Two Bits – 22 April 2016

It’s interesting to look at the place where we live through others’ eyes, and this week I had an opportunity to look at Ballito through the eyes of the Afrikaans TV channel, Kyknet.
Kyknet’s Kwêla programme is running a countrywide search for the Town of the Year and has shortlisted a couple of dozen likely candidates, chosen from towns that have fewer than 500 000 inhabitants in any of the provinces, including Namibia. Previous winners include Graaff-Reinet, Sabie, Middelburg and De Rust.
Kwêla sent a camera team here early in the year and caught up with some of the things that make Ballito a great place to live and visit. Among the locals they spoke to was Joslyn Walker of the Wow Zulu tourism initiative, who among other things, recommended snorkeling in our tidal pools as a special experience.
The presenter loved Thompson’s Bay for its pool and iconic hole in the wall natural rock formation, and also featured microlight flights, the Ndlondolo snake park and Crocodile Creek as places for the tourist to visit.
If you have never experienced a microlight flight along our coast on a sunny day, you’re missing a great experience. Some of my loveliest photos of the region have been taken from the back seat of Dave Jackson’s lightweight plane. It’s great fun and quite a thrill.
Of course a big drawcard for the area is the annual Ballito Pro surf competition, which brings some of the best surfers in the world to perform on our beaches.
They spoke to a number of visitors about Ballito and the answers were invariably the lovely warm sea, the manageable surf, the tidal pools being ideal for families with children, the restaurants and the friendly vibe. They like the locals!
The winner will be decided on SMS votes, so send the name Ballito to 33157 before May 17 and the town could be the winner of R1 million worth of marketing on DSTV.
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Have you ever thought that your choice of newspaper can identify your political leanings, or lack thereof? That a look at this:
* Isolezwe is read by the people who run the country.
* Business Day is read by people who think they run the country.
* The Mail & Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country.
* City Press is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t understand The Mail & Guardian.
* The Mercury is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could spare the time from fishing and bridge.
* Die Burger is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
* The Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country.
* You magazine is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country, as long as they do something scandalous.
* Bona magazine is read by people who aren’t sure there is a country, or that a country is a good idea in the first place.
* The Cape Times is read by people who live in the Western Cape, which readers of the other newspapers don’t think is part of the country.
And of course, readers of The North Coast Courier know that they live in the very best part of the continent, and all that is important is that they get their Courier every week.
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I went to see the doctor the other day and asked, “Have you got anything for wind?” So he gave me a kite.