Roadtrip to Zinkwazi

I don’t know about you, but the notion of “a weekend trip to the sea” has always conjured up glamorous visions of palm trees, large-brimmed sun hats, breezy accommodations, and afternoon appetizers of pate and cheese spreads.

This past weekend my weekend trip with Justin, Nick, and Matt to the seaside town of Zinkwazi encompassed all of those things and more.

It was colourful caftans, shiny gold bracelets, and white linen pants. Pearl stud earrings, scoop neck cardigans, and classically nautical navy and cream-striped tops. Champagne with strawberries and whiskey on the rocks. Meals of coronation chicken, fillet steak, cous cous, and curried meats. Breakfasts of crepes and eggs. Rattan seating with blue chequered cushions and chunky wooden deck furniture painted crisp white.

My stay at Nick’s holiday house was a lesson in old-school vacation luxury. Ingrid even lent us her head housekeeper to help clean and cook. It was truly lovely way to spend three nights and four days.

Nick, Justin, and I set out for the beach on Thursday morning at 8. It was a seven hour drive to the coast and well worth it once we arrived.

Nestled in the small sea-side town of Zinkwazi was Nick’s stunning holiday house. The property has been in Nick’s mother’s family since the late 1800s. The familial history of the place is proudly depicted by photos that line the walls of the home which show Balcom family ancestors enjoying the land in decades long past.

The beachouse driveway and its welcoming procession of palm trees

The home itself has 8 bedrooms and easily sleeps 20. The boys and I were lucky enough to have our own space in a guest cottage off the side of the main house. With a set of bunk beds and two singles, as well as our own bathroom and shower, it was the perfect little place for our stay.

View of the house from the beach

...and again, further back

(one of) The living area(s) facing the sea

The guest cottage I stayed in with the boys

I woke up to this view from our cottage front door every single morning :)

The front deck is tiled pale blue and wraps around the entire sea-side face of the house. To the left is a lagoon and tall palm trees sway in the yards of the homes which face it.

The massive front deck overlooking the beach (note Noah, playing with toy trucks in the sunshine)

Best of all, the ocean is nothing more than a hop, skip, and a jump from Nick’s front grass. Warm, sandy beach stretches in directly in front of the house, allowing the sound of crashing waves to weave into the windows of the house at all hours of the day and night. The salty ocean air is evident in the tacky tangles of your hair and the smell of its humidity clings to your clothes.

A partial view of the ocean and lagoon from the front deck -- wish my camera could truly capture the entire vista :(

More than pure relaxation motivated this trip – it was in fact a get-together to celebrate the recent engagement of Nick’s sister, Jess. This meant that by Saturday night, the house was brimming with eleven cars’ worth of family and friends eager to eat, drink, and be merry in Jess’s honour. Going into the weekend, Matt, Justin and I had only ever met Nick’s immediate family. Once we left, it was hugs and kisses all around. Nola and Udo’s guests couldn’t have been more warm and inviting, or easier to get along with.

Enjoying the warm weather on the deck, complete with wine and champagne

The weekend was spent jet skiing, swimming, boating, surfing, reading in the sun, lounging beachside, and sipping cold drinks. We played poker. Smoked hookah. We walked uptown and bought hand-made beaded bracelets and straw bangles from local merchant women and on our way back enjoyed a drink in the nearby beach-front bar while rugby blared on the mounted TV in the background.

Hylton and Ryan keeping a watchful eye on the boys' surfing skills

Just and Matt get ready to tackle the surf

Nothing better than digging through the hot top layer of sand to sink your toes in the cold bits underneath

Matt looking the part (now if only he had the skills to back it up... haha!)

Chapped, scabby nipples were the injury of the weekend thanks to the surf boards

The beach itself was brimming with activity. On Sunday, on-land fishermen were caught pulling in milk sharks and a stingray. Kites coloured the sky along with the giant parachutes of wind surfers who clipped along the backline of the water, catching massive waves and arcing their bodies through the air in acrobatic spins and jumps. Surfers dotted the sea, waiting for the perfect wave, while a lone paddle-surfer worked his way upright through the surf. Dogs of all shapes and sizes ran freely about while their families focussed on building sandcastles, balancing on knee-boards, or kayaking in the lagoon.

A jeep got stuck in the sand and the large tractor on the right had to come to its rescue!

Nick and little Nick resting after battling the ocean waves

After picking Matt up from the airport, we headed over to “the farm”, where relatives of Nola (Nick’s Mom) live. Similar to the Zinkwazi beach house, this property has also been in their family for generations.

