Gymnastics Gone Wrong

This is just too funny not to share. Perhaps if gymnastics were always like this it might carry a higher profile

Cotswold Downs

It's going to be easy to review this golf course. Are you ready? Here comes the review.......

Cotswold Downs is the best golf course I have ever played in my life. Better than Princes Grant, better than Durban Country Club, better than Wentworth for that matter. There you have it, review over!

Other relevant info:

Cotswold Downs is situated off Inanda road in Hillcrest. They'll rush you R250 during the week and R300 on the weekend. This price includes compulsory cart and the carts come equipped with iced water bottles for it's passengers.

The course isn't particularly long, although between tees there are some good distances. The fairways have placing (not needed) and the greens are also, quite simply, the best I've ever putted on. They hold nicely and once you've hit your putt the ball stays true all the way to it's final destination (Not often the hole!).

Feature Holes

This Par 3 on the left here has to be the course's feature hole for me. I reckon depending on wind conditions this baby could require you to hit anything from a 6 iron to a wedge. From the tee box you drop almost vertically down and between you and the green (approximately 40m below you) is a small section of water guarding the dance floor. Not a difficult hole by any means but such an enjoyable one to play.

Another great looking hole is the stroke one 17th. It too has an elevated tee box and the fairway leads you to a series of well place bunkers. It dog legs right and your second shot sees you pop one over the water again and although not a lengthy hole, it is definitely an intimidating one. I pulled my tee shot left, it bounced on the path into the bush and I walked the hole - looking forward to the next time though.

If you get the chance make sure you play this course. What's also great is that it's not like driving to the Wild Coast or heading North to Zimbali or Princes Grant, it's just around the corner for us guys. Shuz you're gonna have to come out of retirement for this one I'm afraid, you won't regret it.

Splashy Fen 2007

The good news is that I made it out alive of yet another festival and just because Splashy is about one tenth the size of Glastonbury doesn't mean that it's any easier on the body and soul.

It all started on Thursday afternoon. I met Braura (Bren and Laura) on an off-ramp along the N3 near Assegay and we started the trip to Underberg. A pretty uneventful trip really other than the near hit of a cow by one of the cars behind me. The sack of biltong I had to keep me company did what it said on the box. It really is a pity that I'm now a responsible South African because I could have easily taken down half a dozen beers along the way.

When we arrived we hooked up with Gerard who had missioned there on the Wednesday in a bid to secure the primest of prime real estate that was on offer. I think the view above confirms that he did in fact secure this particular section with brilliant success. This was my first Splashy but the veterans among us all agreed that this was definitely one of the best spots available - nice one Gerard.

Thursday night was spent in typical fashion on the first night of a festival. Way too many beers get consumed and the fact that you're here for a long time seems to elude the human brain. Candice and Doug had "kindly" lent me there circus tent for the weekend and I was told that without one of them being there to assist, there was no way I would put the tent up. It's a 10 man and I think it even comes with a study....it's flippin massive!! After about an hour in the dark, 4 of us finally admitted defeat and I reluctantly made the call to Durban. I was greeted by hilarious laughter and once it had subsided I got down to business. It was with the sour taste of smugness that I learned from Candice that they had in fact given me a 10 man tent with only enough poles to erect a 3 man tent. Apparently a whole other sack of poles were standing idly in a garage in Hillcrest. The laughter from Hillcrest turned to apologies and it was time to make another plan. Luckily I had gone down in the ballie's bakkie and this was to be my new sleeping quarters for the weekend.
If we look confused it's because we were. It took 5 of us an hour to erect this thing





Friday morning we woke up with hangovers and opened a beer. Most of the other guys arrived on Friday and in total there must have been over 20 of us. On this day we just did festival stuff and generally passed the day away with eating, drinking and walking around catching the odd band. A good day for a Friday.
Saturday we woke up feeling a little bit frailer and at the half-way point you could definitely start feeling the pain of the slog of a festival kicking in. I suppose the "highlight" of the day (other than the Sharks score against the Reds) was the case of the squatter in a certain person's sleeping quarters. Saturday evening around 7 we decided to make the mission to the bands. I started packing up and taking the cooler box back to the bakkie. When I got to the bakkie I could see a pair of shoes inside on my mattress which I thought was a bit odd because I was wearing the only pair of shoes I had brought. Upon closer inspection I realised that there was someone sleeping in the back of the bakkie and he had laid out my mattress and was in it for the long haul. No matter how much pulling of legs and shining of torches in his face he couldn't be woken. Eventually myself and Bren had to literally drag him out and then pick him up and carry him over to a section of grass and lie him down. The crazy thing was that as soon as he hit the ground he instinctively woke up and tried to get back in the bakkie. He told us through dazed facial expressions that this was his mate's bakkie and to please just leave him alone because he wanted to go to bed. In the end we managed to lock the bakkie up and had to leave him still standing at the bakkie trying to pry open the windows and unlock the doors. Crazy stuff!!!!!!!! When we got back that night he wasn't there and I would love to know where he spent the night.By Sunday you could see by people's expressions that it was time to leave. I'm sad to say that we couldn't last til the Monday and so in a mass evacuation we all legged it back to the safety of our homes, not before a 2 hour drive though, which was mentally and physically challenging in it's own right.
I've never had a bad festival and this one wasn't an exception. Even though you don't get the international bands like you would in Ireland or the UK, this festival seems to be more about the fact that you're just simply camping with your mates and that there's music there whenever you feel the need to go and get some. Even though the fetival crushed us on the penultimate day I don't think I've been beaten forever and I'm sure I'll be there next year again. Make sure you guys overseas make it back by then.

