{"id":354,"date":"2009-11-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-11-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-20T00:00:00","slug":"qualifications-and-rainy-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/qualifications-and-rainy-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Qualifications and rainy days!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hi and welcome to Balito our last stop on the trip. Balito is an idyllic spot just out side of Durban and a great place to end the trip! We are staying at the secret spot with Mike and Ros smith who without fail year after year are fantastic hosts! The smiths are no strangers to the surfing world. Their daughter Tammy-Lee smith is a professional surfer and is currently at the secret spot for a short stint before taking off again traveling the world competing. We have been here for a week now and the pace has slowed dramatically as the group have finished the majority of their courses, so there has been a lot of time for free surfing and chilling out. Although things have been slightly more relaxed than their time at Ansteys where surf instructors courses were in full swing, the guys have been putting in some practice for their assessments which they have been waiting anxiously for. The group had their surfing assessments today…but more on that later.<\/p>\n

So a reflection on the last weeks antics. On Sunday we all piled into the van and headed for Gateway, the largest shopping center in the Southern Hemisphere. Now without sounding sexist with 12 boys and only one girl on the trip shopping was not first on the list of activities at gateway. No we were there for something a little more fast paced…go cart racing! Alongside many…many shops and restaurants gateway has its own race track that the boys made the most of tearing round the tight bends. A mini tournament was set up and the boys showcased their somewhat 'questionable' driving skills as the winner of each race made their way into the next round. There was some interesting driving as Pirate Steve spent the majority of the race crashing into people in a bid to overtake them, causing people to collide into the side barriers and other drivers. Kat also gave a great effort amongst the boys competitiveness. At the end of the races experience and time on the roads won over as all the oldies came in the top spots. Pete the eldest of the group took first place on the podium with Chris coming second and Bevan third. Pete was even presented with the traditional celebratory bottle of fizz although the excitement turned into laughter as the boys realized it was in-fact not champagne but fizzy grape juice!<\/p>\n

Monday presented us with light offshore winds so we made the most of the conditions and headed back into the center of Durban to surf at the piers. Along the beach font of Durban there are piers situated all down the waters edge. If there is enough swell there are normally waves on each side of these piers so we can have our pick of where to surf. When surfing beside these piers there is two ways of getting out back to the breaking waves, paddling in the rip which runs right alongside the pier or the fun way…jumping off the end of one! As you can imagine the guys choose the option with the most adrenaline involved so Bevan and I took them along to the end of the pier to make the jump which takes them directly out back to where the waves are, no paddling needed just timing and guts is definitely a must. After the days surfing it was back to the secret spot for a delicious home cooked meal and some chill out time infront of a movie.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday more swell had arrived,the waves were bigger and there was no wind so it was back into Durban for another surf at the piers. The conditions were good and everyone left the water chuffed with their surf even though the rain was pelting down. With surfing and life saving assessments scheduled for the next day we headed back to the secret spot and concentrated on an afternoon of revision and mock lesson practice for their ABC lessons they had to preform to Dean the next day. Satisfied with their efforts the group couldn't let the day finish without squeezing in a last surf and with news of big waves in Balito some of the boys were down to the beach with Bevan, Tammy and myself faster than you can say…wipe-out!<\/p>\n

Wednesday came and with it the day of the final assessments had arrived. We set off for Durban to Addington where the assessments would take place only to be greeted by howling onshore winds and huge choppy uninviting waters. The lifeguards assessments were rescheduled till Friday due to the conditions so we concentrated on the ABC assessments which Dean preformed. I am proud to say all the group passed their ABC lessons presenting confident and well structured lessons. With a little weight off of the groups shoulders it was back to Balito for a chilled afternoon and a celebratory night out on the town that night, any excuse for a night out!<\/p>\n

That brings us up to today. It was a 6 am start to the day as the group were woken by Dean to put all their coaching into action and preform their surfing skills. We again headed into Durban and surfed at one of the beaches called Bay. It was another successful morning as all the boys passed their surfing assessments! The day carried onto be an unfortunate day for the weather as a storm hit Balito and electricity throughout the town went down. With limited option in the heavy rain and howling winds we headed to an ice rink in Durban. With 15 of us on the rink we took over the show with Pat showing his speed from years of ice hockey and Jonty, Jonny, Jack and Steve showing their pure bravery as they gathered up as much speed as they could flying round the rink!<\/p>\n

As there is only one more week of the trip left everyone has started to complain, wishing it was longer and I will include myself as one of these people. The past 9 weeks have gone incredibly quickly, but no talk of the end just yet as the next week is going to be packed with activities, such as indoor football tournaments, paint ball, shaping boards, the wave house, game reserves and of course surfing. Tomorrow is the groups life saving assessments so everyone has gone to bed to rest up. So more from us shortly as we wind down on the past 2 months in South Africa!<\/p>\n

Nikki and Bevan<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi and welcome to Balito our last stop on the trip. Balito is an idyllic spot just out side of Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/SAsep09 15 (1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tickettoridegroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}