Durban Travel & Surf Guide

About Durban Surf Travel

One of the epicenters of the South African surf scene, from Shaun Tomson to Jordy Smith, Durban has turned out generations of world-class surfers. Exposed to powerful swells generated at the bottom of the world, spots like Cave Rock and New Pier consistently provide a canvas for the area’s surfers to really test their mettle. Situated on South Africa’s east coast, Durban is best known for its stellar beachbreaks. If you’re looking for an alternative to J-Bay and don’t want to deal with the cold water of Cape Town, consider Durban…it’s definitely holding.

Express Point:

The premier wave on Phillip Island, if you get to surf Express at its best, chances are you’ll get one of the barrels of your life. E.P. is a heavy wave – it picks up the full force of any swell marching out of the southern ocean, and unloads it onto a shallow ledge. Make the drop, and prepare to pull in.

The break is quite exposed, and really only handles a NW or northerly wind. Over six feet, the drops aren’t as hairy and you have more time to set up the bowl section. It’s most challenging when you have to take off virtually into the heaving tube section. Make a mistake, and you’ll join the long list of surfers with injuries to body, pride, or board.

The locals have got this place wired, so if you want your wave, show respect and wait your turn – it’s worth the wait. In recent times E.P. has seen a few excellent tow-in sessions, particularly on the lower tides when it’s too sketchy to paddle in.

Phillip Island has a sharky reputation, and justifiably so, but Express seems to be off the menu, so at least that’s one thing you won’t have to worry about when surfing here.

Ansteys:

Just a kilometer from Cave Rock is the slightly mellower Ansteys Beach. Being more user-friendly and offering left and right-hand beachbreak peaks, Ansteys caters for beginners to advanced surfers. Some really good surfers come from Ansteys, like 2007 WCT placer Ricky Basnett and top junior surfer Rudy Palmboom. With plenty of parking and medium beach security, loads of surfers come down to Ansteys on the weekend to get away from all the mayhem on the Durban Town beaches. Ironically this makes Ansteys get pretty crowded as well.

There are a bunch of hard local surfers but they don’t control Ansteys too much. There are some lesser-known spots in the vicinity that are not open to anyone except the locals, and if you find them, park your car and go for a surf you’re running risks. Girls surf Ansteys, longboarders and older guys. It’s a straight paddle from the beach and when it gets big it can be quite a hard paddle. Due to it being favourable on a southerly swell, and the fact that it is east facing, the right-handers are generally the better waves. If the swell has east in it, or is a little bit broken up, then there are sometimes some sick lefts as well.

Cave Rock:

Just on the other side of The Bluff, a few kilometres from the throbbing Durban beachfront scene, exists a very different surfing universe, and the centre of that universe must be the wave known as Cave Rock. A thick, booming barrel over reef, Cave Rock throws some of the biggest barrels around. It’s a gnarly wave, pretty much for experts only, and it can really thump you.

There are two main waves, The Pool and The Rock. The Pool is the section that breaks behind the tidal pool. It gets big and thick, and often ledges out on take off, but the barrel is big and wide. The take – off is gnarly and needs full commitment. The other wave is The Rock, the section that breaks in front of the namesake Cave Rock. The tubes are probably even rounder here, but the bottom is shallow and gnarly. Most of the Cave Rock waves like a medium tide and a sweeping south swell, and is also best in the NW land breeze. A secret about the waves on the Bluff is that when the beastly easterly comes up late mornings, the Bluff is the last place to feel the wind.

The Rock can be surfed up to about 10-foot and maybe even bigger, but you’ll need a big set of figs to paddle out. Either paddle out alongside the tidal pool and pray for a gap, or paddle out from the beach and pray for a similar gap. The sand movement affects the waves, and sometimes on the beachbreak just alongside Cave Rock are some big, slightly less scary barrels. There are sometimes lefts coming through on the beach, and the odd left off the peak at The Pool, but basically Cave Rock offers right-handers on the upper end of the scary scale.

Wedge:

To the south of New Pier is Wedge Beach. Named after a reef that was once a horseshoe enclosure constructed to protect bathers from sharks in the 1950’s. The West Street Groin was erected alongside it that kept the sand off the reef and the rip running. When the groin was removed, the reef got covered up in sand. Now it is an average beachbreak type of wave that forms an intrinsic part of the Durban beachfront.

