“This beach used to be filled with millions of people with the Gunston 500. But for the last 10 years, it hasn’t had much,” Durban’s head of sport development and recreation, Teddi Adams, said yesterday.
Adams was addressing local surfers, businessmen and government officials, who had all come together to celebrate 50 years of surfing in Durban.
Held at the Bay of Plenty’s California Dreaming restaurant, members of the surfing community not only discussed the milestone of five decades of formalised surfing in the city, but fervently addressed the issue of the lack of a professional surfing presence in Durban, despite our warm waters and vibrant surfing lifestyle.
“The Gunston 500 was running along North Beach, and we used to have a million people here over a 10-day period.
“We had stalls all the way along, vendors, competitions and music. With this 50-year celebration, this is what we are hoping to kick-start. We are wanting a new interest to try to get our beachfront back to the way it used to be,” Adams said.
