After our animal adventures it was time for a bit of rest and relaxation. We had heard that some of the best beaches of South Africa were to be found in the local municipality of Kouga (I know what you’re gonna say- it’s too easy), so we headed along the coast to one of the world’s best surf spots- Jeffrey’s Bay. After a quick breakfast in a local surf cafe, we made our way down for some sun, sand an sea.

We were armed with a map and a GPS, which still didn’t prevent me from navigating us to the wrong spot and almost allowing Josh to enter a dangerous, rocky rip current not fit for swimmers. “But this is definitely Dolphin beach!” Luckily a local hippie saw us and came over to explain that Dolphin beach was in fact 1km down and if we didn’t want to die a painful death being dragged into the sea never to be found again, it was advisable for us to take our pasty British beach bods in that direction.

Take two and by this point I had lost Josh’s trust and he was having none of it so he headed straight to the bar for a relaxing beer instead. Meanwhile I skipped along to the beach ready to immerse myself in the Indian Ocean and give this tan-accelerating oil a run for its money. However, when I walked up to the shore I was greeted by lines of blue bottle jellyfish. All dead granted, but still pretty scary. And on top of that the water was so cold from the wind that I was put off the whole swimming experience.

No matter, I could still get my tan on. However, the problem with surf spots is that to get waves you need wind and we had arrived in J-Bay on what we later found out was one of the windiest days of the year. So after 15 minutes of trying to ignore sand being blown into my nose, ears, eyes, etc., I gave up and headed to the bar only to find Josh (who was already sticking out for being the whitest man on the Eastern Cape) sitting in the shade in his jumper. Next to the half naked surfer dudes that walk around with their surf pants half falling off and the bikini clad beach babes this really was an unexpected sight.

So we had a relaxing morning of reading/blog writing by the beach and after a stop over at the tourist office to get ideas for the next few days we found ourself enjoying the local fish and seafood at a nice restaurant on the beach. What an amazing lunch – right by the sea. And as we watched these beautiful views we decided we had to get back to the beach and brave the ocean. “Don’t worry about the jellyfish”, another local surfer told us (this town is inhabited purely by hippies/surfers), “you are more likely to get attacked by a shark here. And just be careful about the rip current and the rocks.” Ok cool so only four death traps in one Ocean, that’s cool. Nothing we can’t handle.

But no shark infested waters would stop us from getting our bragging rights to having swum in the Indian Ocean (accompanied by the even more important Facebook hashtag). As we approached Josh unleashed himself into the water and if it hadn’t have been for his bright red neck (turns out a Brit can get sunburnt even when wearing a jumper), I wouldn’t have been able to tell him from the white foam of the waves. I was soon to follow, although my dip literally lasted one minute as I was cold and quickly distracted by a young man doing push ups at the shore.

A short, but pleasant beach experience and now we were well rested and ready for our next adventure!