Heritage sights and surfing, to extreme skating boarding and extreme kite boarding in Cape Town.
On Friday we headed through to Cape Town centre early in the morning as the guys were off on a boat ride to Robben Island. The crew were very excited to see the prison where the recently deceased Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years before being released and then becoming South Africa’s first black president and helped change South Africa to where it is today. It’s a great tour around the island, which is home to 100 people that all work on the island and help with tours around the prison that no longer operates. It was an interesting and educational visit and everyone enjoyed it.
We then drove back home over Chapmans peak, it’s a spectacular drive, often used to film BMW and Mercedes adverts, and is the road that is used during the Cape Argus cycle race. We woke up to fun 2-3 feet waves the next morning and the crew hit the waves for a few hours and made the most of the great conditions and sunny weather. That afternoon the guys went into Cape Town to watch the Ultimate X , where they watched some skate boarding, Bmxing, wake boarding and guys ramping and doing tricks on their motor bikes. It was great to see the riders put it on the line for the crowds supporting them.
On Sunday we started off with an early beach training session, then a surf at Muizenberg before heading out to Big Bay for the Red Bull king of the air. It was a kite boarding contest that is known for massive 20 meter high jumps off waves and big critical tricks. We watched the first few heats and then had lunch, Callum ate a whole rack of ribs, and we were we all impressed. Will, Jamie, Gregor and Tim all had big burgers and George had a whole chicken, the crew were very impressed by the price of the delicious food.
Monday saw us surfing early before heading to Table Mountain for a hike up it and cable car down, it was a great walk and the view looking down over Cape Town is just amazing. It was another hot summers day so we drank lots of water on the hike and had ostrich rolls at the top. We took a few pictures and then headed down on the revolving cable car.
On Tuesday it was a super exciting day as the crew bought new surfboards, for some it was their first own board and that’s such a special feeling. Nikita and Myself took some time to decide on what was best for each individual, and made a decision that would help them progress in their surfing. The crew then had their first surf on their boards and got the feeling of their new equipment. That afternoon we went over to Kommetjie where we surf long beach, it’s a really great wave and offers good learning waves but a lot stronger then Muizenberg. Graham had some fun waves and Gregor got an awesome wave that left him smiling the whole afternoon.
We followed on on Wednesday with a lesson on turning and watched the crew on their new boards, the guys were asked to come in after 3-5 waves and talk to myself, so we could tell them if they needed to do more or what they needed to work on. The surf was great 3-4 feet and Tim loved the conditions. After lunch we went to Klein Constantia and did some wine tasting, the group enjoyed the different wines and the information they received on the wines. The guys really enjoyed meeting the kids at the waves for change community project so we went over to them and played some soccer and touch rugby, said our goodbyes and left the kids with a new soccer ball and rugby ball.
Thursday was our last day in Cape Town so we had two fun surfs in the warm 21 degree water and packed our bags. That morning Jamie, Callum, George and Tim went and did shark cage diving, they were all raving about their journey out to swim with great white sharks. They had a great time and recommended it to anyone looking for some adrenalin. We had our last dinner in Cape Town and were looking forward to our journey to Plettenberg Bay.
That's it from Cape Town,
Klee Strachan