Sandboarding the West Coast in South Africa


Picture Gallery

Mention boarding in South Africa and I’ll bet the last image that comes to mind will be of a snowboarder laying fresh tracks along a virgin slope. Local adrenaline junkies are however swopping sand for snow, so there’s no need to book that return ticket to Kitzbuhel just yet.


If you happen to head out along the curve and swerve of that beautiful strip of tarmac tripping past Gordon’s Bay and Rooi Els, you’ll eventually encounter a turn-off to a small dorpie by the name of Pringle Bay. Hit a hard right here and take a slow cruise along the main drag until the tar road peters out into an eroded strip of red dust and stone.

Right about now you should notice the looming presence of a monster of a mountain, topped with a formidable overhang, skylining away to your left. And rising up from the Cape coastal plains like a scene from the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, you’ll see the trippy colours and low slung buildings of the legendary Hangklip Hotel, haunt of the hardebaarde of the Cape South Coast.

It is within the shade of this monolithic mountain that giant crayfish dwell and gargantuan great whites cruise the big blue. Step beyond the hotel stoep and you might encounter sharks of a different kind - hard-drinking students and perlemoen divers prop up the bar while innocent-looking sylphs circle the pool table in short dresses, waiting to take you for a fast fifty bucks quicker than you can flick a Bic.

Now, if you are planning on getting in a full day of sandboarding, mutter a few Hail Mary’s and drive on past, avoiding this horribly addictive watering hole and instead continuing along the dirt road traversing the coastline towards Betty’s Bay. As you round the mountain, towering dunes of white sand will hove into view below the rugged peak of Hangklip, presenting you with a selection of premium grade sandboarding slopes.

On my first day of play in the dunes, we had never heard of stand-up sandboarding and whatever equipment came to hand had to suffice (in this case, it was a boogie board, although we later twigged that a smooth length of plywood does the job even better). All you need to do is step onto the lower slopes and face up to gravity as you skyline for a killer view across the False Bay coast line.


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And trust me on one thing; a dune always seems three times higher when you’re standing at the top than it does before you start the long and winding climb. But once you’ve peaked, it’s a wild ride all the way - get down on your stomach ...

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In order to get your kicks, you first have to deal with the step-exerciser from hell, but once you hit the summit, it is all play and no work as you lay fresh tracks along the face of the dune. Despite the harder, formica base of moder ...

Sandboarding is an accessible, four-season activity
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And if you decide to swap the surf for sub-zero temperatures along powder slopes, snowboarding should satisfy your need for dangerous speed. One of boarding’s benchmark sports, it has developed a global following amongst the hard core ...

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And if you’re willing to brave the desert heat, trek north into the Namib, the oldest desert on Planet Earth. With some of the world’s highest dunes near Sossusvlei and Walvis Bay, this rates as the ultimate challenge to many sand-boar ...