South africa 2009-10

PART 1 Arrival - The pool - Big Bay Arrival T&A - Kite beach - Nina & Conny Langebaan - Xmas eve  - The Cape Ebba 1 yr - New Years  PART 2 game park - Township T & C goes big - Shark attack - Braii K & M arrives - Dolphin beach A & K -Pater noster PART 3   Pater noster -Witsands

Arrival and settling down We arrived in capetown airport were we met up with Calle, Helena & August. It was a beuatiful day of 28 degrees and clear sky. We were excited to see the house that we were going to stay in. The first two days we spent setting up the house and getting essentials for living and the kids. Making the home childsafe getting baby beds bying grocery (always one of the highlight when getting to a new country). We could not help repeating too ourseves how good this place really is.

The garden with a pool One of the requirements for the house was that we wanted to have a pool. Since this house was so close to the ocean we made an exception and sorted this out for ourselves. Of course we had to fill the pool with balls so that the kids did not pick up any illusions of that water is supposed to be flat.

Big Bay - windsurf We soon had to go down to big bay and have a look. When looking for accomodation before travelling it was obvious that some changes hade been made since last time we were down 2005. Wow! Were we up for a surprice. What useds to be an ice cream kiosk now had been replaced by hundreds of flats and houses. Usually these kind of changes are for the worse ruining beach areas making for private only access but this change has certainly made some amazing improvements. By what used to be a smaller rigging area there is now a large grassy area and surf shops/rentals, restaurants and bars are lined up before it. After a couple of days here we realized that there is a complete shopping center and pick and pay behind the bars and restaurants. The whole arrangement is called "Eden on the bay" and it has got a really nice hang out wibe. These pictures are from some of the days before and around christmas. The swell has been between 3-4 meters now for weeks which is unusual for this time of the year.

Arrival of Tobbe & Annika 20th dec On the 20th of dec the Honey moon couple Tobbe & Annika arrived. First then did we realize that our tan was actually not that bad after 1,5 half weeks ahead in the sun. Tobias was really looking forward to planning and researching tourist activities for the couple while annika was more interested in practicing photografy of Tobias surfing on the beach ..... or how was it now?

Kitebeach kite & windsurf  The first weeks were full of Kitesurfing activities. Windy almost every day and Björn had to make an effort to get that winsurfing board out since everyone else was kiteing. Actually we did most of the kiting right down from the house. The part of the beach below was in between the parking lots were all kiters were parked so our little spot was actually quite calm considering we had abouth 50 sailers upwind and 50 sailers downwind. An abandoned shipwreck loaded with coal is placed just downwind from us which makes for a nice scenery. Haitham was also down joining us on a couple of days and told stories of kiting in the old days in Cape Town when all kiters wore kite pants. Björn and Haitham also had a great kiting session in Witsands with beautiful waves and a long downwinder from kitebeach to Haakgat with 4 meter waves. Björn had never ridden so many waves in one session. Absolutely amazing. So both Björn and Tobbe had to get themselves waveboards of cabringa s-quad type. Riding these boards feels really close to to regular wavesurfing except you catch 10 folds the waves without paddling at all. :-)

Nina & Conny Just a couple of days after we arrived in Cape town so did Conny and Nina. Bjorn had met Conny a couple of Cape Town trips ago and gave them a little hand finding their pent house appartment. This made for some great hanging and Conny shared some secret tips since he is a well experienced wave kiter. We enjoyed the price winning "going away present" that Anna and Bjorn got before leaving (Thank you Lars) a reservation (made from Sweden) and a dinner at the restaurant "On the rocks". Amazing food and great value as well. Helena peaked her desert frenzy by ordering a desert including small portions of all deserts the place had to offer. In debt as Conny now was we got to hang out by the pool of their tall appertment house. This pool is often found on the internet as a bait when renting out these appartments. It is overlooking the whole ocean and the kids loved it.

Camps Bay A windless morning made for a trip to Camps Bay. We had a wonderful lunch on the beach boulevard of Camps Bay. The house white wine was Durbanville hills Chardonnay. Björn and Annika was hooked for the rest of the trip. Of course we visited the clifton beaches as well.

