Last Friday (4th), we left Mdumbi early and braved the goat track they call a road to get back to the Coffee Bay road. We then retraced our tracks along the 80 km's of winding roads; past the rondavels, past the livestock, and past the children asking for money and sweets until after 1hour and twenty minutes of driving we made it out to the main road and started to make some progress towards our destination of the South Coast (the stretch of coastline south of Durban).
After 5 hours of driving through mostly inland, rural countryside we finally came over the last hill and the Indian Ocean greeted us once again. We stopped briefly at the first shopping centre to grab some food and a new legrope from the local surf shop (I broke my last one in the two foot Mdumbi dribbly beachbreak) and then we went south along the coast road past beach after beach in search of our new home base...
After checking the waves at a few spots we settled at the Southbroom Backpackers. Our double room set us back 220 rand a night (A$40) so was one of the cheapest places we stayed. It was also the best place we have stayed. It may not have been as close to the beach as our Cape St Francis pad but made up for that by having everything you would want, a good bed (a rarity so far), a big clean kitchen, a gas BBQ, a pool, and the shower head was about twenty centimetres across, rather luxurious really. It also has lots of monkeys with a very special physical trait!!!! (see photo)
Neville, the owner, made us feel at home right away, and we were his only guests at this time. Nev lives here with his dogs, all five of them....Inga, the mother (the big red one), her kids, Shaggy, Peppy and Yoko (named after she was run over by a car with Yokohama tyres), and the father, Shabby. (that's the little one...check the photo, he's an ambitious little fella isn't he.)
We have been filling our days going to the beach, surfing good waves with no one out, and checking out the local area. This area reminds us of Coffs Harbour, northern NSW and the Sunshine Coast because of the banana plantations and the beaches, the many rivers and sugar cane farms everywhere.
One of Nev's mates, Darryl, came down to stay for the week and another, Kev, lives close by and was over all the time, so it was sort of like we were just staying with friends rather than staying at a backpackers. The only time we had company was when a couple of Swiss girls, Lara and Nicole came to stay for a night. They were really cool and invited us to meet up with them in their hometown in Berne when we get to Europe.
Kev is a chef on a luxury 160ft boat that sails the world, and is due back on board in the Mediterranean Sea in a few weeks. He cooked some amazing dishes that we were invited to help ourselves to.
On Wednesday we went down to Port Edward, about a half an hour south, where Nev told us there was some ancient fossilized trees and shells in the rocks on the shoreline. As we walked along the beach to the point a South African couple told us that we shouldn't go up there alone as there had been many robberies and last year some people got stabbed!!! OK maybe we won't go up there then.
As we were talking to them a guard on horseback from the resort overlooking the beach came down and offered to take us up to the point and show us around and keep us safe. So off we went, me, Mandy, Samuel the Guard, and his horse Meika. Samuel showed us the massive fossilized trees embedded in the rocks right at the waters edge and shells in the rocks that were 160 million years old. In fact we got to see more than most people have because the big storm that washed the sand from all the point breaks has also uncovered a lot of new fossils that have not been seen before.
We ended up staying with Nev for a week until he had to kick us out on Friday as he was booked out for the weekend. We may have stayed there until our flight out of South Africa on Tuesday otherwise.
So we said goodbye to Nev and the boys, and the dogs and once again headed north to a place called...... well you'll just have to check back in soon, but I'll give you a hint, it's got a great point break out the front.
To be continued...
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