This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, @tattoodjay (of the #wednesdaywalk) and @elizacheng (of #makemesmile) decided to make it a weekly thing.
If you want to know more about the rules, visit this week's post by @tattoodjay where you will find all the rules at the bottom of his post after you've enjoyed his beautiful photos from his walk.
Last weekend we had to go out toward Durban North for some business and I decided to pay a visit to Virginia Beach at Virginia Airport.
Virginia Airport is a small private airport on the east coast of South Africa, approximately 10 KM north of Durban and about halfway to Umhlanga. The airport is owned by the eThekwini (Durban) Metropolitan Municipality.
For years, the Virginia Airport was home to the Durban Airshow every year. But this came to an end and "The Durban Airshow was eventually permanently canceled due to the close proximity of the crowd line to the runway" according to Wikipedia.
Arriving at Virginia Airport last Saturday morning, it was a hot day with high levels of humidity again...typical Durban weather.
To get to the beach, you have to drive around the airport where you will find a nice little parking area behind the airport, just above the beach.
Driving down alongside the airport on our way to the beach, I pulled over to take this photo to give you an idea of the humidity.
You can also park here and look out over the runway. Any aircraft will either approach you from behind when coming in to land or it will come towards you for take-off, depending on the wind direction.
Normally, you can see to the very end of the runway, but on this day we could barely see halfway up the runway, due to the humidity.
We then continued to the beach behind the airport. Virginia Beach is not really for swimming, but it is popular among fishermen.
Looking out over the ocean just after getting out of the car. In this photo, one of the walkways going down to the beach is also visible.
Looking up north.
In the next photo, we were on one of the walkways, about halfway down to the beach.
Looking up north, the humidity is still visible with the buildings in Umhlanga barely being visible due to the humidity.
The ocean seemed to be relatively calm, but it was as if there was some roughness in the surf...
Standing on the beach, looking down south, the city of Durban is barely visible in the distance (about 10 KM away as mentioned before).
In the next photo, I zoomed in to make the city of Durban more visible.
At times, the sun made some shiny reflections on the surface of the water and I tried to capture it as best I could...
We took a walk up north to where a pier is stretching out into the water...a popular spot for fishermen.
As we approached the pier, the waves started getting bigger and more aggressive... Clearly, the tide was coming in. Take note of how clearly the pillars below the pier are still visible in this photo.
Two currents met behind the pier from where were standing...
I managed to get some nice shots of the fishermen against the background of waves that was getting bigger and bigger.
Notice in the next two photos, how the pier seems to be getting deeper in the water.
We heard the roaring of plane engines and I realized that an airplane was getting ready for take-off.
As you can see in the next photo, the runway was right behind us from where we stood on the beach.
We heard the airplane passing on the runway behind the embankment. But by the time it took off and became visible, it was too far and due to the humidity, I wasn't able to get a clear shot of it.
Back to the fishermen, and standing just above the pier, on the beach, I took the next two photos of the pier and the fishermen against the background of some serious waves coming in.
The elements have clearly taken its toll on this pier over time...
This post is hanging on for dear life...
We decided to walk onto the pier and as we walked onto it, I saw a nice view of Durban...
As I looked down below me, I was reminded of a community I've seen here on Hive, the shadow hunters... and I decided to just have some fun for the moment...lol.
We walked up to the very end of the pier and watched some serious waves coming in...
The waves came thundering toward us and it wasn't too long before I had to take some quick steps back to prevent my camera from getting wet.
Luckily I saw it coming and I was prepared. So I got some nice shots of waves splashing over the pier.
A Moment of calmness while waiting for the next splash.
And then another one...
...and another one...
It started calming down a bit, but there were still some beautiful waves coming in though.
A while later another couple also came walking onto the pier. They had this beautiful little Jack Russel with them.
We couldn't help but pay attention to this friendly little guy...lol.
Some time ago we had three little Jack Russells, but sadly they have left us due to old age.
Currently, I have my dream dog, a bull terrier. She is extremely territorial and we don't want to risk having any other dogs around.
But in all honesty, I can see my wife is yearning for a small little dog again that she can just spoil and hold on her lap.
So, my wife could hardly contain herself when she saw this little fellow...
From there we returned to our car and came back home.
So, that's all for today folks.
Thank you for reading my post! I do appreciate it!
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