Morgan Bay

After a while in the highveld and mountains, it felt like time to get into the sea as well. Bruce has an acquaintance who very generously offered the use of his beach house in Morgan Bay, so off we went!

Very high temperatures inland drew heavy fog in from the Indian Ocean, making for a wet and gray experience. Despite that, we enjoyed a gentle 9km (5 mile) hike with beautiful views. It was a nice change of pace to do a few hundred ft of elevation gain instead of a few thousand.

Hike highlights include: rocky beach scattered with abalone shells, watching a nice right hand point break (sure wish that there were a surfboard I could use), and the multitude of rocky cliff views.

As we sat on a grassy overlook, Bruce spotted first several then what must have been at least 50 dolphins swimming gracefully southward. We only saw one leap out of the water but enjoyed many glimpses of the rest. I haven't seen dolphins (porpoises?) swim so close together before. It looked as if they were literally in contact with each other for much of the time. Beautiful!

In the afternoon we got to see a local wedding (sounded like a lot of fun) then had nice meal while Bruce tried to explain how rugby works.
I still only sorta understand how rugby works. I can see, however, why rugby fans say: "[soccer] is a game for gentlemen, played by hooligans; rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen." Rugby seems like controlled mayhem. I can see why it is popular.

Due to extraordinary circumstances, aforementioned high temperatures, incompetemce and corruption ZA has a serious electricity problem. The state-run energy company is using rolling blackouts to address this problem and is now in Stage Six. Not having power for 8-12 hrs in a given day is a serious bummer. They need more solar and better conservation campaigns.Read more