Morgan’s Bay Trip – 26th February to 10th March – PART 4 (final)

Wednesday 7^th

Up late again, 09h30 this time. A cup of coffee, check the guy ropes as the wind is picking up again but according to the weather station is not expected to get as strong as it did yesterday. Today the wind is expected to be 15 to 25 knots and I think it’s about half the strength of yesterday but I can’t find the historical data on the SA Weather website. After breakfast we take a drive up to the cliff top overlooking the sea below, a magnificent view. I decide to clamber down the grassy hillside to see how far the rocks below are above the water level as it looks like a really good deep water fishing spot. Turns out, it is about 50m still above the surf with no chance of a landing site if you had to bring in a fish. The walk back up the hill was something else though…fuckin’ hell, I thought my legs were going to give in about three quarters of the way back up. My calf muscles cramped up and I was as out of breath as I imagine a geriatric having a wank might be. (look carefully and you'll see me on the rocks at the water's edge - shows you how high this cliff is) Who needs a gym when you have cliffs like these? No wonder the cows are all skinny from walking up and down these hills…fuck that, no more. From now on, if I can’t take the fuckin’ car, I’m not going. It’s cooling down a little now, just after 3pm and the wind is dying down a little too. Good news, cos then we can have a braai tonight. Lamb chops and chicken wings…yum…

Thursday 8^th

We just chilled out for the day, had a couple of beers and read a bit. Went for a walk to the “wreck” site on the other side of the river. The wreck is supposed to be that of another ship that went down a couple of hundred years ago, but from which pieces of pottery and artefacts are still being washed up on the beach along here. I believe it was called Espirito, but that’s as much as I was told by the locals. All along that stretch of the beach you can see holes at the grass edge where locals have dug into the sand looking for bits and pieces from the wreck. Needless to say, we didn’t find anything…I reckon after 300-odd years, there’s not much left, though reports of locals trying to sell pieces of china are still commonplace.

In the afternoon, we packed up most of the stuff we didn’t need overnight to prepare meals or otherwise, as we were leaving early Friday morning for the trip home. Can’t believe it’s almost two weeks that we’ve been here. Tempus Fugit…

Friday 9^th

Up at 06h00 to finish off the packing, a quick cup of coffee, check the tyres on the caravan, and we’re on the road. We had left later than expected as we were expecting to give one of the Parks Board “wekkas” a lift into East London which is on our way back to our overnight spot at Gariep Dam again. Bastard didn’t even have the decency to come and tell us that he couldn’t go, which we found out from one of the other guys. Much mumbling later, we hit the road at about 08h00.

It took us almost an hour to get back to the main tarred road, as the short (14km) dirt road was in such bad condition that we were down to a crawl at some places. Once there though, we had a smooth drive back to the N2 highway and via East London to the towns we’d passed on the way down, only in reverse this time.

The drive was very pleasant except for the headwind we had to drive into, which slowed us up a bit and chewed even more diesel than on the way down.

Once back in Gariep, we set up the caravan for the night, sat down with a drink and eavesdropped on the guys in the caravan in front of us. The old geezer looked like he was having a good old perv at Steph in her summer dress. When I commented on it, she said she’d noticed it as well and when I raised my voice to indicate that we’d seen him, it stopped…old fucker.

At around 5pm, a rowdy bunch of blokes from Vodacom (I assume they were from there, cos one of them was driving a Vodacom truck) pulled up in the large empty grassy area next to our site and promptly started to inflate a hot air balloon. It was going really well until a storm started picking up and the balloon, now almost fully inflated, started blowing in the opposite direction from what it was being held down in, almost dragging a couple of the guys holding the tethers with it. Needless to say, they sat down and waited for a while to see if the wind would die down, but it didn’t and they packed it away as fast as they had unpacked it earlier. They then disappeared to their chalet, 100m or so from the campsite, where they ended up having a piss-up and playing songs like Max’s favourite “Generaal de la Rey”.

The rest of the evening went off nice and quiet and we ended up going to bed early as we had another early rise and 650km to do the following day.

Saturday 10^th

Up at 05h50, not of our own volition, I must add. Those bastards from Vodacom were back with their balloon, and we were rudely woken by their fans blowing air into the balloon so that they could get it airborne in the still morning air.

They woke the entire camp up with the racket they were making and there were a few un-happy campers, I can tell you. I felt like going over and slicing the side of the fuckin’ thing open with my bait knife just to show my irritation with the whole episode. It must have taken them a good 25 minutes to get it blown up, heated and airborne, then the support crew jumped back on the Vodacom truck and went hairing off after the balloon which seemed to be drifting off in the opposite direction as what they’d expected it to. I hope the fuckin’ thing hit a mountain…

Anyway, we needed an early rise, so perhaps it was all for the bigger good that we were woken by the hot air-fuckwits. After a quick cup of coffee and a biscuit, we headed out on the highway, anticipation at getting home evident in both of us, but especially in Steph who wanted to get home to see her (our) doggies.

We stopped off at a roadhouse just outside Bloemfontein for brunch and, it being the weekend of the Super 14 rugby clash between locals Free State Cheetahs (from Bloem) and The Sharks, my team from Durban, I felt it necessary to have on my Sharks t-shirt for the occasion. It was like sitting in a Dutch restaurant on Queen’s Day in Amsterdam. There was a sea of orange shirts and Cheetahs strip at most of the tables around me, and I felt great being the only Sharks supporter there, doing my bit for the cause. I even heard an old Free State “tannie” (aunty) saying “Daar’s ‘n Sharks ou” (direct translation: “There’s a Sharks guy”). No doubt I got a few extra other strange looks, but I didn’t care, especially when the game ended that evening and the Sharks had won a resounding victory of 30 points to 14. Fuck the Cheetahs…they’re as crap as everyone else…

We got home around 15h30, unpacked most of the stuff out of the truck and the caravan, in time to chill out with a cold beer and watch the aforementioned rugby match.

In conclusion: As good as it is to get away for a while, you get to a stage where you want to get home to familiar surroundings, people, animals, your own bed, boys toys, and so on, and we’d been away for just under two weeks (myself for just under three, if you take Kosi Bay into consideration). Caravanning is fun, but I was getting tired of cramped sleeping space and not being able to dive into our 250l fridge at home instead of the two 40l fridges we had with us. Also, I was missing my usual TV programming and the sport that is broadcast on the weekends. Sad, huh?

It was a great holiday, and I still had a fourth week at home to do some stuff around the house and chill out in comfortable surroundings (all that was missing was the ocean).

Thursday 29th March, I've been back at work for just under two weeks and it was amazing how, last week, just 6hrs back in the office and 704 emails can fuck up all the good that four weeks holiday had done for me…it really is time to get out of this fuckin’ rat race…