Uvongo, KZN South Coast

Ispent every summer holiday of my childhood in Uvongo, in the big, white holiday house shared by my mom and her two siblings. Arriving there after the long drive from Joburg was the most exciting thing on earth. My sister and I would run across the prickly lawn and crash down the sea path on the other side of the road, desperate to feel the sand between our toes and to breathe the strange, humid air. The South Coast was a paradise, as exotic as Tahiti. We’d spend our days on nearby Uvongo Beach (pictured below – that’s my dad chasing me). Uvongo is still pretty, but back then the beach had real natural drama. The La Crete Hotel hadn’t yet been demolished for holiday flats and the bizarre luxury development next to the waterfall on the Vungu River hadn’t yet been dumped there to decay. Nature was still boss. Coastal bush dripped from the cliffs and fish darted in the shallows of the lagoon. To my young eyes, the waves that peeled off the pier were ferocious monsters that only the bravest boys would dare to ride. Those boys were my cousins. Three of them, all older than me, who lived in Pretoria. When they were also at the house on holiday, they would disappear into the ocean with their bodyboards for hours on end. I would watch their muscly, sun-brown bodies bobbing in the water and wish I could be like them. (I think one of them might even have been a finalist in Mr Mini Margate…) Litchis, slap chips drenched in vinegar, samoosas from the same smiling Indian lady who sold us samoosas year after year. Sticky fingers. Sandy feet. Lightning over the sea. Waffles to queue for. Napping in the shade of a beach umbrella, utterly spent and utterly happy. In later years I managed to catch some waves of my own on my blue Hot Buttered bodyboard. I introduced school friends and university friends to Uvongo. No parents! We got robbed. We were stupid. In a moody moment, I remember sitting on a bench with Smashing Pumpkins in my ears, just watching the light play on the water until whatever was broken had been fixed. Now I go to Uvongo with my own two boys. I watch them crash down the sea path, desperate to feel the sand between their toes, busy discovering their own private Tahiti. – Jon Minster