"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.

Candle Holder

A few weeks ago we started making stepping stones, but one thing always leads to another. Soon we moved from making stepping stones to mosaic glass work.

Being a candle and moonlight girl I decided last Friday afternoon that I want to use mosaic glass piece to brighten up a clear glass candle holder.

With a hobby shop shopping bag filled with colorful off-cut-glass pieces and tools of the trade, I couldn't wait to get home.


Helgard used the glass cutter (green object) to cut and the tile nipper (black object) to brake the glass. Small colorful cut glass pieces were glued onto the glass candleholder and left for approximately 2 hours for the glue to set.



I thought that the shop assistant put all the tools that we needed in my shopping bag, but I had nothing to mix and apply the grout with.



Kitchen tools were used to mix and apply the grout, everything is clean again and food is grout free.





Excess grout was removed with a sponge in the basin.



I was so excited and could not wait to light a candle.

Mosaic

During the festive season we went shopping in Merlyn Shopping centre, and found ourselves in a bookshop. Ursula picked up a book about mosaic and showed me some designs; we were both impressed with it, but put it back…..
The next day surprised Ursula by going back and buying the book. (Easy Mosaics for your home and garden, Sarah Donnelly). Ursula is a slow reader so I decided to go to a local arts and crafts shop and buy what we needed to get started. With some help and advice from the shop assistant I walk out with a mould, tile nipper, glass cutter and an assortment of small glass tiles. We were both very exited to get started on the first stepping stone.

The instructions in the book was not followed completely, our version of the stepping stone is made by placing the design upside down inside the mould on top of sticky plastic film that lies on the paper design.

Cut glass and beads is placed on the design, sticking to the bottom of the mould. The paper design is removed and can be reused after the glass is packed and stuck to the plastic film.

Unfortunately it was trail and error affair with the concrete mixture. One week our dustbin was unusually heavy, with all the concrete that was thrown away. It turns out that normal concrete ready mix is not strong enough. In desperation a bag of cement was bought minutes before the hardware shop closed. The cement content in the ready-mix is doubled to get the correct hardness of the stepping stone.



Colored oxide is added to the dry cement mixture to give the stones a bit more natural color. Due to our lack of space, the cement mixture has to be mixed in a bucket in the kitchen. I found that placing a plastic bag in the bucket saves a lot of cleaning up afterwards.

The cement mixture is carefully pored inside the mould on top of the design. After 24 hours the stepping stone is ready to come out of the mould. The sticky plastic film is peeled off and the stone is brushed with a hard brush to get rid of all unwanted cement on the tiles.

Santa’s big red bag was heavy with stepping stones this year.