Friends Chrismas Party

It is the season to visit friends and enjoy each other for the last time this year. We spent a relaxing Saturday afternoon at Roy and Janine's house. The two children rules the roost at the moment and we were running after them must of the time.

We had a wonderful lunch and some good wine. The lunch was again a collective effort and it came together very well I must say. Although we did not plan to take a dip in the pool we just had to swim to escape the heat. Thanks guys it was a good one.

More photos

Our Chrismas Party

The house is decorated with lights, the Christmas tree is up - it is Christmas time, a wonderful time of the year.
Christmas is a time to spend with friends and family, a time to say thank you to friends and family for loving and caring during the year.
This weekend we invited some friends and family over for dinner. Our Christmas party took the form of a cook-out. where everyone had to bring a food dish to contribute to a delicious meal.

Chicken livers with a creamy sauce were served as a starter. On the main menu were grilled chicken, cold meat, noodle salad, Greek salad and a sweet potatoes dish.
Ice cream, malva pudding and jelly with coffee and tea was served as dessert.

Thank you to everyone who made this evening special. more pictures

Gert's birthday weekend

Gert wanted a real special 40th birthday party, so he invited friends and family for a long weekend at a guest house at Zinkwazi on the South coast of KwaZulu- Natal.

On November 15th Helgard and myself picked Gert up just after 5o’clock the morning. Gert started the holiday by teaching me the refrain of “General de la Rey”, he also made an unwritten rule – when the song is playing we have to sing along, soon “General de la Rey” became the holiday song.
The first day we were like real travelers, we stop at tourist spots and we did the tourist things.
Our first stop was at Estcourt at the Wagendrift dam. Helgard and Gert saw the photo opportunities and there for it was play time with the cameras. (Please visit the site for nice photos)


Estcourt


For lunch we stop at a place called Old Halliwell close to Howick on the Natal Midlands. The food that we order looked and tasted delicious.

We planned to spend the first night in Howick at my friend’s house. Kath could only meet up with us after 5 the afternoon, so we went to the Howick Falls. It is an easy hike but the humidity made it so much harder to walk up the hill. More photos can be seen here

Howick

On the 16th we met up at the beach house in Zinkwazi with Rudi, Charmaine, RJ and Gert’s family. The house is built in an “L shape”, all the rooms have an on suite bathroom and all the rooms have sliding doors which lead to the stoep and swimming pool. Book the place and go see for yourselves.

The first day was a sunny hot day, the next two days were cloudy and rainy, even on a cloudy day a day was filled with laughter, friendliness, food, good company and so-so-so much more.



Gert’s birthday was on the 19th. The morning after we woke up we had coffee and some rusks on the sunset-veranda. While drinking coffee we decided to go for a swim. We had breakfast and the rest of the day we “chilled” at the swimming pool while Gert was making a “potjie”



Thank you Gert, we had a wonderful time!

More photos can be seen here

Under attack

It is pleasant to talk about the positive things in life, but life isn’t always a bed of roses, sometimes one-experience unpleasant things but one has to carry on living with a positive attitude.

During October I was visiting friends, like friends do we were sitting on the porch looking at the rain and drinking wine. A pleasant, friendly, lighthearted atmosphere suddenly changed when 3-armed robbers came around the corner of the porch.
For 50 minutes our hands were tied to our backs, our mouths were gagged with towels and the robbers were saying, “shhhhhh, I’ll shout”. A pistol and knives gave them power, we were forced to lie on the porch as they were robbing us from our valuable belongings. In an armed robbery things like a laptop, cell phone, gold chain, money, car has no value, you just value your life and body. A woman is more of a target in such a situation, there were moments that I was very scared but a hand from heaven protected me.

My experience and emotions were much more than the few lines I wrote, I struggled to cope and I had to call a psychologist to explain how my body and mind would react; a book by Yvonne Retief also gave more insight.

When I’m scared and having flashbacks I find comfort in people around me that care.

Bakwena Super Classic

It was a Sunday morning and I really had to kick Helgard out of bed. He is not a morning person and to make matters worse we had a party at a friend’s house the night before, so the shouters were still in his system.

I was very excited because it was my first cycling race. All the sport reports were saying “South Africa’s fastest road race”. The race was on the Bakwena highway that was closed for the morning. The highway is flat with a smooth surface and for the first 25km the wind was behind us. We turned around at the Ga-Rankuwa off ramp. Cycling against the wind on mountain bike is hard work. We tried in vine to catch up with racers that were passing us in large bunches. The last 10km we were cycling with a small bunch that helped against the wind.

