We were due to get on the highway on Thursday afternoon around 2pm so that we'd miss all the (other) lemmings going to the coast. Friday was a public holiday, Freedom Day (hhmmmmmm, wonder who dreamt up that shite name?), and so would the following Tuesday be (1st May - Wekkas Day), so we took the Monday as a day's leave to make a decent long weekend out of it.
Anyway...I volunteer to take Steph's new phone back to Vodacom on Thursday as it started bitching about the battery, 24hrs after we took delivery of it. I arrive there at just after 13h30 and end up sitting on my arse waiting for just short of 3hrs for some tosser to come up and apologise for taking so long, but his technicians had to charge the battery to see if it would hold the charge. I spat fury back in his direction, saying that we had done that already but the phone was showing "Replace Main Battery" on the display (that implies that there's a backup somewhere, but I couldn't find it). Needless to say, the phone hasn't gone ppfffttt since I was there, but I suspect that's because they replaced it without telling me as much (I also don't have the serial number of the original battery so I can't prove that theory).
I get home sometime after 4pm and pack the car. It's raining by now, which wasn't a good sign, but I want to get the hell outta Dodge a.s.a.p. so I insist we get a move on.
Onto the highway just on 17h00 and it's gridlock in front of me, as well as behind. I should have known better to stay at home than brave peak traffic, and just before a long holiday too. The traffic reports say something about a strike at the Wilge Plaza tollbooth, which has backed up the traffic for about 8kms. Sign number two ignored. We take about an hour to travel 3km, just about the time that another traffic report says there's a jack-knifed truck in the highway 10kms in front of us. Fuck that, I say to Steph, we're going home for the night. Needless to say, it takes us another 45mins to get home in all the mayhem.
Up at 02h00, after a few hours sleep, and it's back on the highway, hopeful that all the traffic woes are sorted out. And yes, they are. We have an absolutely pleasurable drive down to the coast, get to mum's around 09h30 in time for breakfast and a cuppa strong, black, coffee. The weather is fantastic, no wind, no swell on the ocean, and no foreseeable stresses until the drive back.
Brother Martin and I decide we're going to hit the beach, fishing, and do so at around 11h00 just short of high tide. We each catch a small Rock Cod, mine a Catface model and his, a Yellow Belly. Neither of them are large enough according to catch regulations, so they get a reprieve from Steph's catch directive. The rest of the afternoon is spent sunning, actually burning, the backs of my legs (mum's on the east coast of SA, with the sun going down behind us).
We end up running off the beach as a cold front passed through, the likes of which I'd never seen before. The clouds that came along with the front looked like a wall moving across the ocean, and it was moving so fast you could actually watch it move. I wish I'd had a camera to take pics...it really was quite scary. Back home, a quick shower, a text message to The King and it's "Make mine a Capn'n'Coke please".
Saturday, we woke up and the wind was still from the south west and raining on and off. Mum and Steph decide to go for a bit of "retail therapy" so Brother and I decide to go to Durban for some fishing in the harbour, next to the container terminal. I haven't fished there in 25yrs, so I'm wondering if I'll even find the place. But I do, and we spend a pleasant few hours fishing. Brother catches a genuine Barracuda (not the Couta, or King Mackerel, as is mostly caught here) of about 1m in length. Around 15h30, it absolutely pisses down. We end up sitting in the back of the Ranger, soaked to the bone, sipping scotch from my trusty hip flask. A pleasant, if soggy, way to wait for the rain to go off. We end up driving back home around 5pm, only stopping for a pie and a pint of milk en route.
Sunday morning and the wind has dropped, so we decide to get some fresh bait in Port Shepstone and find a suitable spot there to fish. There is an area called Kapenta Bay there, which is notorious for big fish and sharks, for which we're game.
Kapenta Bay is at the end of the bay, on the headland sticking out to sea.
Unfortunately, I think all the (other) lemmings decided to go and get bait that day too and we battle to find any decent Chokka (as Max would say, look it up) or Sardines, and end up with some baby squid to use. As we arrive at the fishing spot, the wind picks up, this time straight into our faces from the north east...fuck. This makes life difficult as it takes a superhuman effort to cast these big baits, even without wind to contend with. We didn't even get a bite, and went home a little dejected, but the Capn'n'Coke made me feel a little better later on.
Monday, we are to drive home and when we get up, find the wind has died through the night and the weather reminds me of Friday when we'd arrived. Not a breath of wind, and almost no waves. Fuckit, but the weather-makers can be cruel. We potter around the house a bit, get rid of a 1m Herald snake we find in a piece of PVC piping (no, not killed, just relocated to the bush over the road from the house), have brunch, pack the car, shower and hit the long highway home just on 12h00.
Thankfully, there's no major incidents on the highway and we cruise at a steady 140km/h, above the speed limit but slow enough to brake for speed traps if necessary. The KZN "spiet-kops" are ruthless in their deployment of traps and we must have hit at least 15 of them between mum's and the mountains, a mere 3hrs drive away. I don't think I got caught on any of their cameras, but time and a registered mail letter will tell, if I get one.
Only stopping for fuel and cold drinks, we take just under 6hrs to get back to The Meat Spot, our local carnivorian requirements supplier. We have been contacted on the way home by, who are now our ex-neighbours, to come around for a braai at their new, albeit temporary, townhouse. I'm a little tired from the drive, but always game for tanning a chop or two...not to mention a Capn'n'Coke or twenty. We get home around 23h30 after Steph did her usual hypoglycaemic-fall-asleep-on-the-couch thing and have a little nightcap before retiring for the night.
Tuesday, "Wekkas Day", is the other public holiday and I planned on doing absolutely fuckall...and did so quite successfully, except for changing channels on the telly and emptying out the leaf-catcher basket in the pool.
A nice, peaceful, stress-relieving long weekend....we should have one every week.
3 comments:
Welcome to the travel channel!
Hey that was a good read. Sounds like you had a great time.
Cleaning out the pool leaf catchr is not doing feckall!!! i'm sure your better half coiuld have done that, as well as controlling the tv remote on your behalf. Then you would have done feckall....
Salagatle!
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