Ticket to Ride wraps up successful South African surfing adventure   by Tim Conibear

Ticket to Ride wrapped up an extremely successful inaugural three month gap year surfing adventure to South Africa when all the 'riders' in the group completed internationally recognised surf coaching and lifesaving qualifications.

The group traversed 1 600 Kms of the SA coastline from the Mother City of Cape Town through the spectacular Garden Route to the surf Mecca of Jeffreys Bay and onwards to the consistent surf of East London, the rural splendour of Coffee Bay and the sub-tropical point breaks of Southern KwaZulu-Natal before completing their epic surfari in the Surf City of Durban.

Having been introduced to the basics of surf coaching by Dene Botha of the Kahuna Surfing Academy in Cape Town back in January, the riders honed their surfing skills and fitness at each stop under the expert eye of South Africa's best surf coaches, including former world surfing champions David Malherbe and Ant Brodowicz.

Performing community work for charitable institutions with disadvantaged youngsters in townships, enjoying adrenaline generating activities such as bungee jumping, skydiving and swinging through gorges, visiting game parks and being entertained by traditional African cultural groups all added to the unforgettable journey.

The group sailed through their Surfing South Africa (SSA) Level 1 surf instructor's courses and lifeguard assessments and after a week of coaching Durban street kids and those with hearing disabilities, all succeeded in earning their surf coaching certificates.

Then it was time to kick back and enjoy the pleasures of Surf City which included a visit to the Flowrider, dawn patrols at Ansteys and New Pier, a braaivleis (BBQ) to end all braais and replacing the trusty surfboards they had spent three months on with brand new models from Clayton Surfboards before heading home.

The concept of learning to surf, traveling, doing community work and then taking home a qualification proved a major success and Ticket to Ride is already being flooded with enquiries for future surf adventures. The two three-month gap year surfing adventures planned for January to March 2008 are already half sold out with eight months to go before take off.

Will Hayler and Linley Lewis, the surfing entrepreneurs behind Ticket to Ride, realised early in the inaugural trip that there would be demand for a one month African Road Trip in July. This will start in Cape Town and travel through the Garden Route to Jeffreys Bay where the riders can see the world's best surfers in action at Supertubes during the Billabong Pro World Tour event.

The success of this initiative has seen a second one month trip already being planned for later in July. And the 2008 itinerary has been expended to offer back-to-back three-month trips to SA between January and March.

These will be followed by 4x4 adventures into presently untapped Mozambique throughout April and May, Wonderbreaks packages into Portugal offering performance camps and tailor made group travel, along with the one month African Road Trips through July and August.

For further information on Ticket to Ride, including bookings for 2007 and 2008, and details of their Wonderbreaks packages to Portugal and Mozambique, see www.ttride.co.uk or call them in their London HQ on +44 (0)208 7888 668.

Ticket to Ride is proudly supported by: O'Neil and Da Kine