South Coast Cruzin'

Before I tell you about our interesting trip to the South Coast this past weekend I would like to introduce you to the three new LHR interns.  Vee is from South Africa and has recently completed her studies.  Sandra and Divya are from Australia and are here for exactly 23 work-days.  They are part of a bigger Australian group  who are all working with various NGOs.

Vee, Sandra and Divya

So here it goes.  The Australians had planned a trip to the South Coast for this past weekend.  The plan was to stay at a backpackers called The Mantis and Moon, which prides itself on offering treehouses as an accommodation option.  Unfortunately two of the three treehouses are being renovated.  Ali, Vee and I decided that it would be a great idea to go down the coast with the Aussies.

The bar at the backpackers

The first thing on the agenda was a 'booze cruise'  which was advertised on the backpackers' website.  It boasted cruising down a river nearby the Oribi Gorge, a seafood buffet including a vegetarian option, snacks, and an opportunity to watch the sun set in the horizon.  The cost was R170, so just over $20 per person.  The only thing was that we were supposed to bring our own drinks, but that (at the time) seemed reasonable.

What I expected:  a wonderful, relaxing and fun afternoon that would include good food, drinking and wonderful scenery.

What actually happened:
Well let's just say that for this so called 'booze cruise' not only did we have to bring our own booze, we didn't really cruise...

Ok here it goes.  So we hire a taxi to take us to the cruise.  The taxi didn't really seem to know where it was going.  The backpackers puts us in touch with the 'captain' whose name is 'Rooster'.  Ok I know.  That should have already told us something.  So Rooster tells us to go a bit further down the road from where the taxi had taken us and we would find him.  We go further down the road and he flags us down. 
So we get to the right place and we walk towards the river.   I realize (apparently not quickly enough) that this is the boat that would take us on our cruise:

And this was the captain - Rooster:

And this was the 'first mate' - Rooster's brother (whose actual name seems to escape me):

And that the cruise basically involved going to the other side of the river where the boat docked for about an hour and a half giving people the opportunity to swim in the river. 

Oh and the water in the river looked like this:

After that we went back across the river to get the 'seafood buffet'.   The buffet consisted of deep-fired calamari, popcorn shrimp and french fries in a few take-out containers.  The vegetarian option consisted of, ready for this, lettuce.  Luckily by this point we had all been drinking for quite awhile and were having a great time.  Why?  Because there is something really amusing about finding out that we actually paid R170 each to hang out with a couple of dudes on a barge for four hours, drinking booze we bought ourselves and eating deep-fried food and/or lettuce.  We actually laughed really hard about it. 

Oh and by the way I have no idea who the guy in the pink hat is or how he got there.

The next day as we were checking out of the backpackers, the owners asked us how the booze cruise was.  Our answer, "Uhhh...fun..."  At which point the owners told us that Rooster is a professional surfer and made it sound like it was an honour for us to hang out with him.  Yup, definitely an honour.

Anyhow.  Oh Sunday, Ali, Sandra, Divya, Vee and I decided to drive down to the Oribi Gorge, which was by the way absolutely beautiful.

The Oribi Gorge is a deep canyon carved by the Umzimkulwana River.  It is located about an hour and a half south of Durban.  Apparently the sandstone cliffs are more than 365 million years old.  The scenery was amazing!

 There was a spectacular waterfall dropping more than 100m into the gorge.

Very adventurous visitors have the opportunity to do a canyon swing, plunging from the top of the waterfall into the canyon.  For those of us who are a bit less adventurous there was a suspension bridge going over the gorge, which I thought was also quite terrifying.

Another fun and exciting weekend.  Next up - Cape Town!