I’m not sure what Midge was trying to communicate - something about ‘hot as hell’, or ‘I’m bloody hot’, or ‘don’t you think I’m incredibly handsome’. I just simply don’t understand what he’s on about most of the time.
The Marienfluss looks incredible from the air on Google Maps, and there was no chance we were blasting straight across it. I had plotted an incredible looking route straight south, and over the mountains to join the road from Red Drum.
This day was serving up some absolutely sensational riding. Like a massive river bed, the sand snaked south, and it was open as far as the eye could see. Time to play! I jammed on the throttle, whacked it into top gear and bolted off.
Startled springbok danced left and right, ostriches loped along in their odd, jaunty stride and we wove between thorn bushes and large trees dotted around the massive flood plain. The sand was wasn’t exactly plain sailing - there were drop-offs and ditches between the wide carving bits, and at one point I had a bit of a sphincter clinching moment as I had to leap a three foot deep ditch at about 80kph. The 500 took it all in her stride though, and strained at her leash, begging for more.
After a while I realised it was only Mike and I left together, and he must have realised the same thing, cause he stopped for a conference.
“Where are they?” Although the sand bed was very open, it was also extremely wide at this point, and there were dozens of route options - obviously formed by different rivulets that must have coursed down here in a wet season some time in the not too distant past.
“Why don’t you wait here in case they come past, and I’ll go back and see if I can find them?” I suggested.
After five or ten minutes I came across Tom, also stopped in the track, but no sign of Prof or the Midge. I carried on - now five and then perhaps ten kilometres back from where I’d turned around. It prays on your mind a little, being out here in such a remote place. Motocycling is inherently dangerous, and even if one rides conservatively there’s always the chance of something going wrong.
My brief encounter with that ditch was weighing on me a bit. Like a splinter in the thick part of your heel - just enough to remind you that all is not well. I think we often have these feelings, but most of the time they are proven to be wrong… and we forget them. But then, just occasionally, life jumps out and grabs you by the throat.
I came around the corner and saw this:
My heart stopped.
Well, actually that photo was taken a bit later, when Mike had already arrived, and we’d rolled Gav over onto his back. What I saw when I arrived was a motionless body under the shade canopy and the Midge kneeling next to him in the dirt.
It’s the worst fear of these trips - something going truly and catastrophically wrong. I’d had a pretty bad accident in Angola on our last big trip, and it had made me ride on the cautious side of responsible on this one. When **** goes wrong out here it goes wrong properly, quickly and with severe consequences.
But what was that Fortuner doing there?
By now I’d ascertained that Gav wasn’t dead, and his spine was in one piece, but he’d fallen badly and broken his right leg. Midge had already hit him hard with his private stash of prescription painkillers but he was still feeling woozy and nearly passed out when we tried to move him.
And so began an unlikely and incredible series of coincidence, good fortune, call it what you like.
Dave and Thelma - remember them? Well, the lack of GPS (and perhaps our tracks) had seen them make a strange turn left and drive south down the Marienfluss. Nobody else does this route, and they were a pretty long way from the main track when they came across Gav, just ten minutes or so after his accident.
What are the chances?
We’ve never taken a sat phone on any of our trips before, and flirted briefly with the idea when planning this ride,t before deciding there was safety in numbers and that modern technology messed with adventure. Weeellll… let’s just say the sheer idiocy of that idea was now on full display. **** ain’t real until **** gets very real, and **** just showed up.
God bless the retirees!
They very kindly bundled the cripple into the back seat, and set off after me in search of a telephone and a place to land a whirlybird. In that order. The 690 was unceremoniously left under a tree. X marked the spot.
We were back on the official trail now, and Red Drum soon appeared. The ambulance was painfully slow in the rough terrain, but the patient must have been thanking his lucky stars more times than a yogi chanting the same irritating mantra.
One part of the trail south is particularly tough, but super guide Thelma just jumped out the front seat and expertly guided Dave over the rocks. That’s how the septuagenarians roll, baby.
Unfortunately that’s where my photos for the day end. I think the stress and heat got the better of me. Marble campsite is pretty famous in these parts, and it’s at a place called ‘Onjuva’ on the T4A map, but there are about a hundred different spellings of the place… something that was soon to cause major problems for our evacuation plan.
The fortune was running strong in this day… the American Embassy has recently sponsored a brand new clinic at Onjuva, which had opened just three months previously! Onjuva is a tiny little hamlet with one spaza shop, an elementary school, and a bunch of huts. And that same clinic happened to have a telephone and just-working wifi!!! What are the chances?
The extremely helpful nurse welcomed us, and we set up camp on the porch. The phone unfortunately couldn’t dial out, but we’d been there about ten minutes when two 4x4 bakkies rolled past. Tourists!! I took a double take and dashed out the gate, waving frantically. Sat phone! Sat phone!
They stopped and out jumped a smiling German with a bunch of geology students on work vacation. Yes, they had a sat phone!
And then things just got weird. Like the Patient Professor, Chief German was also a geologist, and this very same day, one year ago, in this very same place, had had a climbing accident in the nearby mountains and broken his leg.
He also didn’t have a sat phone that day.
I called up the Gav’s wife Fotini in Cape Town. It wasn’t the best call I’d ever had with her:
“Um HiiiI! Fotini! It’s Ian.
I’m calling you on a sat phone.
We’ve got a bit of a problem.
Gav’s broken his leg.
But he’s ok… don’t stress… he’s going to be absolutely fine, there’s nothing to worry about.
But in case he’s not, we need you to get a chopper here - today would be a very good idea.”
What else can one say? Luckily the clinic could take incoming calls, and the wifi sort of worked, so we had comms - first part accomplished.
It was 3pm at this point, and now we were going to test Discovery’s remote recovery and medi-vac chops. Scramble a chopper from Windhoek, or fly a small plane in to the landing strip at Orupembe, just 20km or so further south - how hard could it be?
To cut a long story short, between broken telephones, dodgy wifi and a hundred different spellings of the name ‘Onjuva’ - where is that exactly again? - by 7pm we had no idea what was happening. The clinic was staying open for this bunch of helpless Umzungu and things were looking a bit bleak.
After the fourth different Discovery person had started from scratch and didn’t sound like they had a ******* clue what was going on, I’d barked at Fotini down the phone line and made her cry. Ouch. Did we tell them Gav was in mortal danger and get a chopper here now!!!? Or did we take him to the campsite, make him as comfortable as we could and see what the morning would bring?
His wife was now terrified he’d get a thrombosis during the night and die. We’d left his boot on to stabilise the leg and I honestly had no idea what was going on down there. The clinic weren’t equipped to do anything more than call Opuwo and wait 12 hours for a land ambulance to trek the rough and arduous track just to get there and pick him up.
Finally, we spoke to the chopper pilot out of Swakopmund. Discovery had come through, despite the ****** communication. Flying at night was out of the question, so we were going to have to stabilise him for the night. The evac people were incredible - they even offered to send a ground crew from Hentie’s Bay to stabilise him if they could get there during the night, but he was doing all right and we decided it wasn’t necessary.
And let’s not forget the incredible Dave and Thelma, who were still standing by as ambulance. We decamped to Marble campsite, booked out their little hut for the aged and wounded, cooked a hearty dinner, sent the kitty ***** off for beer and settled in for the night.
The chopper would take off as soon as the mist cleared from Swakop in the morning. Hopefully there would be no more drama…
Morale of the story? Be careful what you expect from a day - a cow may just land on your head!
