River Rat

Final We had just finished dinner and settled down with a cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc watching the sun set through the trees when were heard the cry of a jackal soon answered by another. Fantastic we did not expect this, this was true Africa in all its splendour . Unfortunately, our billy goat was not so enamoured with the sounds of jackals and the setting sun. He realised his predicament and this got him bleating for his mom and the protection of the herd. My wife’s motherly instinct took over and she decided that this goat was now under our protection and no jackal was going to get to him. “But where will he sleep” I asked, “surely not in the Roof Top tent, what about fleas!” It did not take long for her to decide that we need to find his herd or at least a herd boy to take care of him. I had told her of my little signing in adventure and she decided she would take the goat on the same route to find his home. So we Google Translated “Lost Goat” and after a few practice runs of pronunciation she scooped up the goat in a towel and set off armed with a flashlight repeating “Cabra Perdida” as she went off in the direction of the setting sun, along what was now becoming a well beaten path. She arrived at the first settlement and followed protocol until she was invited in, where a young man came out to talk to her. She tried a number of different versions of “Cabra Perdida” until out of frustration she simply shone the torch into the face of the now blinking goat and the message was understood. She would be taken to another settlement where the goat’s owner lived and the guide set off this time in front with my wife walking respectfully 5m behind him, as was the As they approached their destination the goat knew immediately that he was home and started wriggling as they approached the settlement with my wife struggling to contain him. The guide sorted out the formalities and a herd boy emerged sheepishly out of a dark hut , unceremoniously grabbed the little goat by the hind leg and carried him to the kraal of thorn bushes. Berating it the whole way but the goat was just too happy to be home. We surmised that the young herd boy had also been berated by his elders as his peers were laughing at him. We finished another glass of wine as we watched the stars come out and we listened to the village settling down after the day. What was a cacophony of chatter and laughter slowly reduced to a few conversations interspersed with occasional laughter as the villagers enjoyed their dinner. When things got really quiet we decided to retire for the night thinking that everyone was doing the same. As we lay in bed we heard the slow beat of drums accompanied by the rhythmic clapping of hands, soon after melodic voices rang out as the village of Machaila sang and danced their way into the night. This truly was another great day in Africa.

Sometimes the squeak is not the bearing itself but where the bearing seats in the frame.

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The goat The camp

Part 2 My heart sank as the police officer walked around to the driver’s side, but there was no need, you see Alfonso (the police officer) had not seen a vehicle the whole day (it was just after 14h00) and simply wanted to chat, no need to produce any documents at all. We chatted about where we had come from, where we were going and the condition of the roads. When I complimented him and his countryman on the condition of the road we were on he beamed a smile back at me that matched his crisp white shirt as he showed his pride in his country. I think we chatted for at least 20 minutes when I bid him good bye, waved at the soldier but ignored the sandbag man. I still could not see the rear LMG position perhaps there was none. The trip to Machaila was uneventful but the town itself was reminiscent of those towns you see in the old spaghetti westerns. The dusty streets were empty and people eyed us suspiciously over the rim of their beer glasses from the veranda of the lone pub as we rolled into town. All that was needed to complete the scene was Terence Hill’s blue eyes, Bud Spencer’s large frame and a tumble weed blowing across the road and we would be on the set of Trinity is My Name! Tracks 4 Africa guided us without a glitch to the Machaila Community Campsite, which was even signposted if you cared to glance a little higher than normal at the transmission line poles. The camp was deserted and there were no visible tyre tracks so we picked our spot for the night. As we were unpacking I noticed that we had been joined by a lone young billy goat. He made himself comfortable under our vehicle seeking respite from the hot sun, I could not see the rest of his herd nearby. After we unpacked we enjoyed our first 2M beer of the day while we waited for someone to arrive looking for payment. An hour passed and I was becoming uncomfortable with the fact that we had not paid, if you haven’t paid you are effectively squatters in a small town in a foreign country, this can’t be good. I decided to walk to the closest settlement to see if I could resolve this. I knew communication was going to be a challenge but I was ready for this. You see before we left home I loaded Google Translate - Portuguese language onto my mobile and it works like a charm. All you have to do is speak the phrase in English into the speaker, check that the responding text is correct and Google translates into the correct phrase in Portuguese which you can play back to the other party, no need to worry about bad pronunciation. We had loads of fun on our way to Punda Maria with a variety of phrases but now to test it in the real world. I arrived at the first settlement after a walk through the veld and did the polite thing which was to draw the attention of one of the inhabitants so that they would invite me into their area. I called out until a got the attention of an old lady who invited me in. She then instructed a young girl to deal with me. Great this was obviously a young girl who had been educated and can speak English, no need for Google! The one phrase that we practiced over and over was “Can you speak English?” I was mistaken English was not being taught here, no worries I was really proud of what I thought was a perfect rendition of this phrase with little to no detectable accent. “Você pode falar em Inglês” I said with absolute conviction, the blank stare I got in return told me in no uncertain terms that I was fooling myself. No worries Google to the rescue and I spoke into my device checked the text which read “No translation available without internet connection” We could only get the text translation not the voice. Huh, now what? We were reduced to hand signals and pointing eventually she said the word dinero and I nodded. Right we were getting somewhere, she pointed to another settlement and indicated that she would show me the way. As is the African custom I had to walk in front while she walked 5 meters behind me calling and pointing out the correct route every time I strayed off course. We arrived at the settlement and waited to be invited in which we were and my guide took over the communication and we were eventually joined by another young lady and my guide left. It took me some time to find out her name was Rose and she produced a book where other travellers had signed in. I scanned through other entries and saw that we were the first visitors they had in a month, I could also work out what the payment was R80 / vehicle and R40/person. I signed the book paid the money plus a little extra for a beaming Rose and returned back to our campsite. Great we were now legally here and under the protection of the village and their Chief. We can now safely settle in for the night we were legal.

