The adventure through South Africa has started in beautiful Cape Town.
Hi guys, we have just finished our first week of the January surf tour, we are based in Muizenberg, which is located in the southern suburbs in Cape Town. We have been blessed from the first day with beautiful clear summer days. We had two surf lessons down at Muizenberg beach, which is rated the best learn to surf wave in South Africa, the conditions were perfect for the guys to get the basics of paddling and standing up.
Previous ticket to ride trip leader Chad Schwab was around to give us a hand with the crew. He was very impressed with the groups standard. We then went to Kalk Bay for lunch, it’s a really beautiful little fishing village where you have a vast variety of art stores and restaurants located on the pebble side roads. We then went out to Simonstown to see the African penguin (jackass penguin) colony that is protected and looked after to maintain there living environment. They are very cute animals and it’s always an awesome journey out to see them.
On Monday we took the crew out to Big Bay, which is on the Atlantic Ocean side of Cape Town. Cape Town has two oceans that meet at Cape point nature reserve, the Indian Ocean (Muizenberg side and up the east coast) and Atlantic side (Kommetjie and up the west coast). The waves in Big Bay were fun and the group really enjoyed it, they had lunch at Kauai where they serve really healthy meals from wraps to smoothies. That evening Tim from Waves for Change organization came out to tell the group about the community projected he runs and filled the group in on what they do and all they provide for the kids that they have taken off the streets and getting them back in school.
The waves were really great on Tuesday morning, the group had prime conditions to get out back and catch many waves; Tim, Graham and Will our Ozzy on the trip, were all enjoying the warm 21 degree water and clean conditions. A few of the members in the group even surfed in boardshorts and got a good tan. We had lunch and then headed over to Waves for Change, which is situated just on the beach close to the township (Khayelitsha), were they do their community work. The group got to meet the kids that were learning to surf and help get a few of the younger kids in the water either pushing them into waves or swimming with them in the tidal pool. The group enjoyed meeting the kids and were humbled by how much their company spent with the kids from the township got the kids so excited and stoked.
Wednesday the surf was fun once again and we had two awesome surfs followed by an evening out at the brass bell were we had a few drinks and mingled with the locals and volunteers. There’s karaoke on every Wednesday night and it is quite a big event in town. It was a fun evening. We woke up early on Thursday morning and headed out to the Cape Town city bowl for a timed swim and to see the city centre and V & A waterfront. It was very hot and the group layered on their sun cream and had water on hand. The guys bought some stuff from the many stores around, from high end clothing store, surf stores and casual shops.
What a great start to this amazing adventure.
Trip leader
Klee Strachan
Blurb
What a start in Cape Town, surfing great waves, getting up close and personal with penguins and seeing the city centre.