Bringing the Heat to the Coast that is Wild!

So… not too long ago, on a day that was made with nothing but good intentions and wild designs, Fish Munga decided to round up some boys and hit the road. Not just any boys, i might add, and not just any road either. We brought in the legen – dary Fisher bro’s; Steve and Dave and of course Polly The Athlete who is known worldwide for his boundary-pushing athlete status. We can honestly say there is no athlete in the world like Polly! With a good crew on board, Jeep wanted on the bandwagon too and out of the kindness of their hearts lent us a vehicle fresh out of their stables. Not wanting to be left out, Aquarius Inflatables insisted we take one of their hottest racing ducks. We felt good knowing that the motor they gave us had just been raced in the world cup. With huge smiles on our faces and a little bit of pooh in our pants we affectionately named this gunner The Heat! Fluid kayaks made sure we had all the right toys and gave us a couple of new Elements.

Boys *check*. 4×4 *check*. The Heat *check*. Kayaks *check* … only one place to go…

THE WILDCOAST

Armed with all our favourite music and a bottle of Old Brown Sherry, we left the roads of tar with one main agenda: find waves. You see, it’s no secret that most of the fairest waves in the land are hidden in the confines of this treacherous coastline, disguised by a maze of untamed roads and guarded by man-eating sharks! In the old days ships would run aground on dark silhouetted shores, thrashed by growling seas onto jagged rocks only to have their survivors met by snarling savages. The house tunes pumping out of our ‘GP’ number-plated Jeep might suggest that times have changed since then, but we assure you, some things never change. The Wildcoast has gracefully been left behind by progress; the hills just keep rolling while herdsmen walk their cows on beaches that look the same as the did when those unfortunate survivors met their captors two hundred years ago.

Once on the ‘road’ we hit all our favourite spots or just roamed the countryside until we found a place that was beautiful enough for our now very high standards, pitched our tents, launched The Heat and went on the search for waves. The Heat was enough fun just by itself. We even let Polly drive it once. He managed to get about five metres of air when he decided to keep the throttle wide open over a biggish wave. Needless to say Steve smacked him accross head with the fuel tank once they landed, and Polly’s drivers licence was suspended.

This entire blog could be dedicated to the love of The Heat. We filmed off it, fished off it, whale-watched off it, Dave fell off it once when he was driving, Steve even got rescued by it when he swam at a particularly rocky point in huge swell. Polly even slept in it once just becaused he missed it during the night. Dave literally cried when he had to give it back. He almost sold Doug’s kidneys to keep it.

We lived like kings on the Wildcoast – like kings who were on the road for most of their lives most probably on their way between battles living out of their tents and make-shift structures to try keep out of the rain and howling wind. We had our fair share of fair weather but we had the cold fronts too. This is what we wanted though, in fact we timed our entire trip on the likelyhood of this bad weather because this is what brings the massive waves we came to this part of the world in search of. We certainly got what we wanted and sessions in 15 – 25ft surf were our battles, the kind only kings fight.

Jokes aside though, Polly and Dave had found a bay straight out the Secret Paradise Manual a few years ago and were eager to return there once the giant swell had died and the weather gone calm again. They found their opportunity right at the end of the trip and we spent the last days doing nothing but snorkling in crystal clear waters eating nothing but fresh fish and crayfish. Crayfish straight, crayfish salad, crayfish sandwiches, crayfish stirfry… you name it. We set our camp in the trees just above our pristine beach where The Heat lay and waited for the next outing.

So after much fun and adventure, and admittedly more than only one bottle of Old Brown Sherry we called it a successful roadtrip and headed back to civilisation, a little town called Durban, where we celebrated at the annual Durban July – SA’s top horse racing event – and of course… self portrait barrel shots at the Wavehouse!