I’m very proud of my first cycling metal. The refreshing sports drink at the finish line was what we needed after the 43km at 26km/h average speed.

Sylvia's “P” party

Theme Parties are a new thing for Helgard, and me but we are getting into it.

We went to Sylvia’s birthday party and we had to dress up according to the letter “P”.

Helgard when as a Photographer (just to show every one his nice camera), I had dressed up as Pippie-Longstocking. It took me sometime to get dress because I had to convince Helgard to Push the wire through my hair and not my ears; Helgard isn’t really a hairdresser so it was Painful.

Sylvia went trough a lot of effort with the Party; she decorated the house with a tribal theme. The people were Playing along, and were dresses as Prisoners, Princesses, Priest and a Policewomen. Others were more subtle with theme they were dressed as the Perfect Pair (cards).

The Party turned nasty when we were forced to drink shouters, we left early the next morning knowing that we had to cycle.

Kiddies concerts

Small things are important to small people, and for little Lerinda it was important that uncle Helgard come to her school concert – “Wild William around the world”.

“Wild William around the world” was about a young man William who traveled around the world to find the right women. The kids were singing as he was traveling from country to country. The innocence and enthusiasm of the kids were spilled over to the audience, the audience was also clapping and singing along, in the end it was difficult to say who enjoyed the concert the most.
Lerinda was dressed up as a Chinese girl and danced with her chopsticks.

After the concert there was a karate show. The instructor (shen-sen) taught the small the children to kick and scream, some of them can kick but not really scream.

After the entertainment we went to Leonard and Munda’s house for a lovely dinner. The excitement of the evening took its toll on Lerinda, when we left she was sleeping on the couch.

Hail in Pretoria

August 25 was a cold Thursday evening and we tried to have a braai. Suddenly te weather turned nasty and wind was blowing cold. The next moment it started to rain and the raindrops turned into hail. We moved our fire to safety and we mowed into the house ourselves. The hail just kept coming down and after a while our suburb looked as if it was snowing.
Ursula’s camera was fortunately in her handbag and we took a couple of shaky pictures.

Jarrot found the taste of the hail particularly pleasing, his first hail experience…

New PC (again)

I don’t know what it is but my luck with PC’s are running out, last week our LabPC refused to boot and with Blue screen of Death it reboots every time it tries to load Win98. It is particularly disturbing because the old hardware is failing and it just moves closer to a day where none of our lab test software is going to work any more since we use serial and parallel ports and old things like Turbo C to compile small and simple programs.

On Saturday my work PC froze up as I tried to get some projects finalized. It turned out that the motherboard just stopped working, and I was completely stranded, such a waste of time! I planted the old HDD in a new machine, but soon realized that I had another problem when I tried to access files on “Documents and Settings” now I did not have access to my own files any more.

My brother was not answering his phone so I searched the internet and found the following two articles that deals with the issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307874/

I took ownership and now I own my own files again!

Something else I came accross was a good way of remembering a strong password

Cheryl 21 birthday

Cheryl my niggie het besluit om 21 te word, en maar die grootmens lewe trompop te loop. Haar ma Ariette het dit goed gedink om die hele familie na die verjaardag parytjie te nooi, voorwaar ‘n goeie idée. Ek is geva om ‘n paar fotos te neem, en dit is eintlik baie lekker want dan het mens weer iets waarna jy kan kyk en aan almal te dink.

Soos dit nou maar gaan in die lewe was daar ‘n paar gesigte minder die jaar en as ek so na die famielie foto kyk mis ek hulle nogal, hulle sou die partytjie ook geniet het. Daar is ‘n nuwe gesig of twee wat begin kuier of wat besig is om ernstig te kuier, en dis ook goed om te sien. Ons moet maar werk om die kringetjie groter te maak.



Die party was nou regtig lekker, die DJ ken sy storie en daar was heeltyd iemand besig om lyf te ruk. Ons het lekker ge-eet en gekuier, ag man dit was net sommer lekker.

Een voordeel van so ‘n party waar mens in slaap is dat jy kan gaan slaap as jy wil, so teen 1h00 in die oggend is mens maar flou. Een nadeel van so party waar mens in slaap is dat die pary nie ophou as jy gaan slaap nie, so teen 3h00 was die dansbaan nog lekker aan die gang. Ek is bly ek was nie die DJ nie, want Rudie het hom streng opdrag gegee dat hy sal besluit wanneer die musiek stop, en Rudie het nie genade nie. :-)

Ons moet verskoning vra dat ons so in kortbroek en plakkies kom party hou het, toe ons uit Pretoria weg is was dit winter en ons het langbroeke en lang hemde ingepak, op die party was dit somer en ons moes maar die laaste skoon klere na ons Eland vakansie aantrek.

