Market Friday - Discovering a Jewel on a Casual Day.

almost 3 years ago

Today is #MarketFriday, a project initiated by @dswigle, and this post is my contribution to this project for this week.

To learn more about this project and participate, visit today's post by @dswigle.

Last weekend, we felt like just having a calm, casual day on Saturday.

It was a cool cloudy, day. I thought it would be a good idea to go for a nice, steady walk through the forest in the Umhlanga Nature Reserve. The reserve has been closed for quite some time since the looting in 2021. I wanted to see if we could get access to it again, and then maybe treat ourselves to nice soft-serve ice cream at STEERS afterward.

Umhlanga Rocks is a popular holiday destination in South Africa, facing the warm water of the Indian Ocean on the east coast of South Africa.

It offers great accommodation and lots of activities to do and to see.

The Umhlanga Nature Reserve is located right at the end of the road that is filled with luxurious holiday resorts.

We found parking outside the Breakers Resort, the very last resort right at the end of the road next to the reserve.

Here is a street view of the resort from the front.

Current accommodation rates at the time of writing this post range between $429.00 to $574.00 for 6 nights at the Breakers Resort.

As the Umhlanga Nature Reserve was still out of bounds, we decided to go for a casual stroll around the area.

We took one of the walkways that lead down to the beach, passing in between some of these holiday resorts.

This enabled us to go around the resort and we ended up behind the Breakers Resort, from where you can get access to the beach.

In the next photo, you can see the Breakers Resort from behind.

They also have their own private fun/entertainment area here.

You also find a beach volleyball area here for the volleyball fans.

From here you also have a beautiful view of the nature reserve and the wetland bordering the holiday resort.

Standing here, you are surrounded by beautiful greenery and colorful flowers...

But this is where we also made a great discovery...a new walking trail that we haven't seen before (which would lead us to another great discovery).

This "nature walking trail" is maintained by the Breakers Resort but it is open to the public. From here you can get access to both the beach and the nature (walking) trail

This trail then led us to the discovery of another jewel that we didn't even know existed...the Forest Cafe, with Bike and Bean being appointed to operate the Forest Cafe located at the northern end of the boardwalk, which extends from the Umhlanga Promenade into the Umhlanga Lagoon Nature Reserve.

This is the Forest Cafe, right in the center of the forest, away from all the hustle and bustle of city life. Here you can sit down and choose from a variety of meal and beverage options while you enjoy the peace...the tranquility of nature all around you.

The prices on the menu ranged from R32.00 ($1.80) for something to drink (a small Americano), to R56.00 ($3.16) for a nice meal (Chicken Mayo-and-Avo Baguette).

Not expecting to make this wonderful discovery, we left our wallets in the car and could only feast our eyes on this lovely little place.

Believe me, we will return...or how do they say? "We'll be
back!"😄

From here, this is the view of the boardwalk going back. This is the view and the atmosphere that you will enjoy over the next 1 KM (with some frequent views over the ocean) before you arrive back at the Breakers Resort and other holiday resorts.

So, we arrived back at the car, and seeing that our wallets remained in the car until now, we decided to still make that pit stop at STEERS as planned.

You have a choice of where you would like to go...

We stuck with our decision of STEERS and we had the place to ourselves...

We both treated ourselves to a delicious STEERS soft-serve ice cream (yes, both my wife and I are still suckers for soft-serve ice creams...lol) and the total cost involved for the 2 ice creams was a whopping R15.80 ($0.89)...lol.