Kayking to a Giant Bhuddhist Temple

Okay, the headline is better-sounding than its accurate.

Its like this: on the weekend I went on a kayaking trip on the Wilge River near the town of Bronkhorstspruit, about 2 hour's drive from Jozi, with the Dabulamanzi Kayak Club. I rode a Wild Water kayak (pictured left) for the first time. The location was beautiful, and on the first day I did an eskimo roll, and then made it all the way down the series of rapids only coming out when I intended to.

Then that evening I drank a couple of beers and had a glass of wine and the next day: good bye kayak skills, hello cold water.

Beautiful campsite and a long grassy meadow with the background sound of running water for doing hours of sunny reading provided one of those still sessions I need after months in big bad joburg.

Funny side story: I took a dry bag down with me, and forgot to put my cell phone in it ... fished it sopping out of my pocket on the other end after having been swimming for minutes in the water, dried it out in the sun, put it back together and .... Sim-Card fried, but the phone worked first time. Its an ancient Nokia 6230i with a couple of lives its already shedded. Impressive!

And the buddhist temple? It is called the Nan Hua Temple, and it is a vast but beautifully-built construction in Bronkhorstspruit which I visited on my way back home. It felt as authentic as anything I've seen in China or Nepal, although a little more out of place. It was built by the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order as their main temple in Africa, and its new - it was only completed in 2005. The sight of black men in traditional Buddhist monks' robes was a refreshing one.