Later,

Baj
A tall man from Barnes once told me....."Failing to prepare is preparing to fail"

Security not so tight down here in the South

The 16th Farewell

For those of you who were at Darroll and Jax's house that night, believe it or not I am finally home and there will be no further farewells where your company will be expected. Shoo it was hard to get rid of me hey? Even after I disappeared for 2 and a half months you got your instructions to come and say goodbye one last time. Well all I can say is that it was without a doubt the best farewell out of the lot.

I tell you what...you guys made me a little bit emotional on the inside when I realised how much effort you had all put in to be there that night. Kurt and Toni deserve special mention for coming down from Yorkshire - you legends!! It was something special to see all you guys rock up for the first braai of the year and I can honestly say that there wasn't one person left out...every single person of importance was there and it was awesome.

Jax and Darroll, you guys are legends and I just wanted to say shot for organising the bulk of the evening and for opening your house to all of us. I like to think that by making the best potato bake in the world I thanked you enough so hopefully we're even. It was awesome to spend my last few London days with you guys.

Robs and Shuz, the G-Spot days are over and they were sublime, but there's plenty more good ones to follow once you guys get back here. And that goes for all of you too. Don't take forever to haul your asses over here, because this place is the best place in the world man!!!!! I'm semi-moved into my flat in Umdloti and I need you guys to come back cos so far it's Bren and Laura in Umhlanga and then the next mate is in Florida Road. Ideally you all need to move up the North Coast, so see if you can arrange something.

Anyway guys, once again, shot for an awesome evening and hopefully I'll be seeing all of you in the not too distant future.

Baj


Proof that he really is "The Tallest Man in Barnes"

If Not, Why Not?

Right here I am - Open Water Qualified and happy as Larry. I completed my course this morning and it was pretty sweet. Our first dive was down to 18 meters at a place called Chumpon Pinnacle. The Lonely Planet heralds this site as the best in Ko Tao. Visibility was a bit questionable but the dive was still very enjoyable.

Our second dive was at a place called Twins. Braura and Otta this is the dive spot in front of that Nang Yuan Island where they wouldn't let us take our fins. It's a pity we didn't manage to get out there because the coral and such was helluva impressive. Vis here was much better and although we didn't dive as deep it was definitely the more enjoyable of the two. I managed to swim past a massive bluey silver fish (I really need to learn the names of the fish) and he came in at about a meter in length. We also saw loads of smaller fish but in massive schools....really beautiful stuff.

On our way out in the boat this morning we were treated to a meter and a half long Marlin, jumping in and out the water like you might see a dolphin doing, it was incredible.

At the moment I would say that the diving I did in the Red Sea was better than Thailand. The visibility there was impressive and the colours and variety of sea life supercedes what I've seen here so far. But I'm not prepared to give up hope just yet. In a moment of spontanaety I decided to sign up for the Advanced Open Water course. This course should be insane. It only takes 2 more days but we do another 5 dives. One (or more) of them we dive down to 30 meters and we also do a night dive. This should be fun. You cruise down under the cover of darkness armed only with a torch and the knowledge that nothing "should" go wrong. Don't stress Mom, they say it's just as safe as diving during the day just a little different that's all.

So that's another 2 days of diving and then I'll have 4 days of Steve time to relax and read and swim. The end of this trip has been filled with awesome stuff right to the very end and I've been meeting some very cool people here at the dive school so it's probably best that I decided to do the diving toward the end of the trip now that I'm travelling on my ace. Nights have been spent drinking, eating quality food off the braai and sometimes someone might even pull out the 'geet' and play some tunes out on the deck.

So not that long to go now and I'm not sure if there will be any more posts from Thailand. Maybe just one more to report on the night dive. Cheers for now.

Baj

Go Sharks!!!!

