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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 modern-day sandboards, speeds are still not quite up to powder standards, but expert boarders will have no problem launching radical manoeuvres off natural kickers. With the assistance of an instructor, even newbies can soon learn how to tame a dune. And then all you have to worry about is sand up your orifices and how to keep the beers cold under a murderous African sun ... SIDE BAR 1: The Lore of the Board Venture into the great outdoors on any given day and you are bound to experience close encounters of the extreme kind with a growing selection of ladies and lords of the board. Epinephrine, secreted by the adrenal medulla, seems to be the Holy Grail of the new millennium and extreme disciples are exploring increasingly radical ways of pushing the boundaries of adventure. Board sports are certainly at the cutting edge of this trend, moving way beyond the realm of the traditional surfing long board to morph into a multitude of exciting disciplines. Anything goes on land, water and sky - all you have to do is choose your weapon and enter into the Kingdom of the Extreme ... With more than two thirds of our blue planet covered in H2O, it is no wonder that boarding has much of its origin rooted in water. It is in this fluid aqua state that the bond between board and man arguably began, with surfing history dating back as far as the twelfth century. (James Cook encountered islanders on surf boards in Hawaii during the eighteenth century, while lava carvings later discovered on the island depict surfing scenes dating back at least a further nine hundred years). Duke Kahanamoku, the legendary Hawaiian athlete and Olympic swimming champion, introduced the Zen of surfing to the west during the early 1900’s, taming the surf along the Santa Cruz coast of California using his trademark redwood board. Since then, improvements in board design and development have seen a succession of surf gods do just about everything but walk on water. Boarding has however moved way beyond surfing during the past few decades, with other aquatic disciplines grabbing the imagination of dedicated followers around the world. Wakeboarders and kitesurfers take it to the max wherever there is water and wind, while riverboarders don body armour in order to take on towering standing waves in raging river rapids. | 