Ek dink die was een verjaardag wat Cheryl nog lank gaan onthou. Dankie aan almal wat dit moontlik gemaak het.

Ek het baie fotos geneem, Ariette het al die fotos laat ontwikkel maar as jy ‘n CD wil he laat my weet.

Holidays!

In winter time some animals hibernate and others migrate. Last week we came out of hibernation and migrated for a week up north to the Limpopo province. This time we were going to camp for more than a week, so we invested a bit in camping gear….my car is too small now. For our next trip I think we will have to invest in a trailer for all the gear, and goods and toys. On the photo below you can see that we are “sorted” and camped in luxury.

We camped at the Eiland Health Spa close to Tzaneen. The main attraction is huge heated swimming pool and since it was low season we were the first people in the pool in the mornings and the last people to leave the pool on most days. The water is heated in a boiler room to around 30 degrees and that is warm enough to stay the whole day in the pool.

I took a lot of pictures of the Cape Glossy Starlings that camped with us; they kept our camp site clean of anything that is remotely edible. We were visited by a pair of squirrels that helped themselves to our cookies; the byte marks on the plastic lid gave it away, at least they posed for a nice photo the previous day.




One evening we were preparing a fire and we saw branches move behind us, I recognized the silhouette and ran for my camera. It had only the 17-85mm IS lens on it and I took a picture with the Speedlight attached. The eyes of the bush baby lit up like two headlights and the picture looks surprisingly good.

We took magazines and books along to read but we did not get round to it. We don’t know where the time went but we came back from our migration at least a bit rested.

More photos can be seen here

70's Party

Saturday evening we attended a 70's theme party. It was Talita’s 30 birthdays and she celebrated it in style. I was volunteered by my partner in crime as the official photographer.

The party was a bit untimely since, I’m in the process of buying/importing a proper flash for the camera (Canon EX580). Gert also bought toys and since the bulk of the order is his he have to pay for it. Unfortunately we are experiencing credit card and bank issues which lead to a delay in shipment and I had to make do with an old flash (EX540) that is not automatic. So some of the photos were a little bit overexposed, since I had to manually set the flash intensity according to distance from the subject.

Ursula hired big afro wigs for us and we tried to dress as 70’s as possible from what we have in the cupboard. The only problem is that it is winter here and it is cold so you can’t wear what you want you have to keep warm also. One side effect of the wig is that it keeps your head nice and warm so you don’t feel so cold. My hair is thinning year by year and it is as if each winter is colder than the previous.

If you judge by how late we got home, how we felt the next morning and how much photos were taken, we must have enjoyed the party a lot.

My favorite photos can be seen here

Helgard's Birthday

Yes, Once a year it happens. Friends were invited and we had a great day. Ursula and I prepared Oxtail in a slow cooker already the previous evening. It must have been a success because Eddie also bought a slow cooker! I have to mention that Ursula is an exellent cook and without her it woudn't have been such a success.

One good thing about my birthday is the agreement I have with my friends that we do not buy each other presents. This is very convienient because you can just visit the friend that is having his birthday without stressing about buying a present. Us guys don't like to shop.... Well I must say I got very nice presents form other people that I do not have the agreement in place.
More photos are in this set

Camping

Yes we went camping and the weather played along. Appart from the tent that Ursula bought in Taiwan we didn't have any other camping gear. We packed what we had, mostly food, blankets, and set off north. Ok we stopped for some supplies at Camping Warehouse but ended not buying everything from them, The sales assistant convinced us to go across the street and we found what we needed at Game (camping chairs) and at Builders Warehouse (shade netting). At Camping Warehouse an old guy starterd talking to us while we were trying out the camping chairs and it turned out that he knew the area that we wanted to visit, we followed his recommendation and camped at a place called "Temple" just outside Nylstroom.


