I have seen a few weird things during the journey thus far, but the other day’s sighting just seems to let most faze out into a mere haze in comparison.

We were nearing the end of a really long beach day, coming over the dune ridge we heard voices. We trundled up to see what the source was, the only form of companionship we had come across over the last 45km was a run in with a group of not so friendly abalone poachers.
Reaching the crest of the dune the scene unfolded.

There were four guys with a fully loaded small Venter trailer, but not a vehicle in sight.  Looking not too perturbed  that there was no 4x4 in to tow the trailer , they were just chilling on the beach, the one guy with his Gran’s Tea cosy on head, another had a bundle of about eight massive fishing rods over his shoulder. The rest milling around looking for, I don’t know what? I could not work this out, where was their vehicle? All we could see was kilometres of nothing.

 
I walked over to them and asked if their vehicle had broken or, I didn’t really know what! The situation was just weird.
The reply was quite prompt. They were off on a fishing weekend – seemed fine to me, but the fully loaded trailer in the sand and no way to get it to the fishing spot? Still puzzling.

Then the rest unfolded as I saw the one guy’s hand slip into a box on the trailer and hall out a well used bottle of Muscadel, twisting off the sand grating cork he took a big swig as he moistened his throat. “You see,” he said. “There is a blanket ban on driving any vehicle on the beach”. So they now have to drag and push their trailer down the beach to the fishing spot, as they have lots of gear for the weekend (you can imagine) they needed the trailer. They had managed to push and pull the trailer about 3km, but were not sure how far the spot still was, but the one guy was on his mobile phone to his mom who he said knew where the spot was.

The wheel wrench was tied to the front of the trailer so that two could pull and the other two could push. It was slowly getting dark and the wind was picking up. With the weather turning and darkness on the way, where were they going to sleep, I enquired?  No sleep was the answer, we fish through the night.
 Braam and I then decided we had better help them for a bit on their beach road to nowhere, but with a good stock of liquid warmth and fire in the belly I don’t think they really cared if they overshot the mark – I still wonder once the barrel was empty and they awoke the next morning and had to repeat the journey back how it went, or maybe if you find a Venter trailer on the beach you will have the answer.  

Winter seems to have those special days that you just can’t explain the breathless beauty around you, and today was one of them, slowly jogging down the beach from Hermanus to Die Kelders. A stretch of 14 Km of flat sand as far as you can see. The ocean as calm as a pond , only the sound of a lazy wave as is just folds over and plops on the sand. Little Plough snails slowly flap their way though the wet sand foraging for bits dropped by the gulls and circle endlessly trying to locate sand mites and worms to prey on before the tide comes in and rearranges the landscape.
Staring aimlessly into the sea haze deep in thought I plodded. Occasionally a whale would attract my attention by doing a massive headstand and trash its tail from left to right and then disappear into the depths of the ocean with a brief blow of spray as it exhaled and replenished its lungs with crisp cold wintry air.
 Ahead lay a massive shadow on the beach, at first it looked as if a cloud had blocked the sun and was casting a shadow, getting closer it now looked as if the sea had cut into the sand eroding a wall which was casting a shadow? Confused, I trundled on closer. Finally I managed to make out this strange phenomenon.
It was the biggest flock of seabirds I had ever seen. Not hundreds but thousands, all drying their wings in the morning sun. This group of Cormorants was a couple of 100 meters long and a good 20 meters wide. I just could not believe that you could still find such large flocks of birds. But why were the here on the beach, this seemed so strange, as we got closer the birds began to run down the beach their legs picking up the water causing a mist of spray as they managed to get their wings into motion and hovered over the waves finally taking off, only to plop back into the water a couple of meters away as if they were too heavy to fly.

