In Pretoria we are both probably the furthest away from the sea we have ever been in our lives and having spent 5 months without seeing a speck of the big blue it was starting to effect us! So we planned a long weekend trip to the Hibiscus Coast. This is the area of coastline south of Durban in KZN which is dotted with various seaside resort towns which the people of Guateng flock to in the summer months for the school holidays. This meant Nick and I could enjoy a relaxing quiet time by the sea without too many kiddies although it did mean that some things were shut for the offseason.
The drive to Durban takes about 7 hours (people say you can do it in 5 but they are lying or driving far too fast), so we set off bright and early at about 5:30 in the morning so we could get there with a bit of the afternoon. We do like our detours which take us off the boring highways and along more interesting routes and this was no exception. Nick had visited the area near Durban before and wanted to show me the area called the 'Valley of a Thousand Hills' simply named after the terrain of the area which is made up of many, many small hill which almost entwined to create a wonderful landscape. So having watched the sun come up as we left Guateng and had a long journey via the highway, with a quick stop at a Wimpy (yes this wonderful restaurant chain is still going strong over here, with one in every mall and service station you come across) for a breakfast roll and a coffee, we left the highway and entered rural KZN. Right on cue we began driving behind a bakkie pulling a trailer inside which was a large cow which proceeded to stare at us as it tried to keep its balance along the bumpy road. We passed small villages with traditional round mud and thatch huts as well as the common tin shacks. There was lots of live stock and lots of children walking home from school (some of which were playing ball games along the road which added a new challenge to the drive).
Nick wasn't convinced we were going to see the Valley of a thousand hills as he had on his previous trip but we soon found ourselves looking over some hills (maybe not a thousand) covered in sugar cane plantations. The plantations carpeted the hills and blew together in the wind which was a beautiful sight. So the detour was definitely worth it. We then joined the coastal road south of Durban and waited eagerly to catch our first glimpse of blue. We entered the small seaside town of Umlazi and followed the signs to the beach and in the gap between two guest houses there was a speck of sea! We then parked up overlooking the Indian Ocean (for the first time) and had our lunch.
We then kept driving along the coast with more and more views of the sea as we went. We arrived at a campsite at Rocky Bay. When I say at the bay it would be more accurate to say on the bay as it was litrally a couple of steps down to the beach. We began setting up camp right next to the beach on the edge of the campsite. However, the bit of wind we had noticed getting out of the car turned out to be a lot of wind, especially when trying to put up our huge tent! We were stupidly determined to be right by the beach until an elderly gentleman came over in a shirt, shorts and sandels looking far more experienced with this place than us and rather than offering us a hand offered us some straightforward advice - you'll never get your tent up on this site - there is one further away from the beach sheltered by a tree that is much better. We realised it was a time to bow down to the wisdom of someone who it turns out has retired to live in this campsite and so probably knows best. As we moved towards the rear of the campsite we came across more of these permenent residents who had caravans complete with huge covered verandas, lawns they mowed, plant pots, satalite TVs and even sofas. We had a peak into one and it looked like someone had picked up a living room from somewhere and plonked it by their caravan that happened to be in the perfect setting overlooking the sea. I say perfect - by which I mean perfect for people like my dad and brother who are more than happy to get used to trains passing by at all hours of the day and night (frequently pulling the whistle loadly probably especially for us holiday makers who then think they are under attack when they awake in the middle of the night). But obviously these OAPs had gotten used to the trains and had decided to settle here for the season if not forever!
So after successfully setting up camp in a much more sensible place - still with sea view as it is hard to miss from any spot here, we went and enjoyed the beach. Given the wind the sea was wild and rough but we enjoyed watching the waves and Nick let me collect shells to my hearts content. We enjoyed an evening braai and as always went to bed stupidly early - it goes dark so quickly and with very little to do the answer is early to bed early to rise.
So we rose early and went for a long walk along the beach which involved some fun boulder hopping and avoiding the waves. We also came across some dassies lazing in the sun and generally looking ridiculous - their big chubby bodies bouncing around when we got too close and then lying back down with their bellies hanging out once they realised we were'nt a threat and we had just rudely interrupted their sun bathing. A well advertised facts about these odd creatures is that they are closely related to the elephant. Now your average dassie is a bit smaller than these in Rocky Bay so it would usually be a lot harder to imagine that these oversized guinie pig type creatures have more biological similarity to an elephant. These dassies clearly enjoy chowing down on a diet similar to that of the campers - ice cream, boerewors (big beef sausages), rusk biscuits etc. If you look closely at their stance when they walk apparently it is similar to the way an elephant walks as they have the same skeletal structure - but that is the biology geek in me.
Having failed to find an ice cream on our walk we came back to have bacon sarnies from the braai, complete with brown sauce - showing those south africans what really can be done with charcoal and a couple of brits - i.e. frazzle meat to a crisp, plonk it between two bits of bread and cover with sauce! Nick was also proud for another reason - while we had been away we had left a box of bananas in the verander part of our tent (yes it has a veranda!). We hadn't realised there were vervet monkeys about and a kind woman came up to return what was left (i.e. a cardboard box with one banana). Nick had not encountered vervets yet and the woman looked confused as he took the box with a great big smile on his face. Your average south african certainly does not appreciate pest like vervets to the extent nick obviously does.
We headed up the highway to Durban for the rest of the day. We wanted to see what this city was like given it has the largest asian population in South Africa (and the african continent) due to the importation of labour from India during the time of British colonial rule. Durban's population is also largely made up of Zulu's, whose homelands are slightly north and inland from Durban. Therefore, we wanted to see how different this city was compared to Pretoria, which is the only city which is dominated by white people. We enjoyed being able to walk in the city and see the City Hall and investigate some local art in a culture centre where we also settled down to listen to a band which failed to turn up. So we headed over to the dock waterfront, to the place that serves the best 'Bunny Chow' in town. Bunny Chow is a famous Durban dish and basically involves taking a large loaf of white bread, cutting say a quater of itoff in one big piece, hollowing out the inside, filling it with a warm mutton curry and putting the bread back on top. As you can imagine this was something that appealled to Nick and I. Having found the acclaimed 'best bunny chow in town', we were thrown a little as it was one of several basic takaway hut on the dockside with a few picnic benches infront. We decided to do as the locals do and order anyway and it was great! I had been told I would not be able to finish and sadly this time they were correct as it was very rich, I let myself down :(.
Back to the campsite, back to bed and back to the trains scaring us to death in the middle of the night!
The next day we woke up and as we lay in bed Nick heard a familiar voice! At work Nick and the others have the opportunity to buy samosas from a man t hat comes to sell them at the office. So as we lay in our tent by the sea and heard "Goodmorning, samosas?!" shouted through the tent wall we wondered if he had followed Nick on his holiday! As you can imagine we didnt really fancy a samosa for breakfast so he moved on.
No comments:
Post a Comment