Christmas eve As usual when in hot countries in december that "Xmas feeling" is not as present as it would have been in -20 degrees and snow. We all felt really unfortunate to miss it for 25 degrees sun and a perfect south easterly breeze. ;-) To do something about it we went to the supermarket and kitted ourselves with santa costumes and hats. By the time we had set up a typical Swedish Xmas lunch with Norwegian sill and salmon, new potatoes, eggs and much more we could almost hear Arne Weise talking out of the TV. But instead we went for a really nice kitesurf. This was actually the first kitesurfing day for Tobias. It is always nice to start softly when you've been off the water for a while so what could be better than a 3 meter swell in comparison to Tobias prior worst experience of the scary waves in Ljunghusen. Anyway evereone survived and the fact that Calle who came here without knowing how to turn actually managed to master these massive waves was really impressive.  By 18:30 Santa clause arrived. He was tall had a dark voice and instantly asked for a drink. Red wine made his beard around the mouth go red like he could just as well had been drinking blood. August loved him but Ebba knew better that letting a scary old masked man get to close. After getting a present containing a rabbit the worst of the paleness in her face ran off her but when it was time to sit on Santas lap she had had enough and screamed loudly. The santa did an excellent job and succeeded as usual in scaring the shit out of the kids or at least Ebba. Amanda and Haitham joined us for a Swedish Xmas dinner. Christmas evening not being anything special in Britan they arrived to a surprise of swedish meatballs, Jönssons "temptation", boerwurst prinskorvs, ribs, ham with mustard and much more. Supricingly this overseas assembled Swedish Christmas dinner was a really good meal. Almost better than at home. After dinner started the "traditional" Christmas present competition. With two dices that go round and round everyone is playing for the presents contributed by each member(Except Nina who came bare handed but still participated ;-)) of the table. After all presents had been distributed it was then time to steal the presents from each other leaving some with many and some without presents for christmas at all. We could not stop laughing at Nina who won almost every present full with guilt of that she(or conny) had actually forgotten to bring one of her own. Then we enjoyed a beatiful Christmas cake :-).

Langebaan The first weeks everyone wanted to get up to speed with their sailing not the least the girls who was somewhat discouraged by the 3-4 m waves at home(Table view). Therefore we regularly went up 1,5 h north to the holiday paradise and flat water surfspots of Langebaan. The kids had to cope so we set up an advanced camp on the beach and took turns watching them. A somewhat warmer and a lot shallower water made for perfect conditions to get going. Calle and Björn bet money on their girlfriends progression which turned in to a real kite cat fight. When tobbe & annika arrived they also came along and tobbe was polishing his toeside moves and getting his "multiple lens" camera all wet when taking photos really up or below close. On the walk back to the cars we were almost always accompagnied by our wild ostrige friends who seemed to like hanging out with kiters. Maybe they think wearing shorts on the outside of the wetsuit is really cool. Is that the reason for wearing shorts outside of the wetsuit?

The Cape trip 26th dec A must in capetown is the trip down to the Cape of good hopes. We travelled down the east coast were we considered having a swim on a beach not far from fishhook were a man got eaten by a great white just days later. Though it was a public holiday which made for enormous queues through muizenberg and fish hook. It seems since the black empowerement politics of south africa have been very successful the beaches are now populated not only by a few rich "white" people but by large crowds from all of cape towns areas and classes. As usual these changes of history happening right now in South Africa is one of the most interesting aspects of coming here.  We continued to simonstown watching the pinguins. Unfortunately during high season like this the beach were you can actually swim with the penguins was closed. But penguins there were. We had a wonderful seafood lunch at the black marlin where Helena spotted a "dolfin". She had all the polite waitresses convinced until the bitter end when she had to admit that it was a seal. You can see her watching in the binoculars only to get really dissapointed. If she would only know that by the time shed gone back to Sweden the Table view beach would be crowded by dolphins(cliffhanger for uppcoming pictures.)     We enjoyed the amazing views of the Cape of good hope and the scary Kelp forests. Some days later we also managed to get the Chapmans peak trip but it is included in the end of these series of pictures since we should have done it on the cape trip.

Ebba 1 Year Ebba woke up early in the morning of the 29th dec. Judging by the first image below she was really unprepared wondering why the hell everyone was standing in the room waking here up with song shed never heard before. By a millisecond she was clear awake smiling when she realized that all attention was focused on her. She is a sucker for attention. As you can see she was spoiled with more than attention.  It was a really great day for Ebba and even though she might not have understood really what was going on its for certain she had that "its my birthday" feeling the whole day.

New Years Eve 2010 We booked a table at Butchers Kitchen, one of the favourite steak houses. The meat had been hung for 21 days. Conny, Nina, Haitham and Amanda joined. After a great surf at Witsands it was a perfect way to spend New Years with good friends and lots of wine. The hang over was going to haunt us for weeks. Starting with Bjorn and Anna in the morning of the next year. We thaught it was the alcohol then the carpaccio but then everyone but Calle and Annika got sick. I think Haitham got his on the plane home a week later. Even Mathilda and Hjordis who arrive 2 weeks later got a bit of it. Even Christofer Holst seemed to have gotten it in Sweden on his 34:th birthday.     Happy new 2010 to everyone at home!!!!!!!!!!

Upcoming in part 2 Aquila game park Braii at the house  Shark attack Big bay waves windsurf Township Calle & Tobbe riding giant waves Kristofer & Mathilda arrives. More Windsurfing kiting with Wales Dolphins hunting

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