Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BEACH (12/05/19)
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TITLE: My Happy Place | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
12/11/19 -
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“Are we there yet?”
“Peter, if you ask me one more time, I swear I will turn this car around…”
Silently I sniggered. I knew there was no way that was happening. We’d been in the car for 12 hours, there was no way my father was turning around now; not with less than an hour to go.
Silence descended once more in the Ford Zephyr. I wound my window down as my mother lit two cigarettes and handed one off to my father. I hated the smell of tobacco, and it would not take much to make me car sick.
I stuck my head out, lifted my head to the sun and closed my eyes, letting the wind tousle my hair and remove the stench of smoke and tobacco. Wait? What was that? I sniffed, and sniffed again. Salt? And that sound?
I stuck my head back in the car. “I think I hear seagulls,” I exclaimed.
My father wound his window down and stuck his head out. “Yep. You’re right. It won’t be long now.”
My brother and I bounced around on the spacious back seat, and high-fived each other. It had been a long journey. In fact, it had been a long year starting with our move from England to South Africa, which involved 14 days at sea, three more on a train, then a month in a hotel whilst my parents got their jobs settled, bought a house and a car, enrolled the two of us in new schools where we had to make friends, and learn at least two different languages.
Finally the Zephyr rolled down a long hill and the horizon opened up in front of us; the Indian Ocean danced and sparkled in all its glory. The ocean was nothing new to us, we’d grown up 30 miles from Great Yarmouth in England, but to come to the beach in December? To swim in December? To listen to Christmas carols extolling the virtues of snow when it was summer? This was new! Novel.
We pulled up to the place we’d call home for the entire month. Peter and I dashed off while our parents unloaded and got everything settled. Seaview, the place our parents had chosen, lived up to its name. Two minutes of walking got us on the beach itself, a long stretch of pure white sand, perfect for sandcastles. We both removed our sandals and ran down to the ocean’s edge. We were used to the cold North Sea water, nothing prepared us for the balmy Indian Ocean. I was in heaven!
We ‘braaied’ on the beach, my father even made our Christmas turkey on the braai. It was a life completely different to what we had known, and we loved it. Every December for the next decade we made the 13-hour drive from Pretoria to Seaview to experience Christmas on the beach.
I have travelled a lot since those early days, and I have visited many beaches on three continents, but there is something special about the first time I ran down to the Indian Ocean and dabbled my toes in its turquoise waters. And I am never happier than when I can sit on a beach, digging my toes into the sand and watch the rhythm of the waves.
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