#Wednesday Walk - Ballito (PART 2): An Early-morning Walk on the Beach.

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 week's 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.

As I mentioned last week, we had a public holiday on Friday, June 16, and we went to Ballito for the long weekend. In last week's post, I shared how we went for a Peaceful, Late-Afternoon Walk on the Beach in Ballito.

Today, I would like to share our early-morning walk on Saturday morning.

With only holiday accommodation between the beach and the house
that we stayed in, it was just a matter of locking up and going walking on the beach.

The beach is called Clarke Bay. Crossing the road, between the holiday flats, you find the Clarke Bay Life Savers Building. It has been built sideways, with its side facing toward the road.

From here, you pass the front of the building on a paved walkway to get access to the beach.

The first view of the beach...

Being winter here in South Africa, we had sunrise at about 7 am. We arrived on the beach at 7:30 am.

That meant the sun was already up, but it was still low on the horizon...a beautiful sight!

One would normally avoid taking shots toward the sun. You would rather take them with the sun behind you... But I felt adventurous and wanted to see if I could capture some of the beauty that we saw.

Was I successful? I don't know... You decide...

For my first attempt, I hid behind a pillar, trying to avoid getting too much light into my lens...

While we walked down south on Friday, we started our early-morning walk on Saturday going up north.

Up this way, you also find wooden steps, giving you access to the beach at regular intervals, but the railings weren't those rugged round poles as we saw on Friday going down south.

My second adventurous attempt to get the effect of the sun into my photo...looking in the direction of the sun.

Still facing the sun, but focusing a little more north, on the wooden walkway below the holiday accommodation along the beach below.

The beach was beautiful and the ocean was calm...perfect conditions for an early-morning walk.

Looking down south...and away from the sun. A fresh morning...the perfect start to a new day.

Walking back, the walkway stretched out ahead of us with an access point to the beach visible. The walkway continues along the terrace just below all the holiday accommodations.

A boat came cruising by just behind the surf.

We didn't go too far up north, as we wanted to see the tidal pool while the tide was low on Saturday morning. The tidal pool was down toward the southern end...where we walked on Friday.

On our way to the tidal pool, a beautiful view of the ocean.

This was our first view of the tidal pool on Saturday morning.

There was an elderly lady who was having a casual swim in the tidal pool. She gave the impression of being a local resident who believed in her early morning swim session, irrespective of whether it was cold or warm...

The next moment these two airplanes came roaring over us...

Standing just above the tidal pool, looking further down south.

After the lady finished her swimming session and left, I started taking shots of the tidal pool and surrounding area. As you can see in the photo below, the tidal pool was more visible now that it was low tide. On Friday evening, at times you could hardly even see that there was a pool...

A nice little pool with clear water to my right.

I loved the reflection of the rocks in the crystal-clear water.

Going onto the sand, peeping at the ocean from behind the rocks...lol.

Going out in some open space just above the tidal pool.

Just enjoying the surf coming in...

My last adventurous attempt to capture the beauty and atmosphere of the sun over the ocean...

The sun was a bit higher by now, but still, there was this beautiful reflection of the early morning sun on the ocean...

By about 8:30 am, we decided it was time to head back to the house to have some breakfast before going to the market.

My wife has already strolled back toward the walkway and was patiently waiting for me on one of the benches while I was still having fun with the camera.

But even if I didn't see her, it would have been easy to follow her...lol.

And that's it for today, folks!

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