Day 83 – Birthday Boy Boulder and Bike.

Blog — By Buspass on December 13, 2012 6:07 pm

If yesterday was a difficult day to create a headline, today we are spoilt for choice, hence multiple blogs.

Today is Nicks birthday. He is a youthful 53. Except. He is ill, and therefore looks 63. He has some Namibian stomach bug to compound the grapefruit he is sporting for an ankle. But he is a tough soldier and stayed with it on the bike.

Doubtless we will sing him happy birthday this evening and he will wince at our tuneful rendition!

It was a nice easy day on the bikes today. Or such was the plan. The problem with the plan was that it was all too easy and the troops became mischevious and worse, creative. We knew that the lodge lay underneath the foot of a large mountain in the far distance. On dirt road fairly straightforward. But what if we drove directly at it across the scrub, desert, dry river beds and rocky outcrops? A splinter group thought this would be a ‘gas’. So off we went. Gregg, Chris, Sam, George and Jim. It was, how would a schoolboy describe it (?), ace! We crossed sand and scrub and weaved around porcupine burrows and over rocky plates, down dry river beds and even over fences. At one stage we came across a very remote homestead.

The 3 locals there were startled but greeted us warmly (we must have looked like aliens to them) and helped us choose a route to the foot of these imposing mountains.

We cracked the route in the end but not before Gregg had attempted to assail 3 large boulders with his trusty steed. The boulders won. And they took a few souvenirs including his front indicator. We dusted him down and proceeded. A cool little adventure. J