Rough & Ready Day 5: The end... unfortunately...
Trip Start
Dec 10, 2008
1
29
Trip End
Ongoing
Cape Town,
Western Cape,
South Africa
Sunday, September 27, 2009
I few red eyes 'un'welcomed the dawning of the day, but the collateral damage wasn't exactly as bad as I'd expected. Everyone seemed to pull through ok.
A hearty breakfast later, and after filling up with fuel (our previous night's barman also is the petrol attendant and if we stayed there longer would probably find out that he's the milkman, postman, mayor, and every other thing in Middelpos) we said our goodbye's to Holger. After discovering serious problems with his headbearings, he had to move on directly to Sutherland to collect his new bike from the bike rental company.
The rest of us moved on stopping firstly just above Ganagga Pass. The roads were wet, and extremely slippery. Rony gave us a quick run down on how best to approach the ride down the pass without losing control and going over the edge... Rony's words of wisdom also stated that no, it's not raining... It's just a cloud... This cloud however yielded huge drops of water creating an extremely muddy sludge for all to navigate themselves down on. I watched the procession head on down at snails pace, comfortable and secure in the knowledge that my rider was well in control. Rather slow in this instance however. The last thing we needed was to try and retrieve a bike, a rider or even both from the mountain side.
Once we got to the foot of the mountain, the heavy clouds started clearing up making for easy riding. We passed a few more showers on the side, but nothing to dampen us at all.
Rony finally came to a stop at a very odd looking shelter. A round circle, comprised of bushes tightly packed within some fencing to create a wall sheltering us from the wind and sun (depending on where you were sitting). Very different! A nice fire was on the go in the middle of the enclosure. This was to be our lunch stop. Santa and her family brought out plates and plates of eats for all the hungry bikers. It was an amazing spread!!! We could hardly make a dent in the banquet of food!! It really was good...
I remember as a kid, how I used to look forward to weekends so that I could go home! Saturday's were AWESOME and always fun, but there was just something about Sunday's, knowing that the next day you'd be back at boarding school and away from the farm... Well, this is how it felt... The trip up to this point had been amazing!! But slowly people were starting to head off in their own directions and soon it would all be over. Hard to enjoy the last bit of the ride when it's just about done... and depression already was setting in.
Despite destroying my bike somewhat in the accident a few days back, this ride turned out to be one of the most enjoyable yet!! It definitely had to do with the people on it. Looking back on all the photos, people always were smiling! It was absolutely great and I can't wait to join Rony for another!