What a game!! What an emotional roller-coaster!! Thankfully, there was one other dude watching the game with me and even though he was English I desperately needed someone to realise how brilliantly we finished off this game. That's four out of four - GO SHARKS!!

Swimming with Whale Sharks

I kid you not, that's what I've been doing!!! Swimming with whale sharks was never on my list of things to do merely because it's one of the unachievable things that will never happen.....right?? And yet here I am to tell you that I've swum with 5 whale sharks.

After speaking with Derreck he told us that there's this little fishing village in the middle of no where and there's absolutely nothing to do OTHER than go swimming with whale sharks. It was now 1 and a half days before I was due to fly back to Thailand. So I got on the phone to Reservations at Philippine Airlines and changed my flights. Best $25 I've ever spent.

Once I had made my way to Legazpi and then Donsol I went to bed that night actively dreaming of whale sharks and secretly thinking that surely this was not about to happen. The next morning I made my way over to the tourist centre and signed up for a day of whale shark swimming. There were 6 of us tourists, 2 spotters and the captain. What happens is, the spotter (yup, you guessed it) spots a whale shark. Us naive tourists can't even see what the hell he's actually spotting. Then the other spotter kits up in his snorkelling equipment and yells for the rest of us to do the same. It's actually all quite chaotic and frantic. Then he jumps in the water and you follow him and he yells again to look down. Then out of no where an 8 meter whale shark appears right in front of you and you just about shit yourself!!!

We spotted our first fish about half an hour in. I got pretty close to it but was still very intimidated and so didn't push the issue of trying to keep up with him. The second one we saw was slightly smaller but I got a little closer and my confidence increased. Then we didn't see a damn thing for over an hour. We were all beginning to think that the whale sharks had decided on this day to stop coming to Donsol and so resigned to the fact that it was all over. We were cruising around, not really talking and the spotters were looking increasingly frustrated and disappointed..................and then suddenly all hell broke loose!!!!!

The spotter started yelling to the captain that he'd found one. The boat swung around and the other spotter started kitting up, shouting the orders for us to follow suite.

"GET READY, LEFT SIDE, LEFT SIDE. NOT THE RIGHT SIDE. QUICKLY QUICKLY COME ON LET'S GO. LET'S GO....... NOW" (Real Jack Bower like)

Then once you're ready and about to go you do a final check to see the direction to swim in and you drop into the water. That's when it all becomes a whole other ball game. Everything goes quiet and you just see this massive animal gliding gracefully toward you. This time around I was in the front of the queue and manged to get right up to the whale shark's head. I swear to you this guy was about a meter and a half away from me. At one point he even looked up to check what the hell was going on up above him. They have the most amazing blue-grey, silver spotted backs and when you're that close it is something truly amazing to witness. This particular whale shark decided to hang around for a bit longer and so I swam next to him and sometimes directly above him for about 3 minutes. Then he just turned to one side, making a motion that a Cessna might as it banks to the left for a dive down to the ground, and it disappeared into the depths.

That was the 3rd one. No sooner had we got back on board the boat that more yelling began and it was time to kit up again. The 4th whale shark we saw was by far the best one. He hung around for a while, then dipped a couple meters deeper but then came back up again. Having my new found knowledge on board that I could dive to 18 meters I decided to go low and get a glimpse of his belly. Unfortunately I was a bit tired from keeping up with the spotted monster and so couldn't get too deep. Actually I think the reason is that I've drunk beer for about 54 days out of 61 and my gut was unfortunately giving me a bit of drag so that's why I only got 4 meters down. But 4 meters was enough and I did catch a glimpse of his impressive shiny white belly. The 5th one came along shortly afterwards and then it got quite again so we headed back to shore.

Man o man what a day. All I can say is that every single one of you needs to come to the Philippines and go swim with these largest fish of the sea. It was an awesome experience and I wish I could have done it again. As I mentioned before there's bugger all else to do in Donsol once you've done the whale shark thing so instead of paying 800 potatoes (pesos) a night in Donsol I made the journey back to Legaspi (for 2 nights) and then flew out yesterday back to Manila. I was paying 250 pesos a night in Legaspi but you get what you pay for. The room was clearly designed for midget hobbits and the bathroom was so small that when you're sitting on the bog you can actually rest your head comfortably on the wall in front of you. This also means, unfortunately, that you can't take your book into the bog because there's no room to read it, although I imagine if you had to position yourself sideways then it might be possible.

