Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A hectic month
Sorry for not coming on here and updating but we have been a bit busy.
Our friends John and Dave arrived from the UK to visit us so we left Maputo and headed north again to a wonderful beach resort at Beline, 180km out of Maputo, its situated on a lagoon that was so warm it was like having a bath, sat in the sun and relaxed.
after a week John went home and Daves wife Clionagh arrived for Daves last week, a great 2weeks folks and it was nice to see some old faces again and thanks john for bringing out my much need spare parts for the bike, the cheese and bacon were appreciated aswell.
After saying goodbye to our guests and a night back in Maputo Bruce and myself headed off to South Africa to meet up with a guy who could help me get some tyres for the bike.
Martin who had contacted me through horizonsunlimited web site had given me the phone No of reaction racing in Nelspruit run by Mark so we arranged that and went to visit Martin at his house thinking that we would be in a cheap hotel nearby.
Not a bit of it , Martin has a cottage in his garden that was ready for us so after a beer or 10 we settled in and met the family properly, Martins wife Sasha made us feel completly at home and the three kids, Ben, Zack and Toby and 7 dogs were great to be around, thanks my friends.
Martin is as daft about bikes as me and two of his lads are already riding MX bikes ,pictures to follow. Martin has quite a few bikes and let me have a ride on his KTM 200cc enduro bike, 2 strokes have obviously come along a bit since my racing days, the power of this bike was awesome, it nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets.
We went out on the second day to pick up marts latest toy a brand new BMW 450 X trail he offered me a ride on that but as it was brand new I declined as the thought of crashing it was to much to bear.
Bruce and I headed off to get our tyres fitted at reaction racing via a rather special route that Mart showed me, the views over the mountains were great, a fantastic days riding.
We sadly had to leave the day after that , a great family and we will keep in touch, once again thanks for everything folks.
I have to go now to cook breakfast but will be back on later to put some Piccies up
Our friends John and Dave arrived from the UK to visit us so we left Maputo and headed north again to a wonderful beach resort at Beline, 180km out of Maputo, its situated on a lagoon that was so warm it was like having a bath, sat in the sun and relaxed.
after a week John went home and Daves wife Clionagh arrived for Daves last week, a great 2weeks folks and it was nice to see some old faces again and thanks john for bringing out my much need spare parts for the bike, the cheese and bacon were appreciated aswell.
After saying goodbye to our guests and a night back in Maputo Bruce and myself headed off to South Africa to meet up with a guy who could help me get some tyres for the bike.
Martin who had contacted me through horizonsunlimited web site had given me the phone No of reaction racing in Nelspruit run by Mark so we arranged that and went to visit Martin at his house thinking that we would be in a cheap hotel nearby.
Not a bit of it , Martin has a cottage in his garden that was ready for us so after a beer or 10 we settled in and met the family properly, Martins wife Sasha made us feel completly at home and the three kids, Ben, Zack and Toby and 7 dogs were great to be around, thanks my friends.
Martin is as daft about bikes as me and two of his lads are already riding MX bikes ,pictures to follow. Martin has quite a few bikes and let me have a ride on his KTM 200cc enduro bike, 2 strokes have obviously come along a bit since my racing days, the power of this bike was awesome, it nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets.
We went out on the second day to pick up marts latest toy a brand new BMW 450 X trail he offered me a ride on that but as it was brand new I declined as the thought of crashing it was to much to bear.
Bruce and I headed off to get our tyres fitted at reaction racing via a rather special route that Mart showed me, the views over the mountains were great, a fantastic days riding.
We sadly had to leave the day after that , a great family and we will keep in touch, once again thanks for everything folks.
I have to go now to cook breakfast but will be back on later to put some Piccies up
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Of Police and passports
So there we were sitting in a bar in the red light district at the back of the hotel having a beer or five, its cheap and safe down there as there are so many police and door staff about and as its our 2nd night down there we don,t get hassled.
So we come to leave and as we got round the corner to the hotel we got pulled by 4 cops all with AK47,s,
"Passports please" say they, we havn,t got them with us sir as we are so close to the hotel and we were worried about being robbed.
This is very serious we will have to arrest you and take you to the police station overnight,
bruce offers to go to the hotel and get the passports as I wait with them,
this offer is rejected, so we argued some more and I,m getting pissed off, Bruce is tryng to shut me up and placating the cops at the same time,
I,ve had enough and say so lets get on with it arrest us and we will sort it out at the station, but Bruce dosnt fancy a night in the cells , I on the other hand don,t care at this point ( a stupid mix of alchohol and adrenaline)but I was fairly sure they were bluffing
After more argueing a compromise was reached, if we buy them a drink it could be sorted,
"but we dont have any money we both shout" determined not to give a blatant bribe
" if we had any money we would still be in the bar here or drinking in the hotel"
" we are but skint bikers travelling around your wonderfull country sirs"
We could see the glimmer of victory on the horizon.We had both automatically put our notes and change in different pockets earlier and when we pulled out our change from our pockets it came to about 50p
But we cant get a drink with this they said, but its all we have we say lying through our teeth.
