Just a bit further off-shore is Aliwal Shoal thought to be one of the best dive sites in the world. Regretfully, I don’t scuba dive. I read instead. 
It was a great bit of time in the sun, and just before we were planning on heading back to the hostel, we thought one more dip would be a good plan. V. and I were right in and then I noticed a very pretty thing on the water – definitely organic not garbage. I asked V. what it was. She said “Blue bottle!!!!” and we very quickly tried to exit the water. As some of you may know this is not my first run in overseas with jellys of some type (oh adventures in Italy…), but I am still a prairie girl and not well versed in the various jelly fish of the world. I do know though that blue bottles are very bad (South Africa knowledge) and you should get out fast. Luckily neither of us got stung. The very lovely South African family with their beach stuff set up next to ours made some jokes about going in the water again. Annoyed to realize that somebody in their party had been stung, but they still chose to watch us get up and head into the water. Thanks. Very hospitable of you. That was the end of the beach day.
Back at the hostel we got ourselves ready to head out on a booze cruise (classy, I know). The cruise would leave from Port Shepstone about 30 minutes down the highway. We would have snacks and dinner provided. It seemed like a great idea. So, Ellie, V., me and the Aussies headed out in a taxi. When we stopped to pick up some beverages, the driver turned around and asked V. if she knew where we were going. Not a good sign. We eventually arrived at a restaurant that appeared to have a boat launch. But no boat. Hmmm. So Sandra (the organizer that she is) phoned the captain. This is when V., Ellie and I found out the captain’s name – Rooster. Another not so good sign. We apparently needed to be at the next driveway down. So off we go. After a little drive we see this very disheveled guy at the top of a drive way. This must be our captain. So, Rooster. We are told our boat is down there, but we should stop at the loo before we head to the boat, as it’s not so easy for girls once we are on the water. Then I catch a glimpse of the boat. You’re right, it would be difficult as the boat is pretty much a little barge with benches on either side and a make-shift table down the middle that isn’t actually secure to anything and therefore shift easily. We are introduced to the rest of the crew – Rooster’s brother and some other random. Rooster's brother reminded me of Hugh Grant’s roommate in Notting Hill. You know the one. I think his name was Spike in the movie. This would be the brothers... 
We sit on the benches and are told we are going to have to wait for about 15 minutes until the tide is in further as right now we are stuck in the mud. We spent the next few hours traveling up the river (well kinda – the word travel may not be appropriate for the limited distance we covered), 
getting our “dinner” at the restaurant that our driver had originally stopped at, listening to very poorly told ghost stories, some getting off the boat to swim in the river 
while others chose not to, 
and having some wine in order to ensure that the name booze cruise had at least one appropriate term included. Now, as much as it was a slightly weird experience, I think we all still had fun. I enjoyed the dogs that also joined us on the boat.
And it was good to get to know V., Sandra and Divia a bit better. But, I must admit, I wasn’t particularly disappointed when we disembarked the boat and headed back to the hostel.
Sunday – yeah snorkeling!!! I have been wanting to go snorkeling for quite some time, either at Aliwal Shoal or Sodwana Bay, both hot spots of diving, but I figure the snorkeling must be pretty good too for those of us who have difficultly with regulating the pressure in our ears. So, plan was to head out snorkeling and then have the afternoon at Oribi Gorge. Stop at the front desk of the hostel – oh, you can’t snorkel today, the waves are too big. Boooooo. I was disappointed. I was already to go and see the wonders of Aliwal Shoal, but no. Not to be. In general this ocean has been a big old disappointment – blue bottles and too big of waves, the end of my surfing and snorkeling ambitions. Ergh. So instead the five of us went out to grab a very nice breakfast and then on to Oribi Gorge. We had planned on doing some hiking, but I think we ended up with some poor instructions and the only ‘hike’ we could access was a 170m walk to the edge of the gorge. So we took pictures. Still a pretty impressive place.
Ah well, we went around to the various viewing points and got to see some of the adrenaline activities you could do, but nobody in our group decided to do anything. This guy did though - see him in his red shirt?
I think we all decided the suspension bridge was a sufficient adventure. 
Ellie and I are saving up the adrenaline for next weekend (so look forward to that blog posting). 
After touring around the gorge we headed back to the hostel to drop Divia and Sandra off and then stopped in at a local pub that was having an open mike afternoon. It was pretty entertaining, particularly the lady and gentlemen with the metallic shirts (kinda reminded me of something Abba might have worn, but not quite). And to top it off, Rooster was there.
Anyways, it was a very nice relaxing weekend that took me back to some of my earlier life adventures and made me realize that I might be getting a bit old (but more about that in two weeks).
No comments:
Post a Comment