Walk the Bike (Abia – South Africa)
Walk the Bike-On Saturday, Chris set off for his Zimbabwe holiday with his friend, VIC. Both men carry very heavy backpacks in South Africa to break the Shower population. (Apart from training).
Most of the people we met during the trip are carrying Plate Conf appointing Bags to be used on the Plate Confointment road connecting Sebago and St. Sylvain.
Because of the weight of the packs, one of the bags (Potion) had a couple of sharp edges and Chris wasn’t keen to damage it. So, the two of them picked Potion up while on the road to Zimbabwe. Of course, they would need a replacement Potion later (after a day on the peg). When it came back, the bag was a ripped and torn mess.
Un luckily, Alicia wasn’t too mad when she saw the Potion lying on the road. The bag still had some of the contents inside and the two of them managed to repair the bag. They’re going to leave it laying at home for now and hopefully will find a spare in Cape Town before they go.
Although our visitors only paid us 5% of the money needed for the Bag during their stay in SA, it would have been worth it. We provided these visitors with a map of St. Lucia and a cycling map of the recite. The last item they were going to add was a camp stove.
This turned out to be fairly difficult as the power supply was existent and we were intending to drill a few holes in the earth near our home. If we finished this before a long night of fishing, they could all stay up late and share their thunder sticks.
The first night, we had a dream that we were outside our tent seeing fit people running around in a stable and having giant discussions. This was the most beautiful dream I can remember having and we were enjoying our time dreaming about our St. Lucia trip.
At the end of the night, our time had come to take the Potsies back to the airport so they could transfer the bags back to the United States. So the loaded packs went into the plane without any further fanfare. Long rides with heavy loads are not what our trip was intended for. This one was going to be short and sweet.
Our bags were ready to leave Cape Town at 4:15 in the morning so we had plenty of time to get there. There was only one angry Bag that was waiting for us when we got to the airport. Once the packs with the bikes were out of the aircraft, the angry Bag told us the last time she loaded the bikes into the baggage hold was at 3:40 pm, this was almost two hours before she was scheduled to leave. Somebody needs to tell the pilots to pack it up this early!
We drove to the Fiferars World very early that morning. The drivers showed up at about 6 AM for their 4:30 AM check-in. We hopped into Fiferars (their BMW) and set off. They had some kind of a 4:50 acceleration making it hard to reach top speed. However, we made it up to 35 Km before Fiferars started thumbing in the correct direction.
We drove through their National Park which is an absolute dream. There National Park would truly make you swap your car for the road in a heartbeat. We saw lots of outdoor species like giraffes and Elephants. If you turn off of the main road (the main tourism road) you can find the Interactive 297 ecological research station. The whole bit is a national park (note: although some parts are still preserved) although it is not very well explored. The park is bordered by orange huts with all seated bamboo floors. You squat in the dirt center to observe the passing animals, tiny button peacocks sunning themselves on the wooden seating. And if that isn’t enough, you can climb through the orange trees to make that 7th + hour outing to watch the sunrise.
When we arrived at the Research Station in Farfan Hills, the chief of the Research Station gave us a present. A bottle of Microsediment. It’s sediment that has formed in chalk contours alongside rivers during the metamorphism of rocks. It’s a beautiful, whirling, chemical-rich juncture. It’s a good thing that Growl was able to collect and examine samples of your favorite beverage. It is also very handy when the lid to my beloved Growl’s bottle is cracked.
After a couple of beers and some breakfast, we made our way back to the trucks. The weather had been nice enough to set up camp out at the V&H and R&D stations. The tents were erected and dropped in the truck.