row, for lunch and supper.

The region has the feel of what they now officially call Grahamstown and surrounds - Settler Country. It is hardy, rough and homespun, haunted by the ghosts of a 100-year war and a hard-won settlement. It is a place where people endure. And it's full of surprises.

Amid the hard-bitten country and the pared-down economy, you'll encounter ravines and rock-paintings, aloes and euphorbias, the Bushmans and Kariega rivers, Addo elephants and Eastern Cape game lodges. There is a special, verdant bush here, a thickly treed land where elephants still roam.

. TAKE A ROAD TRIP

With a day or two to spare around a visit to Grahamstown - itself a hearty place, chock-full of curiously interesting people - one realises how underrated the Eastern Cape "frontier country" actually is.

Not far outside Grahamstown, on the road back to Port Elizabeth, turn left onto the Salem/Kenton on Sea road. Soon you'll arrive at the Salem crossroads. The most notable features of this tiny settlement - sporting the country's oldest cricket pitch and oval - are its historic Methodist church and the Salem Inn.

(Add the fact that JM Coetzee used Salem as a setting for the second half of his novel Disgrace. Salem is where it all falls apart for David Lurie, but I am assured that the community here is mutually supportive.)

Nowadays, the Salem Inn is a private residence of a charming and smart man, known as the "Squire of Salem", who also happens to be professor and head of English at Rhodes University. His name is Dirk Klopper and he looks like he was moulded from the environment. Klopper is a specialist in South African literature, and his connection to the land is a deep and meaningful one.

From Salem, carry on in the direction of Kenton-on-Sea. If you're on a motorbike, all the better: it's a winding, view-tilted and near-empty road cutting through a plucky wilderness.

. WHERE TO EAT

Just short of Kenton, turn left and visit Stanley's Pub and Restaurant, for a big Eastern Cape repast of beer or wine and freshly caught fish. They serve large portions. No nouvelle cuisine here!

Savour the grizzled, hideaway frontier people you encounter in places like this, talking about horses in the companionable pub. They remind one of Athol Fugard's play, A Lesson from Aloes: practical denizens with gritty grey beards and wiry, carbuncled hands that understand the lesson of iron winters.

Far down below the deck fronting Stanley's, on the undulating plains running down to the sea, the Kariega River slides through the (currently) thick green land like a fat python overmastering the scrub.

Kenton-on-Sea is a holiday-home village nestled between the Kariega and Bushmans rivers, with a proclaimed nature reserve in-between and both river-mouths debouching into the sea. Kenton has unusual rock formations, snorkel-friendly rock-pools and sweet bays. The fishing, we were told, is good.

. WHERE TO SLEEP

From Kenton it's not too far, on the road back to Port Elizabeth, to Camp Figtree, Addo Elephant Park, or Shamwari game lodge. We opted for Camp Figtree (www.campfigtree.com), a modestly priced, top-drawer luxury lodge close to Addo. Here the welcome is genuine and the luxury getaway feeling just plum. Camp Figtree sits atop a high peak in the Zuurberg, more or less halfway between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown. It is situated within three different biomes - Afro-montane forests, valley bushveld and Cape fynbos.

The lodge commands a view of the mountain range that reminds you how unaccustomed you've become to thundering silence, sweetened with loerie and hornbill calls.

The suites are perched on a breathtaking ridge, surrounded by lush, emerald-green bush garlanded with aloes, euphorbias, honeysuckle and prickly pears.

So many of these places are hyped-up and full of faux luxury though short on real warmth. Camp Figtree was a lovely relief from such posturing. The prices are surprisingly modest (a feature of the area as a whole) and the food sumptuous; served from a restaurant and veranda area with a pastoral, Victorian-colonial feel, fitted with plush sofas and a tasteful array of easy chairs that call for deep, long drinks.

At Camp Figtree, the courteous and un-pushy guides will take you on game drives in and around Addo; failing that, you can always return to the wilderness within.

Outside, the bush urges you to relax while you can, because all manner of wars await you. With more than a sniff of the sea, the buzzing coastal green not too far away, this is not too difficult a task.

On your way back to Port Elizabeth airport you can detour through Addo (www.sanparks.org/parks/addo/). For a modest fee, you can game-drive through the well-kept roads, spotted with elephant dung, and catch a view of galumphing ellies amid bunches of kudu, warthog and the usual game-park sweeties.

- © Leon de Kock