The campsite was completely booked out and it took some "mooipraat" to get a camping spot. We ended up in a spot that the were that is guaranteed to be flooded when it rains....fortunately it didn't. It is winter here and the night was cold, we sat as close as possible to our small fire. We slept surprizingly warm, but without a mattress the ground is hard.
Next morning we set off to do more bird watching at Nylsvley nature reserve and at Vogelvontein a private farm next to the Nylsvley nature reserve. In our hurry to get out of Pretoria (That is a different story) I left my bird guide at home so we took pictures of everything with feathers to identify it later on the PC. Check out some of the better photos here

We were pleasantly surprised when we could hire binoculars at the nature reserve. The guard even let us leave the reserve to bring it back after we visited Vogelvontein. Ursula used the binoculars and I had my camera with the zoom lense so we were sorted. There were a lot of birds to see with quit a lot of water around. We spent the day in the veld and went back to Naboomspruit to grab something to eat. We ate a two different fast food restaurants, well I won't go into that, another different story. After the food we could think straight again went back to the campsite to pack everything for home. We stayed on the R101 and drove back slowly in Warmbaths we stopped for ice cream to end a great weekend out.

Rondebult

During the long weekend we got word that a Western Reef Heron was spotted at Rondebult Bird Sanctuary, photo's here. Ursula, Gert and I set off at 6:00 to see if we are able to get a glimps of the bird. The Freelander was packed with a coolerbox full of beer and cooldrinks and everything you need for a braai. We didn't get to see the the Heron at Rondebult although people we met claimed that it was spotted earlier the morning, someone actually took these photos.

We had the whole day still so we set off to Merrywale. It is a marshland and there are a lot of waders and all kinds of birds that has something to do with water. Took some pictures but my pictures were mostly dissapointing. A highlight of the day was a family of otters.

The first time I see them in the whild. We braai-ied and sat and chatted nearly the whole day. The best remark of the day was when Gert told Ursula if she does bird watching for two more days her whole life will be f...ed up, because that is all you would want todo in future, Guess what we did the next couple of days....

Peter Smit at Firkin

As usual on a Thursday night we were at Firken but Gert and Rudy were late. Pieter Smth's show started and after the second song Gert and Rudy joined us, with unusually big smiles. We asked what is going on because they were giggling like girls and wearing thick jerseys. After dragging it out of them ... Rudie bought a Porsche Boxster S and he was ecstatic, we rushed outside to have a look,and listen to the engine. Hope I get a test drive soon...

The show was good and loud! Pieter's show is recommended. Have a look at the nights photos here.
After he finished another band started and performed but they were too loud for us and we left promptly.

Serviette Rings

Ursula kept herself busy one night by making serviette rings for us. It is quite simple just a short piece of wire and a couple of glass beads.

It is amazing how good these look like with light shine through them.

Dozi at Firkin

Last week we were at Firkin again. Dozi was entertaining as ever and it was a blast, literally. From the moment he stepped on the stage he was pointing to his microphone, indicating that the gain needs to go up. See proof below...

Dozi joked that he wont go "affirmative" with his sound man, but I think he should consider it, the guy had no clue. He never decreased the gain on the rest of the band and we were bombarded very loud music.

I complain too much it was still a great experience. Dozi was performing not only in Afrikaans but in Zulu and in English as well. He told us that they had to stop just before 24h00 because they are leaving for the KKNK at 04h00 the next morning. The bus was already packed and standing outside ready for the trek down to Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape Karoo. (I estimate a little more than 1000km from Pretoria)

Work related

Everytime someone asks me what I do for a living, I have to think carefully how to explain it ...until now.
Recently a product that we conceptualized, designed, patented, prototyped, marketed, were introduced by one of the largest motion sensor manufactures. So now it easy "I worked on a digital dual sensor pyrodetector, that is used in alarm systems"

Statements that we are particularly proud of is "NEW - DigiPyro™, World's First Digital Pyrodetector" and "PerkinElmer’s new DigiPyro is truly setting the digital standard in motion detection." and "Tests indicate that the PSRR is improved by roughly 30 dB, a 32-fold improvement over the traditional analog pyrodetector technology."

If you stildon'tnt understand, I work for a company that designs integrated circuits that is used in motion sensor related products.

We do not produce the circuits in our office,...I do not work through a microscope, ...I sit in front of a PC and sometimes I work with a soldering iron and.... sometimes we have bright moments.

Quads at QueSera

Last Sunday Ursula and I went with a friends to their local quad playground. I also got the opportunity to ride and it is great! There are just a lot of things to do simultaneously on the quad, suppose with practice it comes naturally. There was a good opportunity to take nice photos of the guys flying through the air, at not such a great speed.

The photoset is a on our Flikr page.

