Coast to coast

Something magical happens to your head when you start packing for a seaside holiday. And when you crest that hill after a long journey, the brightest light bulb in the car shouts, "There's the sea!" And everyone goes gaga: it's buckets and spades and The Summer of '42 and Beach Party and sunburnt noses and stolen snogs behind the rocks all over again. Now the rush is on for a patch of ground along the 3 000-odd kilometre coastline of South Africa. Everyone seems to want to live by the sea. Authors Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit went to the South African beach in the spring of 2005. They stayed there for more than two months, travelling the entire course of South Africa's coastline from Alexander Bay to Kosi Bay. "Coast to Coast" celebrates the seaside South Africa they found. Join them on a pictorial journey covering the whole coastline. Along the way, the authors dig into history and legend, meet all sorts of colourful coast-dwellers, and showcase slices of life in coastal towns and cities.
Their lavish photographs and lively anecdotes cover a range of seaside topics, including shark cage diving, polo estates, penguin antics, shipwrecks, whale watching, Wild Coast beach hiking, baboon management, coastal township life, and the wonders of the St Lucia Wetland complex. Meet the people they came across. Share the good light with them. Feel the heat. Stick your toe in both oceans, throw back your head and laugh like no one's watching. Life is sometimes just a bowl of oysters.