Chris Allan

I think this is the 2nd time I have been lucky enough to spend time in Knysna over the Oyster festival. It is of course and easily justified holiday when your mom lives there, sends through an action packed itinerary, and it is possible to combine the eating and drinking with one or more of the great athletic events they line up every year.

This year we took part in the “Salomon Featherbed Trail Run”, the “Pick and Pay Knysna Half marathon”, and the “Four Meter Bathroom Sprint Enduro”. The first two were outstanding events and had competitors giddy with endorphins and grimacing in pain. The last event had competitors grimacing in pain only. First we blamed bad oysters but apparently a particularly enraged and contagious virus was at fault. Whatever it was seafood was definitely off the menu for a few days, and at least we didn’t gain the standard kg a day from overindulging.

The gallery below is once again shot, and edited on my iPhone. I promise to return to images shot on a DSLR soon … but for now I am just wallowing in touch screen bliss…

Have a great week.

Chris

I am converted. The dark side has a firm grip and I am a willing captive. Bring on the Maclifestyle. The i-everything.

While I do miss the fiddly little keys of the Blackberry, the no nonsense, solid, businesslike feeling of operating on my trusty old Bold, it doesn’t even enter the ring when it comes to multimedia and rad apps.

Lately I have been that annoying plonker, that holds his phone up at every opportunity to take a photo. Life through the eyes of a digital sensor. But moments that would not have been possible to capture with a heavy, obvious DSLR are now within my grasp! And the best part is that I can edit it within seconds, and distribute it within minutes. What a jol.

All the photos in this blog were taken with the Iphone.

Below are:
-An adventure down to Pennington on the South Coast for a stunning 22km trail run in a place that seems to be happily existing somewhere between 1950 and 1990.
-General beautiful moments on the North Coast

And

Finally we managed to get to “Impulse By The Sea!”
If you are looking for a genuine Durban Curry done well, this place is recommended. Just as when you visit India, the restaurant has a TV that is always tuned to a Bollywood classic or wonderfully cheesy Hindi music video. There is just the right amount of tacky decoration from a man size egyptian hookah pipe, to golden Buddhas and beer advertisements.
The owner was great, full of smiles and happy to have us. The food was good, favourite curries being the paneer curry, and the chicken and prawn combo. The level of heat can be moderated for those with insides not coated in a heat resistant substance.

Be well

Chris

I am still recovering (moaning, limping, feeling sorry for myself) from the biggest (as in most people take part) ultra marathon in the world. And it feels good.

Good that it is done and dusted. Good to be able to do one of the hundreds of other adventurous things people on the coast do at 5:30 am every morning other than running. (Like turn over in bed.) Good that I won’t have to apply generous ammounts of vaseline to sensitive areas, before taking off along the asphalt and mostly good to not have to plan 5 runs a week. Every week. For… like.. ever.

It was one of the most “South African” of experiences I have ever taken part in. Beautiful, colourful, surprising, painful… and that just describes some of the people on the route.

Am I going to rush back to do it again next year? No, I don’t think so.
Would I recommend it to anyone else… every time. But not for the athletic achievement of it. For the chance to do an event in an African landscape that changes from city, to leafy suburb, to rural valleys and farms, to bushveld and finally to city again. For the chance to run next to people you wouldn’t normally bump into, or spend time chatting to. To have people cheering for you for most of the daylight hours in a day.

I felt like a hero every step of the way. Proportionally advantaged mammas ululated while tea sipping tannies cheered and clapped wildly on the side of the road, and thousands of kids ran up and down the roads calling out unhelpful but well intentioned things like “Run faster! Run faster!” and “Almost there!” at kilometer 35.

KZN has a lot to offer. And The Comrades Marathon is a great way to get a proper kaleidoscopic taste of it. So do it!

I will be cheering wildly for you… from the side.

One more thing… when you come to KZN, spend some time in a few of the rad eating spots. Here is my next installment on great places to chow in KZN:

Ciao Bella

http://www.eatout.co.za/restaurants/6462/durban/deli-italian/ciao-bella-restaurant

Can be found in Durban proper. Right opposite the entrance to the docks, (162 Mahatma Gandhi) it is mostly visited by business types that work in the area for lunch. The bigger tables usually arrive and someone loudly pats himself on the back for introducing his mates to this pearl while ordering focaccia’s.

If you like Italian food, you have to try Ciao Bella. Run by the passionate, Italian and gorgeous Donatella, you will be hard pressed to find better Italian grub anywhere. We ate every last morsel on our plates and had there not been anyone else in the restaurant would have licked our plates clean.

Colourful historical buildings run alongside the restaurant and it is close to both the beach front and Ushaka - so give it a try. Tell Donna Chris sent you. But don’t expect a discount, she’ll probably charge you more.