Laptop

A week ago my laptop fell on its left front corner from my desk to the floor. I was struggling with a program on a PIC and a programmer was connected to a USB port on the left side of the laptop. I wheeled away at great speed not knowing that the USB cable got snared under my chair. See the result below!



The laptop fell on the corner where the HHD is mounted, HHD stopped working immediately and XP crashed with blue screen of death. On the bright side only the HDD and the case broke, the rest of the laptop is still functional. Was an expensive program!

Bat Walk

Friday night we went to the Pretoria National Botanical Garden to learn a bit about Bats. The event was organized by the Gauteng Northern Regions Bat Interest Group (GnoR BIG). The aim of the meeting was to introduce some information on bats to the public. Strategicly placed mist nets were used to capture free flying bats, dont worry the bats was released afterwards.

Some of us were given bat detectors to identify the free flying bats in the garden. The echolocation sounds from the bat is picked up and transformed to audio frequency that can be herd when the bat flies over. The GnoR BIG website is very informative and if you are a bit squeamish about bats read this and get over it!

The Flikr page with of the photos of one of the demonstration bats.

Robbie Wessels at Firkin

There is a pattern starting to emerge on Thursday nights, happened last week and it happened last night again. The Firkin pub in Centurion has some great entertainment lined up and for a small cover charge it is a great way to spend your evening.





The first band that performed was a bit rough as it was the first time they did a live performance, and as luck would have it they also had to battle technical problems. If you asked me the mic was not plugged in.

We were standing about 10 meters from the stage and my small Minolta G400 can't zoom any more than this. You get the idea, live band, loud music, smoke, sweat...
Robbie Wessels is releasing his new CD soon and I even got him to sign mine, at that stage of the night I don't think he remembered it.
At stages everyone in the pub were singing along to the well known songs. There are great songs on his CD that got me singing along in an instant, today the throat is a bit sore but I'm not complaining.
We had a real good time, as can be seen from the smiles. Our friend at the next table took the photo even offered us some of the snacks. Gert, Rudie, Ursula and Me.

Gert and his friend the knight.

Sun-day Cycling

Sunday was Cape Augus day! No, we did not cycle in Cape Town unfortunately…or maybe fortunately. I've herd that it was raining and can just imagine that it is not a lot of fun on a bicycle in the wet. For everyone that does not know the Cape Augus Cycle Race is a race around the Cape peninsular, depending on the route around 109km. Have a look at the official web site, next year we are there!


So Sunday morning Ursula and I took a leisurely cycle to new stands that are set out close to Artur's Place on the picture. When we arrived at the stands we thought of going a bit further. We went on to a filling station about 25km from home. The "Route 25 Filling Station" is a good place to buy a Coke or a Powerade, neither of us are cycle fit so it is much needed at this stage.
This tuck shop is heavily fortified and you place your order through a bullet proof window, the goods are placed in a steel drawer, quite strange to buy cool drink this way.

We filled up water bottles and pressed on toward Kempton Park on the R25, only to get the wind slightly from the front. Pedaling is not so easy any more and most of the sunblock sweated off already.

We reached the Delmas road crossing and turned back to Pretoria, not fun any more. The wind was really pushing us back at this stage; fortunately there were other things to distract us a bit. A motor club held a meeting and every couple of minutes a classic sports car passed us, looked like a rally of some sort. We passed "Microland" a small airfield for micro light airplanes. A friend of mine has his plain hangered there.

A traffic sign next to the road indicates that Pretoria is 37km further; at this stage I did not want to think about the distance, just keep going. We were both tired but we had to keep peddling, hunger was also settling in. The Delmas road is actually not bad to cycle on thanks to the hard shoulder with the yellow line; the traffic is also very light especially on Sundays.

Suddenly my rear tyre was flat, nearly a disaster cause I left my cycling bag with spare tube and patch kit at home. Don't want to point fingers but someone was chasing me when we left home. Ursula was not feeling well at this stage and rested, while it took a couple of minutes to replace the tube with a spare that was in Ursula's bag.

We set off again trying to encourage each other. My legs were soft and I had no power left. We passed Rietvlei Nature reserve and the wind was still not letting up, water bottles were empty at this stage. The sun was beating down relentlessly and I was just looking forward to the first shop where I could buy something to eat.

At the first garage shop my left calf muscle cramped up as I tried to get off my bike. I unceremoniously fell on the floor with my bike on top of me, should have drunk more water, Ursula was so tired she did not even laugh at me. We stocked up on chocolate and cool drink that barely touched sides, but we immediately felt much better. We were no longer shaky with hunger, just tired….. Well finally we made it home.

