Sandown Beach

The temperature today governed my decisions. As I woke, it hit about 35 deg C as the Berg wind came straight down from the mountains. Today was to be a day for the sea, not the hinterland. I headed for Sandown Beach near Kleinmond. This is the longest beach in the area and I had never attempted to walk its length.

This will be a short post. No matter how much one likes a beach, the fact is it doesn’t change much as you walk. Still it is pleasant enough for the walker, though, in gearing up for my LEJOG (Land’s End to John O’Groats walk), I am very conscious of the fact that I have very quickly to become a lot fitter and much stronger. Walking along a beach is not the same as walking up hill and down dale, and I wasn’t carrying a heavy pack, so this is hardly a fair test, but on the other hand, walking on the soft sand of a rising tide is a lot like walking uphill. It all helps. (I did try to coincide with the tides, but I over-slept! Exhausted after yesterday’s efforts and by the time I got there, the tide was already coming in!)

The weather all day was very strange. I set out in the teeth of a howling Berg wind, blowing into my face from due East at an uncomfortable 35deg C. The sea at least was very cold so half of me was hot and the other half cold. Then suddenly in the time it took to walk 100 metres, the wind changed to South East, coming in off the sea, and the temperature dropped by 15deg C. Incredible!! At last I was comfortable and able to concentrate on my surroundings.

Yet again, there was no-one there! I walked a total of 14 km today, and until I had walked 12.8 km I did not see another living soul. After yesterday I was beginning to think that the whole area had suffered a neutron bomb strike and there were no people left! Just pristine landscape and a few radiation-proof insects and birds to inherit the world. How is it possible to walk 20km in any beautiful place and not see anyone? I have a problem with everyone else’s priorities!

Of course it may also be that I am currently on my own. Veronica arrives on Monday and suddenly this isolation will end with a vengeance, but I can’t say that I am not enjoying it, or that I don’t look forward to her arrival. Mixed emotions!

But back to the beach!

I wasn’t entirely alone, as yesterday. The birds are here... The African Black Oystercatcher is a very rare bird. My bird book tells me there are only 5000 left. Yet every time I come here, I bump into many of them. Today, I had fourteen sightings! Of course, it could be the same two birds, who, staggered by the lack of people, were flying up the beach to meet me each time! Lonely birds! Actually, not. The Oystercatchers are quite territorial, hence their apparent scarcity, so I suspect I did see a number of mating pairs. They are also not terribly skilled at subterfuge. There I am walking along, lost in thought and deep in pain, and all of a sudden they are screeching out their very identifiable alarm warning, bringing my camera to the ready! If they had just kept quiet, I wouldn’t have seen them at all!  Anyway, I’ll spare you countless shots of thoroughly discombobulated birds and just include this one rather insipid view, in deference to their rarity and my disturbance of them.

And so to the end of the beach, or at least as far as I wanted to, or physically could, go! I had expected that the waters from the the Bot River Estuary would flow out to the sea at this point, but of course it is summer, so there is no flow, and I could have walked all the way to Hawston, but I was beginning to suffer and it was 7km of soft sand back, so I decided to call it a day…

I took these idle shots to prove that I was at the seaside.

And then finally, when I was convinced that there was no-one left alive, I found this fisherman, 12.8 km from the start of my walk! We waved and smiled at each other. I think he was as delighted to see another living being as I was! At least if the rest of the human race really had been wiped out, I would have been able to rely on him for fish….



So that was it, but I can’t resist including a couple of shots of the exquisite Betty’s Bay sunset. You may get bored. My father-in-law used to call them NABS. (Not another bloody sunset!). Tough….

Oh yes! I had a look today to see how many people had subscribed to this blog by clicking on the button in the top right corner of the blog! Just one!! Me….!!!!!

 I am distraught!