The Durban beachfront has changed. The old Snake Park is gone. But the waves still continue to the shore at Snake. To be honest Snake Park is often terrible. Yet it has some sort of allure to the locals who surf there a lot. It might be the lack of crowds compared to the main waves in Durban, it might be the lack of hostilities in the water, or it might just be a habit, but those people who surf Snake Park often wouldn’t really have it any other way. The car park has been redone, and there is a lot of grass now. It’s safe and clean and chilled.
The wave at Snake Park is best with the same conditions that work for all the oter Town beaches. It is offshore in the southwest, and also great in the winter land breezes. It likes a bit of swell and can throw some serious barrels – that often closeout in the end. But the thing to Snake park is that the wave changes so much that it’s hard to reall pin down. All in all there are four main faces of Snake park that change quite regularly depending on swell, tide, season and sandbanks…
1. Little runners off the ‘pier.’ These come into play on a very small swell and a high tide, when there is a little buildup of sand next to the pier. These waves are fast super-fun little wedges that race all the way to the shoreline and give a few little ramp sections for those fast, light surfers.
2. Big outside tubes – directly in front of the pipe. When the swell is up there are sometimes booming big tubes that swing across from the Bay Of Plenty and just unload on the outside bank. Usually loads of close-outs but some grinding sandy barrels amongst the chaos.
3. Inside double – up barrels on the inside. A bank sometimes forms up to the left of the beach, on the battery Beach side. When this bank comes it is often incredible, with big double-up left and right barrels, an easy paddle out and loads of waves per session. When this bank comes it doesn’t take long before everyone knows about it and it can get quite busy. Combine a barreling wave close to the shore on high tide and warm water and you soon get a lot of people on it.
4. Outside wave – Towards Battery are the stock standard on a solid swell and low tide. Sometimes you get a bunch of lefts heading towards the Snake park pipe, some times big right peaks breaking towards Battery. One thing about these waves that everyone will attest to is that they look much better than they are. They come through as big majestic peaks but as soon as you’re up and riding they turn into soft and slow runners that are nice for multiple cut-backs and not much else.
Snake Park has an allure, as mentioned earlier. Maybe it’s the fact that you can pretty much always paddle out and get a few. Maybe it’s because the guys who surf there are all friends and everyone knows each other like they do in Cheers. Maybe it’s the variety of waves available over such a short stretch of beach. Whatever it is, Snake Park is under rated by the North Beach and New Pier crew, and the locals like it this way.
