If at First You Don't' Succeed!!!

The Shear magnitude of what we did yesterday is lost in the photos, but to call Leopard's Hill a road would be a gross over-representation. As a 4X4 trail though, Absolutely magnificent!! Steep inclines, Super-steep hill descents(whoever built the road worked on the principle of the shortest distance between two points is best. In other words if there is a hill in the way, go over it, don't wind, go straight over!!), awesome dry riverbeds to cross(the road just drops away into them), three wheel rock walking, thick unspoilt bush and awesome views made the 6hour foray into the unknown one of the coolest things I've ever done!! Sadly, 3hrs and 30km into the journey, efforts to make it to Lusaka were brought to a rather unceremonius halt by a grader stuck in the middle of the road, on one of the hillsides. The only signs of the driver were fresh footprints in the dirt and the warm engine. An hour earlier would've seen us get past. But with a bank on one side and a shear drop on the other, the only way past would've been to move the blade. Since I know nothing about grader operation or if it is even possible to move the blade when the thing is broken down, the only option was to turn around(interesting enough) and return along the track we had come along.
As it stands, we've made two attempts at the route and have doubled the distance each time. Third time will be the charm. Fo' Sho'!!. And the fourth is from town to the river by bicycle, motorbike and support vehicle later in the winter. If the fish traders can do it, so can we..hahaha!! Sadly though (and at the risk of sounding like I built Africa), by the end of June, they say they'll have revamped it so although it'll be exciting, it'll have nothing on what we have already seen.
Willy still hasn't shown up to give me an article of note, so I have routed around in his stuff and managed to pull one out for you. This one was clearly just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Castrated officer on mend

A WATER affairs officer who was castrated by his workmates in suspicious circumstances in early September is reported to be out of danger and is recovering steadily. A police source told Zana that Francis Musonda had since been discharged from Kasama General Hospital and is currently recovering at his home in Mporokoso.Police said even the two officers suspected of having castrated their colleague have been put on police bond.He said the case is coming up in court on November 19, where details of how the whole episode occurred, will be disclosed. On September 26, the castrated officer was invited for dinner by two of his workmates who consequently pounced on him and castrated him.-Zana

Xterra-rised!

It seems that the Xterra was all that it promised (or threatened) to be - and 'gruelling' would not be a bad word to describe it - at least the bike section that is! Saturday turned out to be an awesome day for racing in Grabouw - blue skies and sun, but not too hot.

The first leg of the race was up to our specialist swimmer Sven 'Tango' Bourquin, who was one of the few brave souls who hit the water in a Speedo amongst all the other wetsuit clad competitors, and was outstanding in the swim - not only because of the 19 degree water. Somehow he managed to evade our photographers, but you may be able to pick him out somewhere in all the chaos. After being hit with a surprise 800m dash over open ground from the water to the transition area, he passed on the timing chip and sent me off on the 30km MTB course.

Things did not go as smoothly as I would've like as after seven kilometres I buckled my rear rim slightly meant that my brakes were binding for the rest of the race - not great on a course that already involved some mad climbs and. The technical difficulties did not stop there as a bit later I fritzed my odometer on an unexpectedly deep water crossing and then lost 1/3 of my gears to bad 'chain-suck' reducing my 27 gears to 18... again not really ideal for a course with some rather hectic ascents. So after a rather long 3hrs out on the course I finally made it back to the transition area to hand over to our runner, Carmen, who did well considering the fact that this was actually an offroad race was only sprung on her at the last minute!

All told, Team Sierra-Foxtrot-Tango did not really pose a huge threat to the big guns. We finished 145th out of 179 overall (35th of 39 teams in our category) with a total time of 4hrs 44mins. The overall winner, Conrad Stoltz completed all three legs in 2hrs 44mins - less time than I was out there on the bike for! Nonetheless, we finished and got the medals to prove it, it was good fun, the beer tasted good afterwards and it is definitely a better way to spend a Saturday morning than moping about the house with a post Friday night hangover!

Stiff Upper Lipping!!

Tumultuous!! That's about all I can think of to describe the trials that have been the last two weeks, no doubt evident from the notable absence of updates from The River. I won't bore you with the entire list but the more notable travesties include:
A hippo attack on a supposedly 'hippo-proof' boat, work permit anxiety, theft, car-accidents, Theft, general staff malaise, THEFT, and malicious damage to 'the biggest jetty in the valley' by the low water levels. Did I mention theft?
On the bright side though, it's over now, the jetty is almost back to normal, the boat can be repaired(and thank goodness noone was hurt) and we're busy!! According to Jason, if I divide the bad by three, I'll get the number of good things to come???? By my calculations, I'm due at least three:
1. Win the Lotto
2. Marry a Super-model
3. 10+kg tiger!!! Yeah!
You'll no doubt have noticed that Willy has been absent too. Probably just as well. Dealing with his nonsense would've just exacerbated the general mood in camp. But I'll jump on him this week to give us something really special to make up for his laziness.
The change in season has also brought some nasty, Nasty luck with the Tiger. Effzett's and Rapala's are out and even bait(can you believe I've resorted to it) is producing rather feeble pickups. But I'm optimistic that once we get into winter we'll start producing some trophy stuff. Afterall, winter is my favourite time to fish, even if it means having to come off the water almost an hour earlier.
Lookout for these forthcoming attractions in the coming week:
All the pics I can dig up from the April madness, a recce trip up the Leopard's Hill 'shortcut' to Lusaka on wednesday(Two Landcruisers, Iron Mike and the unknown...gotta be fun!!), the return of 'Super-Changwe' to finish off the jetty and as always, the long awaited return of Intrepid Reporter William Wallitoompa.

Keepin on!!!.....;))The Commodore