October 1, 2019.

And…… we made it to Zim!!!! A bit of a mission, but not too bad for a plan that was shaped up just 15 hours beforehand. After leaving the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in Botswana at the crack of dawn today, with achy legs and a satisfied belly after yesterday’s indulgence of a few tequilas and an epic braai, after running 100km across those mighty salt pans for Botswana’s inaugural stage ultra marathon race The Freshpak Salt Pans Ultra, (that’s an entirely different story by the way..) it was time to head east and hit the Zim border, firstly ensuring the fuel tank was full with an additional couple of full jerry cans for luck. Or necessity. Navigating the Plumtree Border Crossing was no simple process.

A lack of a car registration paper on our part meant a quick backpedal to a local police station on the Botswana side. It went a bit like this…. Turned left at the T-Intersection, drove up a dusty road past a village of small houses. A young fit looking guy casually leaned against his car as we stopped to ask him where the police station was. He pointed us in the right direction, accompanied by ‘What do you need?’ ‘We need an affidavit signed to show we own the car… are you a policeman?’ ‘Yes, but I’m not on duty. My boss is there and will help you.’ Awesome, off we went. The police station was empty, but a lady at the house next door popped her head out, asking if we needed help. She was wearing pajamas, had her face caked in some sort of cosmetic clay, and it turned out she was the policewoman we were looking for. So with a big smile, and still in her mask and pyjamas on, she happily walked over to the Station, and willingly scribed up the required paperwork, (after we found her a pen in the car because she didn’t have one.)

Her superior arrived shortly after to second it, we gave them some cold drinks and chocolate brownie to say thanks, (they were super stoked) and we were then back to the border. Then we get to the Zim side. Africa time, at its best. Nothing was particularly wrong, (apart from the fact we had to smuggle our car in because the man behind the desk didn’t trust the affidavit, so a tale was made up which worked..)  it’s just that nothing happens in a hurry. In a nutshell, three hours from one border post to the next. Now, the Zim currency is quite hard to keep up with at the moment. So when we reached the first toll gate and were asked to pay in the Bond currency, we had no goods. But in Africa, you can always make a plan. Turns out the guy in the car in the bay parallel to us had lots of this stuff, and was after some USD, of which we’d managed to get our hands on a bit of at the border.

So he paid our toll, and we followed him half an hour up the road to Bulawayo, where he waved us over, and we did a little shifty swapsie of currency in the back seat of his car. Nicely done. Oh, that was after we got pulled off at one of the already many  police road blocks, and the man in uniform asked if we had a couple of dollars or some cold drinks from Botswana, (noting the number plate). Again, the chocolate brownie was a winner. But even with all of this organised chaos, it’s always so damn great to get back to this country, even if it is just for a couple of days this time.

The road opened up as we drove north to Harare, we dodged cows and goats and dogs and sketchy trucks and vans and buses unloading or loading masses of people, and my grin just got wider and wider and wider that eventually my face started to hurt. The Batswanan, the South African and the Kiwi – what a great day for a scavenger hunt. mountains haven’t changed a bit in nine years, and I don’t recon we have much either. 🥰

September 26, 2019.

So I’m really pleased the baboon didn’t thief off with the freshly baked scones when he snuck into the kitchen on Monday afternoon, and hooked into the fruit bowl. But he didn’t take the bananas – how weird…

It’s been nine years between innings, but the feeling of serenity and intimacy of the Drakensberg mountains was just the same as it was nine years ago, as my great mate Vic and I pulled into Mkomazana, at the foot of the Sani Pass, last weekend.

It was 2010 when we last visited this treat from Mother Nature together, and I’m pretty sure we had more ideas and rules about ‘being a grown up’ back then, than we do now…

Eight people in one house for four days amongst the mountains equals; feasts, wine, naps, laughs, and some epic stories.

A fun early morning hike, then enjoying the All Blacks won the opening RWC game, and it was totally fine being the only ABs supporter in the room, as long as I kept zipped.

A solo 30km return hike up Sani Pass had Sunday cut out well and truly; had a chat to a local Lesotho guy with a bundle of sticks strapped to his back, swapped him a photo of him for a juicy orange. Learned from a bakkie full of university students that Pretoria University has been studying ant life (yes, actual ants) in the Sani Pass for 16 years. No, I’m not sure why either.. And I met a group of ‘birders’ almost beside themselves as they clutched their binos and long lenses, when they sited their final bird on their list, just as they were on their way home; the Drakensberg Rock Jumper. Which, for matter of fact, lives only at 2700m altitude and above, I think. ‘This is GREAT, it’s like beating the All Blacks, in EXTRA TIME!!! Thank you for sharing this with us!!’ exclaimed my birder friend as she fought back tears. It was actually pretty cool – you’re one tiny dot in one massive mountain range, and each and everyone finds and appreciates different treasures.

