Roadtrip Day 4: Shelley Beach to Howick via Durban

Leaving Shelley Beach: 1623km since we left Cape Town

After a wonderful long walk on Shelley beach, which we had almost to ourselves, we drove up to Durban to dig up and sort through my past a little. Verdict: Not quite as grand or exotic as we thought (Durban or my past).

Regarding Durban, so much has changed and not much of it good. But that is progress, I guess.

Changing street names, a curious New SAfrican affliction, seems to have reached epidemic proportions in Durban. I just have to ask: What was so offensive about ‘West Street’? Whose idea was it to change the well-known, familiar and (probably quite unpolitical, for most people) Moore Street to the less familiar, highly political Che Guevara? You have to wonder how many people know or care who these people were. It is very hard to understand that this is what local bureaucrats are spending time and money on in a place with so many real problems!

Just for the sake of variety let me add some facts here:

In 2009, Durban renamed Moore Road (originally named in honour of colonial era British General Sir John Moore) to Che Guevara Road, in honour of the Latin American revolutionary.

We went to look at Durban’s new World Cup stadium and agree that it is stunning. The jury was divided on whether Durban’s stadium is better than Cape Town’s.

It is interesting that it is being built across the road from the Old Kings Park, aka the Shark Tank. The contrast is pretty impressive. The big, ugly and quite threatening Shark Tank looks like something from the Soviet era: the new stadium (the so-called egg basket) looks very modern and quite Olympian with its combination of power and grace.

Something we don’t do in South Africa is crow about stuff like this. In Europe, the architects’ names would be on every ones’ lips. Hands up anyone who has heard of iBhola Lethu (designer of Durban’s glorious new stadium). You heard it here first! (Green Point Stadium in Cape Town: GMP Architects)

Then to the Valley of a Thousand Hills, or at least past it. Beautiful, rolling hills of lush, silky grass and sugar cane being caressed by the wind.

Then a night with my mum in Howick, complete with fish and chips and a pint at 68 on Main, a place where everyone knows your name. It is cheap, friendly, local and reliable.