Result-------- They gave us the change back in Disgust and we shook hands and said goodnight
So we come to leave and as we got round the corner to the hotel we got pulled by 4 cops all with AK47,s,
"Passports please" say they, we havn,t got them with us sir as we are so close to the hotel and we were worried about being robbed.
This is very serious we will have to arrest you and take you to the police station overnight,
bruce offers to go to the hotel and get the passports as I wait with them,
this offer is rejected, so we argued some more and I,m getting pissed off, Bruce is tryng to shut me up and placating the cops at the same time,
I,ve had enough and say so lets get on with it arrest us and we will sort it out at the station, but Bruce dosnt fancy a night in the cells , I on the other hand don,t care at this point ( a stupid mix of alchohol and adrenaline)but I was fairly sure they were bluffing
After more argueing a compromise was reached, if we buy them a drink it could be sorted,
"but we dont have any money we both shout" determined not to give a blatant bribe
" if we had any money we would still be in the bar here or drinking in the hotel"
" we are but skint bikers travelling around your wonderfull country sirs"
We could see the glimmer of victory on the horizon.We had both automatically put our notes and change in different pockets earlier and when we pulled out our change from our pockets it came to about 50p
But we cant get a drink with this they said, but its all we have we say lying through our teeth.
Result-------- They gave us the change back in Disgust and we shook hands and said goodnight
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Pictures
With the Irish And Scotish in Malawi, and the one above speaks for itself
Puncture repairs
We only stopped for a coke!!!!!
Williams falls I found this by accident
Part of the trail at Zomba
I,m going to try to upload some photos, I,ve not had a lot of success with this, YEEEEES!!!!!!~
the cops who gave us the escort
Malawi to Moz continued
We wound up at the wrong border from Malawi to Moz even though we had asked the cops for directions and had to backtrack and spend another night in Blantyre, no great problem as its quite a chilled out place .
The border crossing into Mozambique is pretty easy as far as Africa borders go but its as if somebody turned the heating up its seriously hot here and its the rainy season which in reality means it rains in the afternoons so a morning ride is adviseable.
we came back to the coast at Vilanculos where we found a cheap backpacker lodge and after a beer I discovered I had a puncture in the rear tyre, oh well that tube was repaired in Senegal so it lasted quite well.
Our tyres on both bikes are really knackered and we were trying to make it to Durban to get new ones but we have met some guys here who have told us about a road through Swaziland mountains that is supposed to be special and there is a bike shop in Swaziland that will do tyres and as its more or less on the way to Durban we may as well ride it.
The border crossing into Mozambique is pretty easy as far as Africa borders go but its as if somebody turned the heating up its seriously hot here and its the rainy season which in reality means it rains in the afternoons so a morning ride is adviseable.
we came back to the coast at Vilanculos where we found a cheap backpacker lodge and after a beer I discovered I had a puncture in the rear tyre, oh well that tube was repaired in Senegal so it lasted quite well.
Our tyres on both bikes are really knackered and we were trying to make it to Durban to get new ones but we have met some guys here who have told us about a road through Swaziland mountains that is supposed to be special and there is a bike shop in Swaziland that will do tyres and as its more or less on the way to Durban we may as well ride it.
Onwards to Mozambique
We are currently in a place called Inhambrane in Southern Mozambique, we spent our last few days in Malawi in Zomba where the trails up in the mountains were fantastic, we even got a police escort out of Malawi,
It turns out all the police bikes in Malawi were travelling to Blantyre to meet the president and they overtook us on the road, as the last one came past (8 bikes) he motioned to Bruce for us to tuck in behind them, brilliant!!!!! we past every police road block in formation with these guys and made ahem rapid progress, now in Malawi you can expect a police check every 50km or so and we did 250 km with these guys and stopped with them for a chat when they stopped for fuel, a great mornings ride
It turns out all the police bikes in Malawi were travelling to Blantyre to meet the president and they overtook us on the road, as the last one came past (8 bikes) he motioned to Bruce for us to tuck in behind them, brilliant!!!!! we past every police road block in formation with these guys and made ahem rapid progress, now in Malawi you can expect a police check every 50km or so and we did 250 km with these guys and stopped with them for a chat when they stopped for fuel, a great mornings ride
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