Knysna Pearlers Part1

There are festivals dotted all over the country. It’s a simple recipe that’s printed on page 1 of the dummies guide to local tourism authority management.
Step 1: Find your acorn(something unique and abundant in your area)
Step 2: Pick a week(end) of the year during acorn season
Step 3: Find some other stuff to do, when people are bored of acorns
Step 4: Tell everyone in the area to charge double for any acorns(and everything acorn related) during the week
Step 5: Spread the word, and wait for the acorn frenzy (repeat every year, but put price of acorns up)

Hermanus has whales, Lambertsbaai kreef, Riebeck-Kasteel olives, Montagu muscadel, Stellenbosch wine, Grahamstown culture and Oudtshoorn kultuur (aka dronk boere). The list goes on and if you are itchy then this week-end you can head to Calitzdorp for some Port. It’s not unheard of to mission to Calvinia for the vleisfees. There’s a bunch of gypseys following this circus too - selling tannie Marie se kafferwaatlemoenkonfyt, sheepskin slippers, orgasmotrons, coloured sand in jars, catapults and other useless peripheral items.



The Knysna Oyster Festival is one of the big Kahunas on the circuit, with a full 9 day program. Having dabbled on either side of the week before, it was time to send the team there for the whole shebang. It’s billed as a large sporting and fun festival for the whole family – with oysters on the side. Not content to call this a holiday, we managed to squeeze in a few races, including:
85km MTB marathon, 100km Road cycle race, 25km Night MTB race, Xterra off road triathlon, Landrover Waterfront Rush sprint race and the Forest Half Marathon.
With so much material, it’s not feasible to report on it all, so we’ll start with the ‘cultural activities’ in part 1.



Somehow they let me drive a R540k nissan patrol round this hectic course. I had a passenger with a broken collarbone and an instructor who kept telling me to slowdown. What a jol, even if they knew there is NO chance i'll be buying one of these in the next decade.



Not content with running around the forest we jumped into some of the more cultural items too. The Mardi Gras had nothing to do with flashing and bead necklaces, but was actually R150 a head all you can eat and drink gourmet oyster competition. This was only apparent once we snuck inside, and a desperate effort was made to blend in with the surroundings by getting stuck into the available spread. Orange vodka shots(with little oysters), mojito oysters, chocolate chilli oysters, garlic mayo oysters, smoked oysters and (the winning) oysters benedict all got the attentions of the tasting committee. Still not sure what the hell wine estates were doing there, but not complaining. All in all, great training for the Xterra.


the world's biggest tabasco bottle










The one big institution at the festival is the Longbarn Oyster Eating. The stock price for cultivated oysters is R11/8/5 for Large/Medium/Small each. Wild or ‘coastal’ ones are about 30% more, and worth it. The night is split into three events: The pairs, the two dozen and the 10 minute.
Pairs is the main event – you have a shucker (who opens the things with a very sharp tool) and an eater (who consumes them). They had qualifiers on three minutes for a spot in the semis. Top result was 55 from the 7 time winning couple who looked like they were waiting for Jerry Springer to discover them. They went on to win again, but faced harsh competition from Gloria, one of the kitchen staff who could shuck like her job was on the line.
The Two dozen is 24 open oysters pasted liberally with Tobasco(headline sponsors) and then timed. Winning split here was just over a minute.


The 10 minute is a bit of a sideshow, and very very stupid. The current oyster record is 46 dozen, held by the ‘Black Widow’ from the states. Two guys stood up to the plate here, and the kitchen staff were opening oysters like sweat pores after a vindaloo curry. Trays were dumped in front of them by the 5 dozen. Varying techniques of the stab/slurp/gulp/scoop method were employed in this stamina event, and it was apparent early on that the record was a mountain too high for these two. They soldiered on, and returned with fairly respectable totals of just over 27 and 35 dozen each. The skinny dude who had just swallowed 428 of these delicacies in 600 seconds was asked what he was planning on doing for the next week, now that he was champion – “Not eating Oysters, bru” – being the hardly surprising reply.



Now despite the promise of decent weather, Knysna can get quite chilly once the sun goes down. Living in a concrete nuclear fallout bunker, we got the brunt of frosty mornings. The upshot was that it actually snowed enough for us to get some snowboarding in. Being spoilt with endless terrain in large resorts, a run with 10m vertical was met with slight derision and there’s no alpine sports coverage on local medical aids. Even worse they had some really kak boards with soft edges and loose bindings. Throw in 60 Brandhouse reps who have been on the company sauce all day to dodge and you actually have a challenging run. Needless to say, our athletes looked like Shaun White in that crowd, and the local ski school were very impressed. They even offered us some free lift tickets, which was odd as we weren’t paying anyway.

While some would say that golf is actually a sporting event, they usually change their mind once they see John Daly.
course was in magnificent condition, except for the bunkers
The third annual Dave Invitational Beach Golf Challenge took place on Sunday the 15th with contestants proudly striding out from Uncle Tom’s to the course with a full belly. Sh1t Steve and Dirk came through the qualifying round the previous day after opting out of the run and focusing on this event instead, Cool Steve still carries exemption as 2005 winner and Dave is of course patron of the challenge. Defending champion Geofferson was not present due to him being a techno IT geek.
the view of the clubhouse

All present swore that their Beach Golf membership dues were fully paid up, amidst protest of an archaic and totally autocratic governance body.

The ongoing drive debate was hotly contested with the safe ‘floater’ technique employed by most. The odd ‘skipper’ sent a low flying ball all over the show, with mixed success. The first hole was split by Dave and Sh1t, Cool came back with the next two before a rally on the back three brought the final hole up with Cool and Dave ahead by one. Sh1t could force a playoff if he clinched the hole, a scorching par 10. Alas Dave held his nerve with a solid third shot thudding right next to the brown, and the goose was cooked. His request for a victory dance in this his inaugural triumph was turned down due to a mad dash to the finals of the waterfront rush.


Dave ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 3
Sh1t ½ 0 0 0 ½ 0 1
Dirk 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Cool 0 1 1 0 0 0 2

The town has apparently returned to a crawl, look out for part two next week.