I promise to be quicker on this one.

This one is for DJR, Slowbee and other fellow adventurers. Part 1. Recently my wife and I took a trip to Vilankulos, but we wanted to take the adventurous route so we decided to do it via the Pafuri border post. We do this because it’s often the journey itself that makes the adventure and not only the destination. The first thing you have to contend with on this route is the border crossing as there have been a number of reports of military officials harassing travellers at this specific border post. We had none of this but we did have to pay an unexpected amount of R150 for a Gaza Province regional road tax but when I later checked my receipt it was marked down as 150 Metical, I think we were conned. The next challenge is the crossing of the great Limpopo River, you see there are three possibilities either the river is full and you cross by ferry or the river is empty and you do a “dry” crossing or the river is not quite full enough for the ferry and you do a wet crossing of questionable outcomes. My research indicated that we should be good for a “dry” one but we would only know when we got there. We decided to reconnoitre the crossing at Pafuri as this would be the spot where we would be crossing also in the spring of 2019 en route to Gonarezhou National Park. When we got there it was evident that my research was correct and we did the “dry” crossing and back just to prove that we could. The journey to Mapai took us through Fever tree forests and roads lined with the quintessential symbol of Africa, the Baobab tree which lined the roadside like sentinels guarding us as we made our way through this rugged part of Mozambique. The Mapai crossing was a lot drier than at Pafuri and we bantered a bit with the toll keeper as he tried his latest phrase in Afrikaans, anyway “Moer droog” was a reasonable enough description of the conditions and the pronunciation was passable. We paid our R100 toll and made our way to the first bottle store we could find which was in a pink building, a typical African store but they knew their business and the beers were cold and we paid for them in Rand. After Mapai the road improved dramatically to a reasonably well maintained gravel road and we were maintaining a good pace when suddenly a Moz Police officer jumped into the road and indicated for us to pull over. At that stage I was not concentrating on my speed at all, you see although the road was in a reasonable condition there were a number of areas where the road was badly rutted by storm water runoff. This required some caution so I had simply adjusted my speed to what I considered safe and not necessarily to the a specific speed limit. I stopped with some concern as I was trying work out what the speed limit was and if I had exceeded it. Other than the single police officer I spotted an armed guard in military uniform sitting just behind a tree with his AK47 pointed at us, 50m to the front on the right I could see camouflaged under a tree was a light machine gun (LMG) position mounted behind a wall of sandbags. It looked like we had driven into an ambush, well laid out and I suspected there would be a stopper LMG position behind us but I couldn’t see it. My mind raced as I suspected my worst fears were being realised, Mozambique was a lawless country (they said) and if they detained us who would know? We were in the “dark” part of our journey as far as communication goes and our family were only expecting to hear from us the next day. We were in trouble and I knew I would have to keep my wits about me to get us out of this one, but what was I to do. This looked like a well-planned military operation, if we accelerated the front LMG position would take us out and although only the barrel was visible it looked like a 7.62mm calibre, our Fortuner was no match for that. I tried scanning for the rear LMG position in my mirrors but I couldn't find it, I was almost certain that there which meant going back was also not an option. As for outside help we only saw one vehicle since Pafuri and it looked like it was transporting a goat to Mapai. I could not see a way out of this, we were in real trouble.

