We have left the beautiful Wild Coast and are now up on the South Coast of Kwazulu-Natal. Equally beautiful and new and interesting, just a little closer to shops and much more populated! It is the home of sugarcane, pineapples, mango’s, bananas and maize, and is far more humid than where we have been before. This trip is interesting because at each stop the humidity goes up considerably and it gets hotter, but we adapt nicely, whereas if you flew straight from Cape Town to Durban you would struggle considerably for the first few days at least.
We have been busy in the last week as the photos will tell! I have put up quite a lot so be sure to look through them to see what we have been up to. We were a bit unlucky waves wise at the beginning so we just enjoyed having warm water and being able to finally surf just in boardies/bikinis! It was Caroline’s birthday on Monday night so we had a little party here at the backpackers for her. She has the rather rare birthday of being born on the 29th of February (a leap year) so officially she is not even 5 yet!
The backpackers we are staying at, The Spot, is situated right on the beach and is nice and small so we have it almost to ourselves. It is the perfect place to watch the waves, chill, surf and challenge each other at pool or table tennis. After a few onshore surfs we decided to head up to the Wedge surfboard factory to see both the process of a board getting built as well as Maisch fins getting made. They have a lot of pride in their work and do a great product so it was interesting to actually watch Justin laminate a board and to see boards in the various processes from being shaped to being sanded. Getting to see fins being made is not a common occurrence at all. Most are designed in surf countries but are made in factories in China so it is great to see the fins actually being made here. They have over a hundred different templates and they have some cool colours going too.
On an off-day when it was properly onshore and no waves around we set off to Oribi gorge. It is a beautiful deep gorge not far from here, and one of the activities that are offered there is the highest gorge swing in the world. It looked ridiculously scary, but Anthony, Luke, Ben and Kate took it on and dived off the edge of a cliff. Look at the pictures! It was really beautiful there and nice to take a break from being on the beach.
Yesterday and today have been serious surf time. The wind has died and although the swell is small it is nice and clean. Our last four surfs have each been at a different spot as the South Coast is littered with lots of different options for great waves, with amazing set-ups. After a couple of days of onshore everyone was frothing to surf and it really showed in their surfing. Today the girls really upped their game and caught some very good waves in the clean two foot surf. The boys are competitive as one might expect but this of course helps them push each other and their surfing is improving rapidly. We shot some good video of them so you will see that on the next video blog.
It is up to Anstey’s tomorrow where we do the Lifesaving and SSA surf coaching courses so we have upped their fitness and they did their best times in the pool whilst up here. So as you can see, everyone is having a great time and we have a busy schedule ahead of us.
Early surf tomorrow and then onto the next stop, thanks South Coast, you have treated us well!
Until next time then keep well,
Chris