When the swell has a bit of east in it, or is just a broken up swell, the wedge can provide some of the biggest barrels on the Durban beachfront, and provides rare lefts for the goofy-footers who never get a chance to surf on their forehands. On epic swells the wedge erupts into booming right and left peaks that throw big barrels over the shallow sandbank. More often than not though the wedge tends to close out on a normal swell. When it does have waves it serves the vital function of spreading the crowd. The wedge loves a low tide as with the high tide the wave fattens out and fades towards the pier.

When it is small and running, the wedge is enjoyed by longboarders, shortboarders, girls and boys. When it gets big and barrelling it is recommended for the skilled and competent. When the swell is pushing from the SW there is usually a strong side wash. Caught on the wrong side of the pier after a wipeout could lead to a very heavy trip through the pier. It’s a tight, barnacled-encrusted fit through the pier and people who go through it get cut to pieces and end up in hospital.

No real locals to speak of, the wedge gets filled up with goofy footers who surf new pier and who are tired of surfing on their backhands. The paddle out is a cinch as it is just a jump off the pier into the line-up.

North Beach:

One pier north of the New Pier, North Beach is more consistent, can also get ridiculously crowded, and is over run by longboarders on most small swells. An easy paddle out in the rip alongside the pier or a jump off into the lineup adds to the congestion. With plenty of parking and restaurants right there it is the most convenient location for any weekend surfer. Car guards watch your vehicle while you surf in warm water with very little paddling to be done. Unless, as previously mentioned, there is swell around, then the wash down the beach can get horrendous and you’ll spend your session windmilling against the current. Same as New Pier, the wave at North gets really hollow when it’s bigger, and some of the barrels that come through here are as good as it gets. Mostly it’s a fun wave with rippable walls that can be enjoyed by long boarders, short boarders and body boarders alike.

Inside lefts form up at high tide and are known as the North Bowl. This is a wave that is enjoyed by many of the local bodyboarders and it gets really crowded when it gets good. On the far side of the beach inside rights run up to the Bay Pier. This wave is known as Far Bowl, and gets really good as well, but is strictly a high tide wave. North Beach is the focal point on the Golden Mile, while New Pier is arguably the better wave.

Flowrider:

Durban gets really bad in summer. The wind goes onshore for long periods of time before the cyclone season, bluebottles pull in and jelly fish arrive in their zillions. Instead of surfing one-foot onshore slop with aforementioned painful creatures, there is a 6-foot standing wave of excellent condition barrelling away in the Gateway Theatre Of Shopping.

Designed by Tom Lochteveld, the Flowrider is obviously way different to surfing an ocean wave, but take all the idealistic crit aside, is an excellent way to stay in surfing shape, keep up your reflexes, get barrelled off your dial and meet chicks. The wave house also has a massive screen for the viewing of new surf movies, and has a stage above the wave for new bands to belt out their stuff. There is also a bar upstairs and there have been some great Flowboarding parties in the past.

The left, when turned on, is a perfect peeling left barrel, and the right is pretty much the same. In times gone by they would have been called ‘perfect right and left slides’ but as it is they are funnelling barrels and break over shallow rubber. Boards and bones get broken on regular occasions. Girls hang out at the Flowrider all the times and some of them have got the machine really wired. The water is cold, which is great on those stinking hot summer days; there is no pollution and obviously no sharks. Injuries are common, with a few top surfers not allowed to surf on the Flowrider in case of injuries, and you do need to sign an indemnity form before having a go.

Surf Hazards

The biggest concern when surfing anywhere in South Africa is sharks, thankfully, Durban is a relatively safe surf because it a lot of the beaches are heavily netted by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, making it safer for surfers than the Western Cape’s beaches.

Surf Pollution

Durban has had its fair share of ocean pollution and water quality issues. Big storms can wash plastic and other flotsam and jetsam, while heavy rains bring sewage outflow and urban runoff—spiking bacteria counts. Like most all surf spots around the world, be mindful of water quality after periods of heavy rain.