I agree I did my first one last year and thoroughly enjoyed it and it's always on my list of options for the year.

Now that's something I did not know about. Certainly has a resemblance to our product.

If I remember correctly the Spinnekop was a modified grader whilst the Meerkat was a bespoke design, but I guess you could argue that it was a derivative of the Spinnekop. There were a lot of "maak n plan" designs in those days.

This one's for Hairy. This is the military equipment the company I worked for supplied to the US Military for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are over two thousand in theater of which I only know of 2 that have been scrapped when I left the company in 2015 the count was over 7000 hits (explosions) with 3 fatalities. Those of my vintage that served in the SADF will know this vehicle as the Meerkat but we developed the IP considerably since then.

Looks like 3 previous winners in the line up Bekkenk, Ntuli and Martins only Visser is awol.

Not my view at all, if you're in front of me you deserve to be. I just don't enjoy sitting behind you twiddling my thumbs listening to your squeaky brakes when I could be enjoying the track. In the context of this thread that's why I prefer not to do stage races and pay big bucks for the irritation. The alternative of riding trails with my mates is far more enjoyable and cheaper and I am always amused at how we seem to sort out who should take the lead on certain tracks without a fuss but when it comes to a stage "race" we can't seem to accept that someone else could be quicker be it up or down the hill. We just occupy our space denying the other guy the opportunity to play to his strengths and I am not talking about the front of the field.

The question raised my eyebrows somewhat, you have a drop of 20-30% and you ask whether the bubble has burst, really? For me it is quite simple my skill level has advanced ahead of my speed and I find the frustration of hanging behind a slightly fitter rider on a technical descent is what puts me off most events. This is where Enduro and trail riding are becoming more attractive, for me at least. The other thing to consider is the two man team thing it no longer makes any sense to me.

Thanks I did not know that.

I was comparing within the Spez range and if I understand the Spez ranking it's Sworks, Control and Grid in the order of weight and robustness, the Grid being the heaviest. I personally prefer Maxxis if I am looking for a tougher tyre but the Butcher Purgatory combo my Stumpy came with actually performs quite well on the grip measurement.

My Spez tyres do the same and they're Grids which are the most robust of tyres their tyres. Spez recommend that you use a different sealant to Stans if you don't like the bleeding, I haven't really bothered.

Last month we had a report of a crime incident in the Fort Klapperkop reserve and I decided to take Ranger for his first bush sweep. He has been in the bush with me but never an active patrol and this is how he reacted. Shortly after the video was taken one of the security guards emerged from the bushes, which was what he was reacting to and he went into attack mode, he has never been trained to do this so it was pure instinct. To his credit the security guard stood absolutely still until I could get Ranger under control. He asked me afterwards "Sal hy my gebyt het?" my answer of "net so bietjie" did not do anything to reassure him as he tried to work out what damage a 60kg Rhodesian Ridgeback would've done to him. Two weeks after that we had another report of someone jumping the fence and I took him out again, he needed very little encouragement as he picked up the scent quickly and the chase was on. Fortunately for the fence jumper he dived into a stormwater drain and I did not want to put my dog at risk so he got away, but I have no doubt that if they see Ranger they're not going to hang around. Things have been quiet in the reserve of late

Outside of formal retail haggling is unfortunately part of the game get used to it or stay out of it. If you ever go to the middle east you're going to get the opposite the seller traditionally high balls the price and expects you to haggle, if you don't the seller is somewhat disappointed. I find it quite painful but it is the way they do business and you get better at it.

Here's link of the ladies celebrating their court victory. https://www.facebook.com/saloshani.pather/posts/10219405771636611?notif_id=1566546741162052&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic_tagged

Loved seeing this and it's huge kudos to the ladies that testified, they faced numerous court delays and let me tell you our courts are not the easist places to go to for any woman. Now to catch this latest gang operating in the area, my dog and I were on the heels of one suspect on Monday but he escaped into a stormwater drain under the R21. There was no way I was going to put my dog or myself at risk chasing after him, there will be a next time.

Eish it's tough and we all go through it. Everytime we get a pup I remind myself that the journey is for a limited time only and I go about making the most of it while we both can.

No subs for me, must be the first time that I haven't been forced to sub. Now for the GC contenders to win some stages and score some points.

Okay so now I have 3 jerseys in my team, time for the mountains I say.

Australia showed how far ahead Merc were from Ferrari despite the marketing hype suggesting the stallions had turned a corner. The truth is that F1 has ceased to be a contest for the last 3 years and can no longer compete for my attention. I think the F1 viewership has been reduced to a few diehards but it will struggle to get new viewers with this snorefest.