Speaking of treasures, horse riding on the Monday was hilarious. My stomach was sore from laughing, and that’s before we got on the four-legged beasts. Loose horses, broken gear, biting, kicking, saddles falling off. My chestnut fluff ball was called Womble, (pronounced ‘Womblee’ like with a bit of French flair). Well Womble was the laziest horse there, except for when he must have been boring himself and decided to take a hunk out of Mr T’s arse (Mr T is a horse, not a person.) Well, Mr T was less than impressed, and Womble was counting his lucky stars the retaliative kick did not land him a big one. And the guy who was on foot walking with us keeping an eye on things, with ‘Dope Hands’ plastered across his chest, was about as helpful as tits on a bull. We did see a beautiful waterfall.

The  Richmond Ranges is one sky line that once you’ve seen it, it never leaves your thoughts. Standing grandly in the Marlborough region, it is stared at with absoloute awe no matter what time of year it is, or what the weather is doing. It’s the most wonderful playground to spend time in with friends, day and night, one foot in front of the other. Mt Fishtail, Mt Riley, Mt Sunday, Mt Richmond, Mt Patriarch – tales and memories galore.

February 2018

If you’re going to be late to work on a Monday, make it a good story! Didn’t quite do the day hike up Mt Tappy that we’d wanted, but a solid effort of 17 hours hiking yesterday, a quick 5 hour kip in the hut as darkness fell, and 7 more hours hiking this morning; totalling 160 river crossings, 40km of screes, rivers, horrible prickly bushes, and boulders.., and climbing JUST ABOUT .. ( so so close..) 2885 metres. That’s mountaineering for ya. We’ll be back Tappy. Fabulous weather and excellent company. Thanks heaps @TaylorPassHoney for more great fuel. #BeeWildStayPureNourishLife

October 27, 2019.

Another weekend up in the clouds – mountain stomping in the mighty Drakensburg, which revealed yet more of its treasures. Tearing around Champagne Castle, higher than 3300m, isn’t for the faint hearted but gee whizz we had fun. Tarrin, thanks once again for a wikid adventure, you really are the smiling queen of the mountains. This was the final sting in the tail before next month’s Sky Run. #hellofarun. And we can’t wait. 👣🤪

May Day Madness Brevet, Marlborough. April 2018.

A story about pedaling for a long time, for about 23 hours, covering 260km, climbing 2193m.

MayDay Madness, 2018. Tick.

Mandy I had no idea you are a bit of a Marilyn Manson fan?!

The scene on the first day. Lunchtime. Enter ‘Cosy Corner Café’ in sleepy little Seddon. Home baked goods in the cabinet. A couple of content pensioners eating their baked beans on toast, butter on the side and accompanied with two eggs, one has scrambled and one has poached. Pot of Tea for Two. Log burner roaring. And Marilyn Manson blasts ‘Beautiful People’ from the speakers. No one seems phased. Such a totally natural scene….

So who knew that…. People actually have barbed wire collections. Because during the years gone by, especially during different wars and such major events, barbed wire has changed. So people collect it. Mandy shared this gem of a fact during our game of Eye Spy, late on Saturday afternoon just as the rain was setting in and before it got dark. BW. It took me AGES!!!!

Then it got dark. We pedaled through Taylor Pass in the rain, and it went a bit like this:

Wonder if there’s any stags around?

Hm, not sure.

Maybe we could do some roaring.

Ok. Mandy you go first.

ROAR!!!

Wha? What was that?!

Oooh, that didn’t sound very good. (Sounded more like throwing up.) Your turn.

ROAR!!

Wha? Wow? That was terrible! Crikey!!!!!

Wow!! That was worse than yours!

(Stags’ roars always sound way better in our heads than out loud.)

Is that stags over there??!!! Oh, no it’s steers.

Oh. New game?

Mandy is a great Brevet buddy. It’s 4.30pm on Saturday. Been biking since 8am, still have another 3.5 hours to go for the day. On dusk, time to get your lights out:

Rustling through my backpack. Still rustling. F**K.

Empty bag and refill. Three times. Exactly the same way. Each time hoping for a different result…. (by the way, by definition this is the definition of insanity.)

Oi Mandy.

Yeah?

Ah, um. Lights got left at home.

Oh. Ah. Um. I’ve got spares.

YYUUSSS!!! Money cannot buy a friend like this one.

Hot food, stiff drink, quick kip. Rain sets in for good. No better way to find reason to get up in the middle of the night and carry on biking.

Nine hours of biking on Day 2. Rain. Everywhere. Mud. Everywhere. And some river crossings. What the heck?!

Peacocks and pigs can be cohabitants. They were today. Technically, cohabitation is to live together without being married. I don’t think peacocks will ever marry pigs. So in this case we’ll use this term in the agricultural sense. In this paddock the pigs were merrily trudging around in the mud, while the peacocks were standing on top of the pigs’ houses, flapping their colored feathers and all.  And they were all great mates and everyone was happy. Goodness knows what happens at feeding time.

Episodes of rural wonder such as this can be admired on bike rides such as these.

As Fred Dagg once sang; “New Zealand’s a cracker…….. We don’t know how luck we are.. (he repeated).. We don’t know how lucky we are.”

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?)