I have to make this quick. Mostly because the day is only getting hotter and the beach beckons.

We recently made an executive decision to start living the beach bum life we were being accused of living whenever we visited Jozi. So now we own a beach umbrella, a bat and ball and the fishing rod sits in the garage, ever ready for more expensive, spectacularly unsuccessful, and yet wonderfully cathartic piscatorial endeavors.

So what has been happening? 

Well first the Nikon spluttered and coughed up a cloud of dust collected in Indian deserts, Thai jungles, and Indonesian beaches. I had been waiting for this. The poor thing was dragged around the world and then has been worked like industrial mining equipment in an effort to get photographic businesses going back in SA. So it deserves the hospital time it is currently enjoying. Nikon South Africa played out of their boots by supplying me with a loan camera body while they wait for parts from the east, and we have had a few more week long photographic tours up to Joburg where we have shot everything from sandwiches to city buildings.

Recently the new kid on the block, the brushed metal (survive a nuclear fallout), big dog, “Apple Mac Pro”, took its cue from the sickly Nikon D700 and had to be sent in for surgery. The only reason for mentioning this is that while I am comfortable here on the dark side, enjoying my new found powers (and yes Luke, the Dark Side is more powerful) I thought that all the PC guys and girls out there would be relieved to know that even an Apple Mac, can for no apparent reason just stop working. And, as with PC’s this is generally right before a deadline. Ah well…

In other news the Double A Images team finally finished what turned out to be a 5 month, fairly intense photographic project, and passed with flying colours. Happy client. Happy team. High fives all round. Some of the behind the scenes images below:

Then the Peppermintpix duo, got to shoot the ultimate wedding up in Mozambique. While gorgeous clouds billowed across the beaches, the ridiculously good looking couple made photos a cinch before heading up into the local village to shoot in a location unique enough to have photographers drooling and burning their way through memory cards. Only the torrential rain managed to end the photo session and it was time for champagne and prawns. When work, is fun… photos below:

So we are keeping busy. But still we need to market and shoot in new areas for new people. Any ideas? Please drop me a mail on christopherallan@gmail.com

Hope you are well,
Chris

Photographer
Travel - People - Places 

0027 834413144
www.chrisallanphoto.com
www.2aimages.co.za
www.peppermintpix.co.za 

So apparently my recently adopted province doesn’t rank particularly high up in the opinions of the high brow restaurant critics that frequent the obvious choices, Joburg and Cape Town.

Well I may not be considered an aficionado but I have a list of culinary credentials, esculent experiences and puffed up opinions that might add some weight to some written words on restaurant adventures in KZN:

I once braaied a freshly caught kingfish behind a landrover tyre, in the beach sand by moonlight, with nothing but a few coals, a stick and a half a lemon. (Extra points for sheer coolness)
I have eaten a deep fried cricket (and consider this to be the lowest point from which to make culinary comparisons)
I have eaten food off the side of the street in India.. and lived. (Although it was a close call.)
I once ate a meal in the Italian countryside that must have had about a hundred courses, and included wild boar. (I lost count after the 3rd pasta dish and started hallucinating from stomach pain after a while.)
I consider there to be such a thing as a perfect cheese and tomato sandwich, (but have only tasted it once at a small take away shop next to a petrol station near Gariep dam.)
I display particular skill at “whipping something up from whatever is in the fridge” and have been called a “Fridge Fast Food Ninja” on more than one occasion.
I have rolled sushi, thrown pasta at a wall, flipped a pancake (as per the classic pancake flip technique), roasted quail (poor little buggers), baked beer bread, felt the burn of a fresh chilli on my eyelids (and other sensitive places) and even boiled an egg so perfectly I almost cried with happiness.
I have cookbooks by Jamie Oliver, Nigella and Justin Bonello, and I have even read parts of them.

So I have an opinion about food… good, bad and ugly.

And I think there are some kief places to eat food and drink coffee in KZN.

First on the list:

At home….

With some of Cindy’s freshly made chicken curry.

Cindy has a Convenience store cum Pickle Shop in Umhlali which is hardly a secret. She has even featured in a new cookbook on the shelves at the moment which is out selling Jamie Oliver’s latest offering. (East Coast Tables: http://life.ecr.co.za/tables/ )

Basically you phone in an order the day before, arrive with a tuppaware box for your portion, and then just add rice at your leisure. It is the closest thing to the curry in India that I have ever tasted.
Also on sale are some of the coolest pickled things, sauces, marmelades etc etc. I will be making plenty of visits.

More culinary adventures to come.

And in the words of Jack Parrow…

Stay Kief.