It is true colonial grandeur.

The house itself is a historical monument and sits atop a hill overlooking undulating fields of sugarcane. It echoes times long past with its generous wrap-around deck, high ceilings, meandering corridors, and sprawling lawns.

Dainty victorian furniture marks the perfect spot for tea time

The pool is set quite far-off the main house and overlooks hills of sugarcane

Ingrid employs two in-house maids and three outdoor staff to keep the place up to snuff.

The front entryway

Its garden is home to banana trees, assorted veggies, and the most magnificent species of old English roses. The flowers were downright magical. They smelled of strawberries, vanilla, and lemon.

Banana trees in the garden

The AMAZINGLY awesome-smelling roses from the garden

The mastiff and scottie keep watch at the front door

...as you can see, nothing gets past these two...

On Friday night, we were treated to a random power outage that lasted until morning. "Welcome to Africa!" was said more than once. The boys got into a few drinking games and – predictably -- a night of random folly ensued.

Drinking games by candlelight

After an epic two-deck, French-accented, three hour drinking game of Kings, everything culminated in Nick pulling the last King from the pile. This meant he was destined to act out the set requirements: he was to stand in the lagoon, naked, in a life jacket, dancing with me, while singing Justin Bieber. It was 2am.

Me shielding my eyes from what I am about to witness, while Nick "stretches" (i.e. procrastinates his little heart out to avoid the impending bout of nudity), and Fred attempts to direct the whole drunken debacle

Well, Nick got so far as donning the life jacket and stripping naked, but then chickened out. His white bum bailed up the hill as he ran in a panic to fetch a fresh pair of boxer shorts from the house.

While he was gone and the group was admonishing his severe lack of follow-through, Brad hollered to us from further down the beach. As we approached him in the darkness, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until we nearly fell into the crater dug in the sand that we realized what he had stumbled upon.

There, in a three-foot deep pit in the sand, slept two 17 year old white boys. A dozen or so empty beer bottles were strewn around its perimeter and once I looked closer, I could see that they had buried themselves up to their waist in sand. Alarmingly, the tide was coming in and it was barely eight feet from the lip of their hollowed-out space.

It took us a full half hour to convince them to wake up, get out of their shallow grave, and head back home. Annoyingly, they had pretty big chips on their shoulders for a pair being saved the hassle of getting mugged, assaulted, drowned, or worse.

In their defence, I guess it would have been pretty bizarre to wake up in a fuzzy haze to our eclectic ensemble of characters peering down on them from above. It included one redheaded Canadian, a thirty-something year old French Belgian man, a really drunk blonde South African wearing nothing but his underwear, and Matt, who drunkenly decided it would be helpful to speak to these two guys in a fake French accent.

Nick decides hopping IN with the two boys, whilst still in only his underwear, is the best course of action

In a really funny moment, Matt was squatted down on the edge of the pit, desperately trying to coerce the kids to get up and go home -- all in his best French accent, of course. I crouched down beside him and -- interrupting his brilliant speech of: “oui mon ami, eet vould be best eef yoouz geet up et sink abooot allez oh home” – told him to just speak naturally. In plain view of his audience, he turned my way, and said in his South African accent that he himself would rather trust a Frenchman than a South African, and then promptly returned back to the two boys and began, once again, speaking his homegrown version of Français.

Adding to the randomess, a homeless old golden lab saddles up to our group and follows us around on the beach for the next hour.

Once we had successfully rescued the two idiots and sent them on their way home, the question became, “what next?”. Someone suggested we visit the bar on the beach. Seeing as it was well past 3am at this point, none of us expected it to be open.

Well, open it was. We staggered up its rickety wooden steps and were greeted by three of the most sketchy dudes I have seen in a long while. One was a small blonde with greasy hair and tribal tattoos, the other was about 7 feet, balding, and had two bloodshot eyes that bordered on pink eye, while the third was hunched over and had the skinny, shuddering body of a crack addict.

They were all smiles to meet us and didn’t even question the dude wearing two pairs of boxers or the one speaking in a clearly fake French accent (he actually introduced himself as “Mathieu from Frahhh-nce”).

We booked it out of there pretty quickly and headed back to the house for a night cap.

All in all, it was a memorable night and an even better weekend. Nick’s Mom has invited us back in December for summer holidays and we are all pretty much counting the days until then.

The boys savoring the last afternoon of sun, sand, and surf

Sunset -- taken from the backseat of the car as we drove back to Joburg