#Wednesday Walk - A Warm, Humid Day at the Cave Rock Monument, Brighton Beach, Durban.

This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, @tattoodjay (of the #wednesdaywalk) and @elizacheng (of #makemesmile) decided to make it a weekly thing.

If you want to know more about the rules, visit this post by @tattoodjay where you will find all the rules at the bottom of his post after you've enjoyed his beautiful photos from his walk.

It was the first time in my life that I have seen a beach in the Durban area like this during the peak holiday season. Any beach in the Durban area for that matter. Normally, during this time of year, the peak holiday season, all the beaches would be so crowded there wouldn't be space left for a mouse...

But the beaches we went to, were deserted with very little activity going on.

On January 4, we decided to get out of the house and see if we could get access to any of the beaches in the area.

Normally we would avoid the beaches during the holiday season due to all the beaches being crowded as mentioned above.

This time though, the majority of beaches were still closed due to contamination. Due to the floods that we had last year (and in my opinion, bad maintenance too), the sewage systems couldn't handle the pressure and rivers got polluted which then washed down to the ocean. This resulted in all the beaches being closed due to contamination.

Much has been said about the situation and I don't really want to discuss the matter here. The purpose of my posts is to explore and share the positives in Durban and the surrounding areas.

We were aware that some of the main beaches in Durban have been reopened, so that was already a big "no-no" for us, as we knew it would be crowded.

So, we headed out to Brighton Beach. To be exact, we went to the Cave Rock Monument at Brighton Beach, which is in the Bluff, Durban, South Africa.

This brings me back to my statement earlier...that "I have never seen a beach like this during the peak holiday season"...

It was beautiful...but deserted because the beach was closed and no swimming was allowed.

In my first photo, you can see Brighton Beach with its tidal pool. You can also see in this photo that the beach is deserted and that even the tidal pool is closed off and no swimming is allowed.

Standing on the beach, next to the entrance to the tidal pool, looking out over the ocean. In this photo, you can see that the tidal pool is clearly off limits and no swimming is allowed here.

Looking slightly more to the left, focusing more on the ocean.

I turned my attention more toward the northern side of the beach where the Cave Rock Monument can be found. You can read more about the history of the Cave Rock Monument if you click on the link above.

From here, you have a clear view of the Cave Rock Monument.

On our way to the Cave Rock Monument, a rocky beach area formed small pools on our way to the Cave Rock Monument.

I found a little fish swimming in one of these pools.

Getting closer to the Cave Rock Monument...

Zooming in a bit more...

This is all that is left of a huge sandstone formation that once stood here, forming a landmark for centuries. That was until it was dynamited in the 1940s by the South African War Department.

According to the Facebook Page of Durban Walking Tours... "The story goes that the rock was dynamited in the 1940s by the South African army because it blocked the path of the gun placed on the Bluff to protect the port of Durban from German submarines and it was considered a recognizable landmark by the enemy."

For the next photo, I stood in the hollow space that you can see to the left in the last two photos above.

I turned around and took these photos of the ocean from behind the sandstone rock.

From here we went further north toward Ansteys Beach. Although it is within walking distance for a nice walk and forms part of the same beach, it doesn't fall under Brighton Beach anymore.

Arriving at Ansteys Beach, looking down toward the beach, there was a bit more of a "holiday feeling" here, with some people relaxing on the beach, although no swimming was allowed here either.

Looking down south, back in the direction of Brighton Beach, some more individuals in the distance, just relaxing on the beach.

For my last two photos, we got back in the car though, as we wanted to go to Amanzimtoti on the South Coast.

Going down to Winkle Spruit, I got this shot of the beach.

With a temperature of 30+ degrees Celcius and high humidity levels, I looked up and couldn't resist taking this shot of what was the only evidence of clouds.

And that's it for today, folks.

Thank you for reading my post! I do appreciate it!