I left the wildlife at the mountain top Hunters camp in time to have a traditional boere breakfast of pap 'n wors with coffee strong enough to stand the spoon up in at Di bus stop, & drove towards Bloemfontein where, tomorrow, I want to find a battery fundi to check out why the house batteries aren't performing as advertised. (Any bets on what the recommendation will be ?)
Nyati loved driving on the dirt roads… No need for speed & the pneumatic seat made life a breeze. Clocolan, Ficksburg & Fouriesburg all slid past surrounded by unending mealie fields. I thought I could hear "duelling banjos".
In my formative years, this's the area our liberal Durban newspapers loved to "skinner" about so much… The naughty church leaders, bridegrooms running off into the mealie fields… & my all time favourite, the paintball whore hunts. Oh Man, I wanted to live here. Excelsior is where the papers said it all happened… Yup that's the route I took.
It was after noon when I stopped at the farm "Wonderboom" & asked the owner, Mnr. Hendrik Bester for a place to park for the night. What a wonderfully hospitable gentleman he was, & very proud of the area, especially the 200 or so LIONS on the neighbouring farm. Certainly no naked paint balling going on here. ????
Early next morning (Sunday) Nyati was gobbling up the road into Bloem. a perfect day, flat road, rev counter stuck on 2200 rpm when the soft putt putt putting sound that I'd been ignoring by incrementally turning up the radio, gradually became a gut wrenching clup CLUP CLATTER… Oh SHIT… DISASTER.
Mmmmmmmm, reminiscent of Galloping Gertie and the gearbox!! Hope you sort it out.
Ja…I thought the same. As the story unfolds it IS a little like that… I mean, what were the odds on us finding EXACTLY the right gearbox in that house sized pile of scrap in the gypsy camp… AND IT WORKED PERFECTLY.
I don't want to start, but there simply MUST have been a guiding hand. I remember actually tripping over the thing.:-O
PAUL!!!!!!, wtf happened man
Ah…That's a story for another time.