So we're pregnant and we're thinking, ok what now.
Let's get out of Joburg. Priority No 1. Less talk more action.
So we did.
Our search for the ultimate happy place began in Mpumalanga, home of the mango trees and banana plantations - too beautiful but too far inland. We needed to taste salt in the air. Ponta d'Oura on the South Coast of Mozambique seemed like a logical progression and a week amongst the 'camarao' and mozzies convinced us this was a place reserved for holidays and backpacking.
A twenty minute hop over the border and into Kosi Bay where friends of ours put us up on the shores of a magnificent lake in a wooden house with a deck that overlooked the rising moon and grazing hippos. It almost seduced us into staying - I even managed a job interview and was successful but deliberated over the reality of a life lived in extreme rural South Africa. Not a practical choice but a difficult one to make. We left it behind. South Coast of Durban welcomed us with all its lush greenery and 'kif bru's' - we've lavished here for some time in a mansion on the sea. We have swept the coast from South to North and settled on a spot - made for the likes of us tree-loving, outdoorsy, happy hippy types.
Sub-tropical Umdloti Beach, a small seaside village in Kwa Zulu Natal about 30kms north of Durban. Umdloti is nestled amongst rolling fields of green sugar cane and indigenous forest on one side with golden sandy beaches and the warm Indian Ocean on the other. Dolphins frequently visit all year round and in the winter Humpback and Southern Right whales pass through. We've found a 2 bedroomed cottage in Mt Moreland a bird sanctuary where the Barn Swallow resides. Every year the residents of this small village welcome the return of over a million barn swallows after their R&R in the Northern Hemisphere. This year the magnificent spectacle is scheduled for 11th November. I will be hugely pregnant and waddling like a duck.
Our cottage is 5k's from the beach and 2k's into the sugar cane down a dirt country road and through some rusty old gates. A short bicycle ride to some pretty sick waves so I'm told.
We've left the strangling claustrophobia of Joburg behind - the traffic noise and aggro and all the shitty stuff. But we've also left some pretty special people there and hope that they find themselves on our pull-out couch more often than they realised they would.
We know some people here, not many but enough to avoid being Nobby-No-Mates. Last night we were invited by a group of about 25 people to a sweet little camping spot by the sea. A bunch of surfers and non-surfers, an eclectic mix of beach goers, wine lovers and quiet contemplators. A day on the beach riding waves and reading books, followed by an evening of epic radness. A spearfisherman hauled 7 crimson-red crayfish from the sea and deposited them straight onto the coals of our braai. Fresh cray meat under the stars, happy banter round the camp, tanned faces huddled in a circle, sandy feet and salty hair. Lazy lovers swaying, tummies full, in a hammock stretched between two palms, surf boards propped up against trees and mellow tunes in the background. So it was with a massive bonfire to close the night and marshmallows on sticks to send us sweet dreams for our sleep. I paused a moment to realise.
Sub-tropical Umdloti Beach, a small seaside village in Kwa Zulu Natal about 30kms north of Durban. Umdloti is nestled amongst rolling fields of green sugar cane and indigenous forest on one side with golden sandy beaches and the warm Indian Ocean on the other. Dolphins frequently visit all year round and in the winter Humpback and Southern Right whales pass through. We've found a 2 bedroomed cottage in Mt Moreland a bird sanctuary where the Barn Swallow resides. Every year the residents of this small village welcome the return of over a million barn swallows after their R&R in the Northern Hemisphere. This year the magnificent spectacle is scheduled for 11th November. I will be hugely pregnant and waddling like a duck.
Our cottage is 5k's from the beach and 2k's into the sugar cane down a dirt country road and through some rusty old gates. A short bicycle ride to some pretty sick waves so I'm told.
We've left the strangling claustrophobia of Joburg behind - the traffic noise and aggro and all the shitty stuff. But we've also left some pretty special people there and hope that they find themselves on our pull-out couch more often than they realised they would.
We know some people here, not many but enough to avoid being Nobby-No-Mates. Last night we were invited by a group of about 25 people to a sweet little camping spot by the sea. A bunch of surfers and non-surfers, an eclectic mix of beach goers, wine lovers and quiet contemplators. A day on the beach riding waves and reading books, followed by an evening of epic radness. A spearfisherman hauled 7 crimson-red crayfish from the sea and deposited them straight onto the coals of our braai. Fresh cray meat under the stars, happy banter round the camp, tanned faces huddled in a circle, sandy feet and salty hair. Lazy lovers swaying, tummies full, in a hammock stretched between two palms, surf boards propped up against trees and mellow tunes in the background. So it was with a massive bonfire to close the night and marshmallows on sticks to send us sweet dreams for our sleep. I paused a moment to realise.
This is our new life.
