The South End

The South End of Ponta d'Ouro

- 2 & 4 September 2013 -

One morning I woke up relatively early and took a walk to the beach. Scott and Mike were still fast asleep, but I wanted to catch the day as it began. 

Ponta d'Ouro stands for (Point of Gold) so I thought it was fitting to visit the "point". This end of the beach is covered by rock which is always interesting. I like wandering through the rock pools looking at all the interesting growths and creatures hidden between them.

This end of the beach is relatively busy in comparison, surfers love this spot and the dive camps launch their boats from here, you will also find a combination of beach restaurants and bars.

Turns out the sea was still descending to a low tide. The level of activity here is evident from the footprints in the sand, there isn't smooth sandy beaches but more a bumpy surface made of a beach goers feet, dog feet and tyre tracks.

As I was there early in the morning, the tide'd beach area only had a few footprints, but as the day progresses this area will soon he covered with "prints" of life too.

I was on the beach the previous day during high tide walking around on the rocks on this end, it is a "sharp" affair, especially when walking barefoot, however I came prepared with my Crocs to assist me here, so I was free to explore the rocky pools without fear of blood.

There are weird crater like formations in the rocks which are almost alien like. I stood here a while admiring the waves breaking on rocky edge, while watching a surfer head out for he's morning run.

Soon I was back to exploring the rocks.

When on the beach the previous day I tried getting round the "point", but getting around here is a tricky affair at high tide, but this morning it was easy, I peered down the beach which in the distance I could see the South Africa side of the beach, but quickly turned back.... I'd leave this for another day. I continued roaming the rocky water edge.

It has been a while since I visited the waves on this end of Southern Africa, so I have fallen behind on the surfing trends. I notice that a new form of surfing as emerged.... "paddle surfing". Although it looks strange when watched from a distance, something like people walking on the water, as paddling out to sea is done standing on a surf board, it appears to be a successful evolution of the sport, the paddle helps immensely with the "catching the wave" part.

It was time to head back home, I needed some breakfast so I snapped up of a photo of a crater that ironically looked like a fish and headed to the lodge.

2 days later Scott and myself headed out again to the south end of the beach, with the specific purpose of walking to South Africa on the beach. This day low tide was now earlier than before so we timed the trip to coincide with lowest sea level. 

Getting to the border meant walking around the "point" and down the beach for about 2 km. Getting to Ponta d'Ouro from the official border post is about a 30 minute drive on sandy roads, but getting to South Africa via the beach is closer than one would think.

Both Scott and myself have never encountered a border on the beach so we were interested as to what to expect. There is no official border post, so what is there? Is there a sign saying South Africa / Mozambique border? Are there officials wandering around preventing people from crossing the border illegally? 

Getting to the South Africa side, we had to cross the rocky terrain once again.... I didn't mind, it is very beautiful here.

Soon we were on the beach heading to the border, at this point everything seemed deserted.

Clearly this side of the beach is much less crowded than the beach around the corner, but we did find some fisherman wandering around. 

We continued down the beach for about 2km all the while checking on Google Maps to see when we arrive at the border. On the hill next to the beach is a strange looking tower and a couple of houses, but still we couldn't find anything representing that this is the border between South Africa and Mozambique. Other than the fisherman we spotted, there is no person in sight.

We stood on the border (according to Google Maps and Apple Maps) admired the view a bit. According to the maps we were in South Africa, but after hanging around for about 20 minutes decided to head back to Mozambique (which was a couple of steps away).

I was quite surprised not to find anything resembling a border. I wonder if I had to continue walking towards South Africa, would I reach Kosi Bay unobstructed? Either way it didn't matter, we had come to visit Mozambique and not South Africa.

Soon we had passed the rocks agains and were heading home to wake Mike up. We were hungry and wanted breakfast. We had been to South Africa and back!