We did 70km on Ursula's cycle computer; next time we choose a less windy day, take food and drinks along, but most importantly SUNBLOCK. Three hours in the African sun with only factor 30 sunblock on your legs is not a pretty sight.

"The Monster"

Die artiekel is ook op http://www.spoor-loos.blogspot.com/ in Afrikaans

The Route

• 16 Feb Leave Boksburg to Standerton
• 17 Feb Standerton to Newcastle
• 18 Feb Newcastle to Vryheid
• 19 Feb Vryheid to St. Lucia
• 20 Feb Around St.Lucia (rest day)
• 21 Feb The drive back home

Ten teams with 3 riders most with a backup vehicle and driver assembled 07h00 at the Spur in Boksburg. Everybody was exited and clean; think nobody was prepared for the trip that lay ahead. I was driving a Toyota Z-Ace (Condor in South Africa) with a heavy trailer as a backup for team One.
Click on the map to see a bigger picture. The route was mostly on dirt tracks and service roads next to railway lines. The guys logged 40km short of 1000km for this trip.

Every body smile for the newspaper camera man.

Peter was ready to do recovery already. His toolbox had tools but also two stroke oil and cold Beer!

View from the top of a bridge close to Grylingstad. We had to wait for a Yamaha Banshee that broke along the route. I was able to photograph most of the riders here.

The first evening in Standerton. Riders are punished with shooters for transgressions such as coming late, using a hairdryer or running out of fuel.

One lady made the trip with us, she did it in style, Ronel’s hair were combed, hails done, and clothing match the quad bike. She looks 100% better than most of the guys, for their protection I don’t include some of the early morning pictures.The pack sets off from Standerton

Where possible the backup convoy stopped next to the tar road and I was able to catch the riders on the dirt.

These guys tried to pass as close as possible to the camera, and nearly run me over.

Assembly point in small town Perdekop’s (Horse head) main road. We had lunch next to the road at a bush pub. Gerhard arrives sideways, think he was very hungry!

I sat under a train bridge waiting for the riders, and it felt like it was an eternity. The riders was slow through the mountains and the Amajuba pass.

Majuba Lodge in Newcastle. This guy is sitting on a brand new spotlessly clean bike. The Banshee he borrowed for the trip broke the previous day and he quickly went out and bought his own new one just to finish the trip. Panorama before Blood River (Blood River is the site of a battle that took place against the Voortrekkers and the native Zulu people.) The wagons are made from cast bronze and the placed as the original lager was arranged the day of the battle.

On our way again, one of the few opportunities where the bikes pass me.

Always more fun on the back wheels. The children next to the road were yelling and screaming at Piet, they have never seen such a monster on a quad! The only incident during our trip was a goat that did not get out of the way fast enough. The goats roam freely next to the roads. John swerved and lost his balance on the quad and ended up hitting the goat in any case. He was badly hurt and he was not able to ride any more during the trip, the goat also did not make it. The fall was a shock for all of us, fortunately the river provided just the kind of action we needed to relax. After playing in the water we had lunch under the trees on the river bank.

The Nissan Sani developed a problem with its petrol pump and had to be towed by one of the recovery vehicles. I ended up towing my own trailer as well as the recovery vehicles trailer. The dirt roads were quite bad and most of the glass beer bottles we had in the blue boxed on the trailer were broken when we arrived in St. Lucia.

That evening we had a celebration dinner and prizes were awarded by the organizers (Eric) for any unfortunate thing that happened, Wilhelm gets a extra bottle to fill with petrol for his thirsty Banshee.

The last day was supposed to be a rest day, but there was a 2x 37km trip to the beach. By now everyone’s butt was sore and muscles weak. The sea water was just the right medicine.

We planned to do 80km max for the day, but the guide misunderstood something, and at the coat we already did 75km. The guys were upset because we did not make provision for fuel.

We had a beer at the local shebeen while we waited for fuel, or someone that could tell us what is going on. Bundu bashing back to St. Lucia.

We trusted John’s GPS, it showed that we were on a road, although it does not always look that way. We even ended up building our own bridges to get across ditches.

Hennie the guy in bleu shirt will tell you that he was nearly run over by the quad…but I thin he was safe. We struggled to get everyone through this mud ditch but it was a lot of fun. I took more than 2000 photos and it was a lot of fun! Unfortunately we had to leave for home the next day.

A CD is available with photos of the "The Monster" email Helgard Ross at helgard999@gmail.com or phone me +27 83 459 4052.