beach walk (kommetjie)

Last weekend was rainy! It started pouring on Friday afternoon while I was out on a walk, and didn't stop for about two days.

We spent Saturday in Stellenbosch with our roommate Patrick, who ran a half marathon. Jim and I had gone out for dinner the night before and found it tough to wake up at 6 to get to the finish line by 7:30, so all three of us were ready to reward ourselves with a big breakfast after the race :) At least Jim and I could say we "went to" the marathon.

Sunday began clearing off by noon, so Jim and I decided to do a beach walk we'd read about in our new Cape Town hiking book.

We set off from Long Beach in Kommetjie (pronounced comma-key - "tjie" sounds like "key" in Afrikaans) and walked along the water, watching surfers in the water and dogs on the beach. As we got further up the beach, we started to see seals! We saw a few dead ones, actually, on the beach, but also some live ones in the water and coming up out of the water to warm up.

We walked past an African Oystercatcher colony as well as some flocks of flamingos.

The walk's turning point was a shipwreck which seems to have been salvaged and scrapped over time - currently a large boiler and some iron posts are all that's left, but you can still see the boat's general outline and length. It has been pretty buried in the sand.

We turned and walked back, wading through river outlets in a few points, and enjoyed watching surfers again before heading home.