Day 6, fifth riding day
Epupa Falls to van Zyl's camp
In the morning Rob proved to be feeling better (here's to celebrate a drug overdose!
), to such an extent even that he'd rather not be repatriated home but rather be carted around in the Unimog for the rest of the trip! :thumleft:
Wether Hennie was glad with that I dunno, but it was so done - and, this saved us all some inconvenience too.
Werner had decided to give Rob's 300 a try and would ride it - bakgattios! :thumleft:
And yes, for the entire remainder of the trip he could not be pried off the thing anymore.... I know, I actually tried on the very last day
In hindsight - always the clearest! - this was somewhat logical because the day ahead, although very short in distance, included the more-technical stuff, rocks mainly, we had not encountered yet. Had Werner done this day on his 701 he'd still know about it I reckon, and the lighter & nimbler 300 made it a lot easier for him. When I asked him at the end of the day he said something alike also, makes sense.
Right, so us lot had a plan: ride to van Zyl's camp over the road first, some 70km's, then a rocky track with Heartbreak Hill to the camp, another 70km's odd.
According to Hardy's briefing (or was that a warning?) the first 70 kays would take
1 hour, and the next 70 kays would take us
7 hours!
Really?
Well, at the time I seemed to remember some pics with large reddish rocks strewn on an allegedly steep hill from Noneking's RR, so this had to be
it then, some Roof of Africa stuff in the mix!
I'll see and cross that bridge when I would get there was my take, but some worried faces were seen amoung the group.
Van Zyl's Camp was a community endeavor Hardy told us, and 'hopefully' there will be water!
Well, that was a new one for us, thus far we'd have had just about everything everywhere during our stopover places - we would see!
Off we went via the road, easy enough of course.
It veered off away from the Cunene river and we would not see it again, a pity as the vistas from above were gorgeous.
Then the road became a bit more like a Jeep-track, with here and there some rocky stuff so, lekker riding. At some stage there was a rocky uphill so I trundled up it - but let me explain.
I'm no riding god and prefer to sit, I only get up when I really need to. On rocky stuff this means I gooi n anker uit here and there, some call these paddapote... and with some use of the latter I just got up that hill.
Halfway up though I saw the complete collective of my riding buddies assembled at the top staring down at me, silently holding their breaths.... really?
Turns out that incline is 'the' Heartbreak Hill, to be honest completely different than what I had expected, and downright manageable (again, for someone not trying to 'style' it up!) -
nothing like what I seemed to remember, which looked like proper Roof stuff!
The others followed, and kudos to Jaco who styled it up, fell over, went down to try again but did a repeat - a pity boet, we all know you
can!
Hardy in the cruiser followed -
also styling it by letting that V8 idle the car up whilst he himself hung out sideways of the door!
Sorry Jaco, got a few pics of you but not of Hardy 'letting it all hang out'
If someone has this please post them?
On to van Zyl's camp then, so we did.
Some sand also in the mix, and at the campsite we played a bit in the sand river the camp was located at/on/in.
No water anywhere, I've been seen trying a lot of taps - but all were bonedry!
So, no shower tonight, and for those needing the throne a boskak was on the cards - fine enough, and space aplenty :thumleft:
The Team arrived a bit later as expected, because the vehicles took another, and longer, route to this camp for obvious reasons.
Except for the normal routine (stretcher, mattress, kitbag, change and chairs) some rather innovative spannering unfolded also.
It was early still, and Andre's WR450 had an aluminium rear sprocket which by now was
so badly worn that a few spikes (the remnants of the original teeth) had broken off already!
Sand is no sprocket's friend, but an aluminium one is chewed superfast (and NOT an option for this trip, let this be said!).
Andre's bike
had to get another sprocket on or his riding was over, simple as that!
We did not
have a spare though, so this complicates matters a little.... where's the nearest shop, and can they airdrop it today?
But... thanks Werner, his 701 on the cruiser had a fine sprocket on so we tried that :thumleft:
This sprocket proved almost perfect, even the boltholes were a perfect fit - but for the ID, which was a bit too small.
The Yammie's hub has a small proud ridge around which the sprocket fits, and this ridge was not to be damaged by simply 'clamping' the sprocket on. We also did not have some material to 'fill' the offset so we had to adapt - increase! - the sprocket's inner diameter hole.
Easier said then done, but with a decent file I can do a lot.
So I asked for files: Sorry, we don't have files
But, we have a battery-operated grinder, with some spare batteries and various discs including a flapper-disk! :thumleft:
Amazing what comes out of those vehicles eh?
So the old and the new sprocket were bolted together and next this lot was wedged in a tree's V where it locked properly, and so the inner hole was matched to the proper, larger diameter.
This worked above expectation well, and we got the inner hole absolutely perfect to size, we actually tapped the sprocket onto the hub! :thumleft: :thumleft:
Thus Andre ended up with a 'new' bike so he could carry on ripping as per his usual, great!
In these somewhat primitive surroundings a super dinner was dished up, with a fresh salad even ..... try to do that when you're on your own?
Bullybeef may come first, and yeah, that's edible too
A large fire - wood aplenty there - kept us glued around it until we hit our sacks.
but knowing him so well, better it happened where it did and not where unimog wasn’t present.
stompies in braai.
