It’s been quite a journey, and our arrival in Durban marked the beginning of the end of a fantastic trip filled with amazing people in incredible places. Over the past 6 weeks I’ve had the privilege of getting to know every person on the trip on a personal level, we’ve had plenty of adventures, worked hard, struggled and excelled together. It’s difficult now to re-collect all the memories we’ve made at once but over the coming weeks as we all decompress from our epic adventure I’m sure we’ll all reminisce and re-live the good times we had in our thoughts.
Durban is a unique place, so many different cultures culminated into one city and region. Our home for the first couple of days was in a place just outside of the city called the Bluff. Anstey’s International Beach Backpackers is where we stayed, owned by the famous South African surfing family, the Palmboom’s. With a very homely feel in a quiet suburb right by the beach it was a great place to relax and play pool or watch a movie on their big screen tv when we weren’t out and about in the city. The next thing worth mentioning is that a stones-throw away from where we were staying lay two top South African surf spots namely, Anstey’s Beach Break and Cave Rock. This small stretch of coastline is commonly referred to as South Africa’s ‘North Shore’ with its big, heavy and barrelling waves. Our second stop during our stay in Durban was a short drive away up the north coast in Ballito at the Secret Spot Surf Camp and Backpackers, nestled in between what feels like the jungle and far removed from where it actually is, with its open spaces, pool and bar it was the perfect place to end our adventures together. Much like the Bluff, Ballito is also home to quality waves, the two more well known waves are Surfers Point (Home to the Ballito Pro QS 10000 prime event) and Salt Rock which is just down the road from our accommodation.
The whole crew at the Secret Spot
Durban you could say is the surfing capital of South Africa, most of our top athletes originate from the region and its easy to see why. Durban and the people of Durban get to enjoy what feels like an all year long summer with temperatures rarely dropping below 20’C and the icing on the cake is that they have consistently good waves and tropical warm water. We couldn’t wait to surf and find out for ourselves. We surfed mainly in the city by the world famous piers, trying our hand at nearly all of the sand banks in the area, we’d spot many of the pro’s on a daily basis as it is also the surfing hub of Durban and home to the internationally acclaimed ‘New Pier’ which was once home to the Gunston 500 and Mr Price Pro which were top international events on tour. We also had the odd session out at Ansteys Beach and really tested our new found abilities and shortboards which we’d had custom made at Clayton Surfboards. We struggled in the more advanced wave setups that Durban offers but we also managed a few great session in between the tougher ones and the guys felt like they’d done their best surfing on the trip in Durban so it was great to see everybody’s hard work come off and to see them score good waves and thoroughly enjoy themselves out in the water. They’ve been a really committed crew and worked hard on their surfing and have really pushed themselves the whole way up the coast. On one of our last mornings, a few of us decided to wake up before sunrise and before the wind picked up to try get a session in down at Salt Rock and when we got there we were in awe.. A golden sand beach with the glassiest clean 3-4ft barrelling waves awaited our paddle out, it was the stuff of dreams and we were the first ones out to enjoy it. It is a steep, quick wave with plenty power so the guys had to have their wits about them out there and they managed to have a great time out in the water learning in the more advanced conditions and scoring some of the best waves of the trip.
When we weren’t surfing we had a few other options on the cards with regards to activities, one of the things we decided to do was go on Safari and try spot the ‘Big 5’. We woke up early to drive through and try make sunrise at the Imfolozi Game Reserve a few hours outside of Durban. Unlike the conventional game drive where you go with a guide in a big vehicle we went our very own big vehicle and had free reign in the reserve to go in search of animals and explore the wilderness. We made it into the park before sunrise and got to watch the sun come up over the wild hills of the region and it didn’t take us long to spot animals. in the beauty of the golden morning light we saw a heard of Buffalo grazing only meters away from us, a bit further on and we spotted some buck, and so the drive went as we ticked off animals on our list one by one. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see all the animals we would of liked to have seen like Lion and Crocodile but it’s a luck of the draw situation at reserves where the animals live freely in the wild and we did spot plenty Elephants, Rhino, Zebra, Warthog, Giraffe and small buck to name a few. A day well spent in the African Wilderness.
Unfortunately our last day in Durban was horribly onshore but fortunately the Wavehouse doesn’t rely on wind to work properly. We picked up Chris Bond from the airport who was in town for our last night together and headed straight over. The flowrider looks small and easy but it proves to be quite a challenge to first time riders such as ourselves (most of us). We had a great time splashing about and trying ridiculous manoeuvres on bodyboards and stand-up boards alike with Chris and trip leader Jarred leading the charge in showing us how its done. We also got to witness some spectacular bails! George winning the prize for the best one, his prize… a few bruises haha! It was a great bunch of fun and an awesome group activity to end off our days in South Africa and Durban.
Durban is always a great stop, heres a short edit showing some scenes of our time here, enjoy.
As is customary on a Ticket to Ride trip on the last night we enjoy our last braai together with a few drinks and we reminisce about the epic adventure we’ve all shared and how much we’ve all grown and how far we’ve all come in a short space of time. Most times it gets a bit wild and after the speeches and the fines meeting we get in the pool, blast music from the bar and some even get on the roof and jump into the pool naked to celebrate the whole thing and it really shows how comfortable we’ve become around each other and what good friends we’ve all become.
This has been one of the shortest 6 weeks of my life and its a testament to the great time I’ve had with everybody, in every place we’ve been, and it’s been an absolute privilege to do this with the group and I’ve had the greatest time getting to know each and everybody involved. On our last day together myself and Jarred were quite taken back by the incredible gesture the group made by gifting us with something we’ll cherish forever, They got me a custom built surfboard from Clayton signed by each individual thanking me for my involvement and influence on their trip and they did the same for Jarred on an A2 canvas on which they had a photo of him at Jbay printed on it. We couldn’t be happier that they all had as great a time and we did and we hope to see them all again one day, the sooner the better.
Till September, goodbye from the whole crew in South Africa 🙂
Luke