The birds just wallowed there looking at us as we moved past. Further down the beach amazingly another group as big as the first, this now really confused us. What were all these birds doing here and how do they survive?
Finally, an answer. A silver bullet shape shot out of the wave , followed by another and so on it continued as the water turned into a cauldron with thousands upon thousands of fish seemingly being congested into this one wave. The further we ran the bigger the shoal of fish became; eventually we measured it to be about 1km in length. The seals had now joined in, swimming and punching holes in the mass of fish as they fed weaving in and out of the waves, bashing splinters of shimmering silver flapping fish into the air. Finally they too tired with their bellies full, rolling over onto their backs and grooming their flippers, they wallowed contently in the trough of the waves. All of nature seemed to be satisfied as the mass of fish writhed on in and out of the waves, moving down the coast.           

One of the reasons that we decided to do our coastal run during the winter was to avoid the Cape Doctor, The S/Easter. A wind known to drive up-country holiday makers home, push locals to the brink of insanity and just give you a serious “Klap” around the gills for a few months of the year ,work that hair do into extinction and leave you with a trade mark Cape pavement perm.
We left Gordon’s Bay and headed along the most scenic route in the cape to Pringle bay to our GPS start point. It had been building all evening, I could hear the wind slowly winding itself up during the early hours of the morning, the results of this were there to behold. As I climbed out of the Fortuner the wind hit me, I turned to say something to Braam and as I opened my mouth my cheeks just filled with air. I felt like the Michelin man being inflated.

The wind was gusting down the mountain slopes and onto the sea causing mini twisters on the sea as it raced across towards cape point, lifting spray off the open sea to heights of 50-60 meters in the air. As we tried to run the gusts would blow us sideways into the rock retaining wall, I would have to reach out to gain my balance and stop myself being blown over and down the cliff. Running was almost impossible as the side wind would catch your lifted foot and blow it across the back your other foot causing you to trip. On we pushed constantly stumbling as we tried to push on through the gale. Finally we headed on around Rooiels and towards Hangklip. The wind now head on 80km ph at one stage I was running behind Braam pushing him so that with our combined effort we could continue moving forward.
Rounding Hanklip it was now the sand, the old road was totally covered with a dune that had been blown over the road and our support Vehicle had to turn back and drive around the other side of the mountain. We pushed on and headed over the few kms of dune. Winds screaming at us and sand blasting us. The sand was stinging the exposed bits of skin and my eyes were caked. I could hardly make out Braams shape ahead of me as he became enveloped in the spray of sand all I could see was his orange jacket as his legs disappeared in the sand spray. I think that this dune crossing was the closest that I have experienced to the beginning of the China sandstorm. Everything just gets blasted apart and filled with sand; you quickly become disorientated as the sand blurs your vision and your eyes stream with tears trying to clear the sand.   

It’s been another hard week, 1200km done and the terrain is starting to get taxing. Gone are all the secondary roads and holiday towns; ahead lies the ragged rocky coast, sandy, soft coastal migrating dunes, occasionally pegged by reclamation done years ago with alien vegetation which, unchecked has begun to do more damage than the natural dunes could have ever done.

The bush is thick and impregnable little game tracks burrow through the wall of vegetation. This has become our only way of travelling during periods of high tide, ripping, scratching and tearing our way along the coastline. Just when this gets to the point of a mental and physical snapping, its rest day. But this rest day is different, the privilege of spending it in the comfort of my family home with my parents.

After over a month journeying the coast in all conditions and being at the mercy of the elements, to be at home one always feels cocooned in the safety and sanctity of your parent’s home. Its and incredible thing, no matter how old you are maybe even a parent yourself, but coming home is just such a privilege. A feeling that you are now in the most special and caring place on the planet. . So often we take this for granted that our parents will always be there to look after us, and that we can fall back on when we hit rock bottom. Unquestioningly and with unwavering love for us, they will pick us up again and again, helping us back on our feet, hoping that some day some how we will take heed to the years of advice that they can offer , learnt through decades of experience and some times the exact problems that we now face.

Often one overlooks and don’t appreciate what your parents have done for you and continue to do for us over our lives, the sacrifices, pain and some times sorry and disappointment they have to endure as they see a child go array, no matter how they have tried, but there still remains one constant .They are always there and will always be there no matter what, their love for us never falters. All a parent wants is that hug that only a child can give and those words mom, or dad I love you! , and yes, sometimes it’s only I am Sorry!