August 10, 2019.

Another kief lekker South African mountain mission.

There’s a wee bit of explaining involved when you receive two GPX Routes from your hiking buddy, to download onto your watch for the pending weekend of mountain adventuring. ‘Ummmmm…. sorry Tarrin, but I’ve got a Swatch watch..🤣🤓’ But all good because Tarrin’s a true pro with all that stuff, and I stored all sorts of useful information in my brain (not on my watch) about our elevation gain, how many kilometres we’d hiked, and what altitude we were at. In summary; we climbed so high and steeply we could peek into Lesotho, the Drakensberg, and could see for miles and miles into the Free State region where the Golden Gate Highlands National Park lies. 2600m is very high. And 42km of this stuff in effectively two days makes the legs a bit wary. And happy. So very happy. We shared our route with wilderbeests, zebras, eland, jackals, baboons, and leopard too – although they’re sleek things and tend to keep to themselves. I’m not sure if any of those guys wear sports watches or not.

On our early morning hike today we saw a few rocks near the summit which were well stained with fresh blood. Aligns well with the excited screeches we heard from jackals last night from our tent. At the campsite office yesterday morning there was one lady requesting a hand for cleaning up her campsite; baboons decided to join her and her family for the weekend – food, wine, bedding – they got amongst the lot and had a great time. Just another weekend of camping in South Africa…

And then there’s the nougat. So South Africa has this rather delicious nougat covered in dark chocolate. It comes in a wrapper with the label ‘Sally Williams.’ And as we ate it on Thursday night I learned there’s actually an Afrikaans song about it. Actually. A guy called Jak de Briester has written a song called ‘Sally Williams’ nougat.’ Now, I’m not sure if Sally and Jak actually knew each other, or if Jak just liked the nougat, or just liked the thought of Sally. And as the song was in Afrikaans, I’m not sure what he was singing about exactly. But I found it all very hilarious. That would be a bit like NZ’s beloved Dave Dobbyn or Finn Brothers singing about Jaffas. Which would never happen. Well at least I don’t think it would. But after this whole nougat thing, anything is possible.

What a bloody great couple of days it was gracing those peaks and valleys. Impossible to ever get enough. 👣❤️

April 24, 2019.

Getting pulled up by policemen twice in one day, in two different countries in Africa, is what I like to classify as ‘niche tourism.’

It went something like this:

“Get out of the car, bring your driver’s license and your cash.”

“How much?”

“60 rand.”

(Two cups of coffee….) “Okay.” I step onto the highway.

“….. So I suppose you’ve caught a few people speeding today then?”

“Yes, plus you.”

“Yup. Plus me.”

And THAT, my friends, is how you deal with a speeding ticket.

I had been in Swaziland all of about… oohhh….. six and a half minutes, when I was stung by a copper with his nose down a speed camera. I can pretty much guarantee a fair bit of that fine money wasn’t going to make it back to the police station. His cop mate  was standing pretty much in the middle of the dual carriage way, just waving the naughty speeders to the side. That was my second scolding from a police officer that day, (Good Friday).

The irony of my first infringement incident of the day made me laugh, (not to the policeman’s face, I was too busy tracking my way out of a ticket for dangerous driving..) About a couple of hours’ earlier than the Swaziland incident, while still in South Africa, I’d just drive through a dinky little town called Carolina. Upon leaving this town there was  this bakkie (ute/truck/pick-up) in front of me, going at crawling pace; a stack of chairs on the deck high enough to seat a small school. Wobbling everywhere, I decided to duck past, and yes admittedly it was a double white line as there was a bend in the road. As I nipped past, luck would have it there was a policeman in the line of traffic behind me. Lights on, he pulled me over.

‘Good afternoon officer…’ I apologised lots, even offering the line that I thought it was only ONE white line. He asked for my license, mumbling something about a ticket. Until he looked at my license. Well, it’s not everyday these guys see a NZ one. The whole admin ticket thing got slammed in the Too Hard Basket immediately, and he wished me a good day.

Back to Swaziland. A case of organised chaos as you enter this country; cows all over the road, immigration officers nibbling plates of fried chicken as they stamped the passports. Google Maps cut out as I crossed the border, so I relied on my (crappy) memory of directions of where the backpackers was. I subsequently ended up going through the back entrance to the Mlilwane Game Reserve, one better suited for a tractor. I took these directions from a guy at a petrol station; ‘Go back down the road you’ve just driven, and BEFORE you go past the house that’s burning down, turn left down the road…’ (there was actually a house burning down.) So once down the tractor road, I took the next set of directions from a security guard in the game reserve, who sent me BACK down that tractor road again, then up another kind of tractor road. Awesome wee place. Once the paperwork was sorted, a man at the boom bar with a shot gun slung over his shoulder let me through. When I said I was heading to the backpackers he asked for a lift. ‘Good as gold’ I said, as I waited for him to go back into the office and grab his Easter Eggs, (actually). In the car he got, shotgun still slung over his shoulder. He shoots poachers, sometimes naughty baboons, he told me this as we meandered past impala, eland, wildebeest, crocodile, zebra, and the list goes on. I did not ask him if he shoots speeding dangerous drivers. Easter weekend was about learning Swazi culture, sport, adventure, getting lost, and a little bit injuring myself.. (who needs cartilage in both shoulders anyway?)

October 2019

The Cape showing off… Watch your mate run a very long way in the mountains and come third, (⭐️👣) go wine tasting and running in between support crew duties, enjoy some good chats, eat giant burgers, then enjoy more wine land exploring and chat to more great people the following day. What a fabulous treat. Maxi Race South Africa 2019.