Jeffery's Bay, September 17th

Howdy,

Tomorrow will be my last day/night of travelling as we're going to travel in style on the luxury overnight Greyhound bus to Cape Town for Marine Biology related madness/the 20twenty cricket semi-final/going to see the penguin colony (work is secondary to play, obviously).

In my last blog I mentioned that me and Nick were staying at Tekweni, with its reputation as something of a Party place, and this nearly proved to be our downfall.

After leaving the Internet cafe we headed straight to Spider surfboards to collect Nick's rather flash custom boards and since the prices were disgustingly cheap I found myself parting with 50 quid for a second hand, (it's in very good condition) 6'9", monster of a board! Duane at this point proved himself to be more then just a legend for giving us a lift as he threw in free fins, leashes, bags, wax and most importantly T-shirts!

Once back at Tekweni, and having packed for our 7am bus to Coffee Bay, we hit the bar. At some point, I'm not sure when, Nick pretty much passed out and was led up to bed, while I continued the night with some German girls and another lad from Bristol. We ended up at Casablanca club which was rammed with a combination of Durbaners and hookers. The moment that summed up the night was when, (having been informed it was the best drink to get) I asked a bar girl for a ZB at which point she recoiled in shock and told me that she wasn't a hooker, but the other bar girl would be able to take care of my needs. She looked pretty disgusted, even after laughing at me while she got me a Castle, so I'm interested to know what I actually asked for!

Getting home after 4 when you know there is a bus to be caught at 7 is probably not the smartest idea and me and Nick seemed to be the only ones surprised that we slept through both alarms and woke up at the annoying time of 6.55, just too late to have any chance of making the Greyhound. Naturally we paid for another night, booked on to the bus for the next day (no extra charge, Legends!) and went back to bed.

Surfacing at around 11 I was greeted with a general chorus of "you're still here?" Which really improved my mood, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that the 20/twenty world cup was in town! I woke up Nick and we wandered down the road to Kingsmead, stopping to pick up Wimpy burgers on the way. The cricket was awesome! It was the first day of sun I had experienced in South Africa and as we supped a few castles interspersed by the occasional bottle of water, Scotland and Pakistan put on a great display of batting with sixes flying everywhere. All this cost one pound sixty, while the beers set us back an extortionate 60p a pop!

The day of sport continued back at Tekweni as we watched Fiji-Japan in the rugby, Zimbabwe devastating Australia in the cricket and finally England's masterful dismantling of Russia in the footie, good times!

After receiving assurances of wake up calls from assorted well wishers, staff members and our dorm mates, we felt secure enough to hit the town again and this we did in the shape of Durban's "80's bar", probably the only 80's bar in the world not to play any music from the decade after which it is named. An exclusively white middle class crowd were extremely welcoming to our English/Welshness (I have got into so much trouble for replying that we're from England without thinking!) and after teaching some girls how to do gas chambers and the robot we managed to secure a lift back to the hostel. We definitely didn't have enough money for a cab, and it was a long, dangerous walk!

The next day we slept through our alarms yet again, but thankfully our Irish dorm mate was on the ball enough to wake us at 6.30 and we scrambled on to the greyhound just in time and promptly fell asleep in our huge seats. We both woke up on and off through the journey, mainly to scarf free drinks, admire the scenery of the Tran-Skei and to watch the epic "kids in America." (It's a little pretentious, but very watchable which has almost nothing to do with a very attractive cast) We got to the biggest dive in South Africa Umthatha and were met by Coffee Shack representatives with whom we waited for the Baz bus contingent. (You wouldn't see me within 20 miles of that thing, but hey if you're scared of public transport and have enough money to waste on a minibus charging double the price...)

Coffee shack itself is a lovely hostel in rural coffee bay surrounded on one side by the sea and by the epic rolling hills of the Tran-Skei on the other. It is over-rated. Hugely. We spent our first day at coffee bay catching up with Jordi, chilling out and just enjoying the view, playing pool and also getting washing done. The next day we got up early and spent the morning trying out the new boards, while pretending to see sharks before hitting the showers for at least 45 minutes to an hour, a disgraceful misuse of hot water. In the evening we headed to a Xhosa village (Yes they are the people who talk in clicks,for example thank you is N'Click'Gosi and beer was something barely intelligible) where we watched some cool tribal dancing, ate delicious Xhosa food and chatted to the villagers, all done on a brutal time limit because everyone wanted to watch the rugby. We probably should have stayed in the village.

The rugby was rubbish! We watched the game in a bar surrounded by Saffa Farmers (I say surrounded there were far more English than Saffa, but we seemed to be in the thick of the home fans) and I headed back to bed in disgust while Nick stayed at the bar for a bit.

The next day we some how managed to get a bus, no thanks to the coffee shack staff who basically didn't want anyone to leave so they would keep adding to their tab, which is the most annoying thing to have hanging over your head, and eventually arrived late night in the surfing mecca of Jeffery's Bay.

J' Bay is sublime. We woke up in surfpackers hostel to glorious sunshine and being jumped on by our good buddy Martyn fresh from the beautiful UK summer. The waves were pretty good as well and so while Nick headed out to the 10ft waves at Supertubes in J' Bay proper me and Martyn set up camp at the newly christened "MJ' Bay" where we devestated waves in the category of 2-3ft and on shore. For some reason we had the whole place to ourselves... We cooked an epic meal of Bunny Chow for lunch and then headed back out to the waves before crashing out after a hard days play.

This morning we got up and hit the factory outlets of all the major surf companies, each leaving with our wallets lightened, though not that much as the strength of the pound makes Billabong jeans, Quiksilver hoodies and Reef shoes all under a tenner. (I may know these prices because I am now the proud owner of the aforementioned items...) Shopped out, this afternoon we hit the waves again, myself and Martyn once more enjoying tiny waves while Nick and our roommate Dave the German bossed it with the pros. We then had a group hot water session in the barrel shower, which is totally not gay! Then this evening we have eaten the lushness that is sweet and sour sausages before chilling on the beach watching bio luminescent plankton and shooting stars. It's been lovely.

Tomorrow the boys are going to do the World's highest bungee jump. I no longer have the funds to join them and that's the only reason I'm not going. Honest. Then more wave riding action will be had before we say goodbye to J' Bay and hello to the bright lights of Cape Town.
That's it then for journeys, I reckon it must be over 10,000 miles and all on public transport, some good, some horrendous, but at least the last one will be in style!

LOL

Jx