For more info on the whale shark thing and some epic photos (not of me unfortunately), click on the link below.

http://www.sergeyphoto.com/underwater/donsol.html

Now I'm back in Bangkok and about to embark on a nightmare of a journey. After going to bed at 2 in the morning and then waking up at 7 this morning to get to the airport I've been told that the only way back to Ko Tao is by 11 hour bus ride and then a further 2 and half hour ferry. It's a 4 day weekend over here at the moment and so sleeper trains are all fully booked. Once I get to Ko Tao I'm going to sign up for my Open Water 1 qualification and do some diving. Then just a few more days chilling on the beach and then it's all over. I can't believe how quickly it's all gone.
See you all soon.

Baj

The Team from Tamaraw

On our day of travel Greg and myself made sure of what time the ferry left by checking with the Department of Tourism. The dude said 9 bells in the morning so we made sure we were there by 8:15. You can imagine our frustration when the guy at the ferry told us we had rocked up 2 hours too early. The ferry left at 11. Shot dude from the Department of Tourism...first day on the job was it, or did you just do that for a laugh? Anyway once on board the ferry we experienced the full force of what can only be described as Earth's best functioning air-conditioning system. Honestly it was 3o degrees plus outside and about minus 11 inside. Greg was in his hoody 20 minutes into the trip and I was in front of him cursing about the fact that I had put my long sleeves right at the bottom of my bag.

After the ferry we hopped into a mini-taxi (the type you see on the N2 when going down the South Coast packed with about 22 passengers on board. We managed 16 passengers and it was a stretch believe me. Greg and I sat in the very back row of the taxi because that's what was left. The very back seat was obviously designed to place your groceries on after you've been to Shoprite Checkers and clearly wasn't intended for human occupation. So there we were, Greg, myself and one other guy in the grocery section, and space was pretty tight. Filipinos by nature are quite small people and none of them are heavy set, so I'm not sure what the hell Greg and I did to deserve sitting behind the biggest Filipino in all of the Philippines. The guy in front of us was just leaning back and falling asleep and cramping our space even further. Both Greg and myself had severe knee injuries on completion of the ride.

After the taxi ride it was time for a 45 km Jeepney ride to Puerto Galera. This was a superb little ride and I only wish we had managed to do it during the day. We were high above the coast line and the views must have been magnificent. Greg and myself had the best dry mielie (no butter) of our lives on this particular stretch. On the ride itself we had all manner of passengers boarding the Jeepney. Some lady with a huge black bin hopped on and inside she had a tuna fish along with some other stuff I wasn't sure off. Along the way the driver stopped the Jeepney and did some shopping at the local fish market along the road. No one cares and no one is in a rush. Life beats at a good pace over here in Philip's Jeans.

So finally after 13 hours we arrived in Puerto Galera where we hooked up with Wayne and Kelly. They had found a superb little secluded beach called Tamaraw Beach and we literally had it to ourselves. We were staying in the Tamaraw Hotel and it was pretty swish by my travelling standards, decked out with air-con and hot water. The 4 of us shared a room with 2 double beds. Greg was the little spoon and I was the big spoon.

Our first day was a beach day and Greg, Wayne and Kelly made some diving enquiries at the only diving shop along the stretch. The next day we all went diving. Well I didn't dive per say, just did some free diving but I discovered a new talent which I was quite surprised by. I was following the guys diving below and then free diving down to them every now and again and had a look at what they were looking at. I reached my new personal best depth the following day where I learned after the dive that I had successfully free dived down to 18 meters. It's pretty intimidating if you haven't done it before because the surface of the water is a seriously shit long way above you in the distance.

The first dive "we" did was about 10 meters and we saw some epic stuff. The highlight without a doubt was spotting a 2 meter long sea snake. We were all trying to get as close as possible and he obviously got a little ticked off. I had to go back to the surface for a lung refill and as I was going up he decided to swim towards me and diagonally up at the same time. Very strange behaviour indeed for a snake that usually just rummages along the bottom looking for grub. You can imagine my panic when I got to the surface and so did he. The guy literally came out the water a good 15 cms and just looked me square in the eye above the water. Crazy stuff!!! Luckily he lost interest after that and descended back to where he belonged.

We also saw a Lion fish as well as some other cool stuff. I tell you what hey, the ocean has some pretty exotic stuff in it. Got to get in it as often as possible when I'm back in Durbs. The next day we did a wreck dive which is where I got down to 18 meters. Greg and the boys were quite surprised to see me down there with them (as was I) and the wreck was pretty cool with some sizable fish occupying the jol.

Nights in Tamaraw were spent drinking beer and playing table tennis. Wayne, your missus has a serously sharp serve on her. Kelly you're the best girl table tennis player I've ever seen. I'm sure Waynis really enjoyed the thumping you gave him that one night. Keep practising Wayne and for shit sakes pull you pants up dude!!!!

While on the second and last day of diving we met a Canadian couple (hey). They were very interesting people and it was after speaking to the guy (Derreck) that my Philippines trip took a new and awesome turn.