The Guy in Pink

At Namoya we used a Skyvan often. It brought in mainly perishable foods and wet rations and took us out for R&R. Built in the 1950's it was designed to carry a Land Rover. Sky divers love it as can be seen by the many stickers of skydiving clubs plastered on the insides.

I was there in total 8 years, starting in December 2010, but with a two year break in SA. My latest stint ended in December. When I first got there moving drill rigs around the mountains was a daily occurrence. I worked on the tailings dams at Twangiza and Namoya, but for three different employers, including directly for Banro.

Airbus eventually accepted responsibility, someone got fired, and they replaced the machine. It had ZS certification (based in George) and was flown to the DRC for work there as was its replacement. .

Unfortunately this joint in deep in the narrow confines of the tail so it not visible. I was shown where the joint is on the replacement chopper during a service, but it cannot be checked without a complete strip down. . The 250 hour service missed it.

More from my DRC pictures. Hubber the George Mungrel managed to put this new (<300hrs total time) chopper down without injury to himself or his 5 pax. when the tail rotor control failed. A Joint in the tail rotor control cable was supposed to be secured by a bolt, with a nut and split-pin, but the $0.10 split pin was missing. Airbus eventually replace the chopper.

We had some fun a few years ago extracting a Hawker Siddeley HS 745 from the Namoya bush at the end of a wet and slippery clay runway after a rainstorm. The pilot decided that he had no use for the first 280m of the 900m runway (I paced out his touchdown spot) and had to do a handbrake turn at the end to slide into the bush. His cargo was 5.2 tonnes of mining explosives.

I eat Keto or carnivor, and usually OMAD, so hunger is a thing of the distant past. It is very easy to go without any food, vegan or otherwise, for a few days at a time.

Our two, Toffee (Sitting) and Marsie , walking in Hanglip forest this week. I found Marsie , then about 9 weeks old, a number of years ago in Roodiwal forest about 10km east of this spot whilst I was riding MTB in that forest one afternoon. We got Toffee from Labrador Rescue, out of Diepsloot township, about 18 months ago.

I have the FIIL Diva Pro and the Bose 35II, The FIIL is way ahead of the Bose as far as the features, Technology and software goes and they have onboard memory as well so they can stand alone. However They are on the ear so I find long periods on aircraft etc gets uncomfortable. If FIIL produced their over ear with the onboard memory I would get a pair,

Also linked to an Eskom policy (now they deny it was actually a policy) of only buying coal from 51% black owned companies. The big coal producers like Anglo promptly disposed of their coal mines, selling them to outfits without the management skills or capital resources to deliver the right quality and required quantity of coal.

That was me for a while - until I threw away the satin meds. Now it's as good as it was 50 years ago!

He experienced only 3.8 G's therefore he survived . b) is the correct answer

A Friend in Louis Trichardt had this training partner this morning (on his side of the fence)

On top of the Soutpansberg at midnight 2017/2018

We did our traditional ride up to the top of the Soutpansberg , starting out last year a few hours before midnight timing our arrival on top of the mountain for Midnight to view the Fireworks in the town from above: The ride thru Hanglip plantation and up to the military radar station and back home was 30km with 850metre of ascent.

A Typical Rwandan street scene showing the dominant means of transport - foot, bicycle and small motor bike. The first bike on the right is a registered and numbered Taxi - as are the two motor bikes on the left. A loaded bicycle carrying goods is in the background.

Ugandan Saw Mill: The saw can be seen centre of the photo is operated by two people, on on top of the scaffold and one underneath .

The Pink Missus trying out a bike taking produce to market.

The Dam wall at present contains just over 7million m3 of earth. and will be about 14 million m3 when finished. Mined tonnes up to date is almost 8 million tonnes of ore and another 10 million tonnes of waste. From now on the strip ratio becomes is a lot higher, from a low of 0.6 for the first 5 years to about 3 waste to 1 ore.

A Few views of the "Pit", located on a mountain

These two photos are of the mine resettlement village, located at a chilly 2900 meter above sea level

I Leave Twangiza at the end of month for the last time. About I week ago I did a photo shoot for the mine with my GoPro mounted under the Chopper on the mirror arm with my handle bar mount . Here are a few photo's. The first is a view of the whole mine. The second and third are he structure that has occupied me for almost 7 years.

Mars Bar (Aka Marsie) & Gambi my wife's stable Cat. Gambi and Marsie get on just fine, but the cat has been know to chase big dogs out of the stable yard out of the gate. Gambi had to have her tail amputated after a horse stood on it.

Marsie is very well. She is my wife's shadow, and fully recovered from having the knee tendons replaced on both knees. She plays a good game of tennis, jumping to catch and return the (wet and gooie) ball to the throwers hand faultlessly, with each game about 10 minutes long until eventually she has enough and refuses to return it. The after 30 minutes of heavy panting she is ready for the next game. Its always sad to lose a friend, but I hope you have already got the replacement office dog in training.

Marsie, with her favorite ball. When I am home I get physically dragged outside to throw it about 5 times a day. If I don't respond she pulls me by the sleeve.