As Mark, Jackie and I make our final preparations for Morocco, I thought it might be fun to look back at Marks and my Enduro Africa adventure in 2008. Enduro Africa is where we met Steph, Steve and Mick Extance who we will be riding with in Morocco
Enduro Africa 2008
Mark – Thursday October 2nd, 2008
We’re off
A long day or two of traveling ahead. We are leaving the Midlands today to Heathrow, then off to Jo’berg. An 8 or 9 hour layover before a 2 hour flight to Port Elizabeth to meet with our trusty steed, a Honda CRF230 (we think!)
In all, about 26 hours of traveling and then the journey starts. Check in for more updates (whenever we can get internet access)………….
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Mark – Friday, October 3, 2008
Arrival in Jo’Berg
What a flight! Not a wink’s sleep for either of us and it wasn’t the excitement yet. The tiny seats combined with rock hard cushions (a term lightly used to described SAA’s somewhat padded seats) has left Pete and I pretty tired and now we have an 8 hour wait for the local flight to Port Elizabeth. The photo below is Pete waiting for a complementary massage, was it ever needed. We are one step closer to Enduro Africa 2008. All the discussions are around what will be the steepest ascents or drops, who is going to fall of the most etc. All I know is it is going to be a pile of fun.
Port Elizabeth at last
Well, it took a while, but we are here. Another delayed flight meant that we were over 30 hours traveling from the UK! Great weather here. Everyone is very excited and Enduro Africa has so far raised over $650,000 on this years trip. A great achievement by all the riders.
We had great speeches from the three charities, UNICEF, Sentebale and Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Fund, then the organisers sprung a surprise on us. Tomorrow we are up at 7am, off at 8am with 300km’s of riding through a game park towards the end of the day followed by an evening camping in rural Africa. What a treat. We all figured we were going to be going over the bikes, having a lazy day and filling them up with fuel…. another days riding. YAHOOO!
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Pete – Saturday, October 4, 2008
Day 1 – First days riding
At last, we are on the bikes! Day 1 was a bit of a surprise. We thought it 
would be an acclimatisation day, getting to know the bikes, doing a bit of local riding around Port Elizabeth (PE), filling the tank. Oh no. Up at 6am for breakfast then leave the hotel at 8am for our mass ride out of PE. When we arrived last night the bikes were all lined up outside the hotel, about 100 red and white Hondas. It was awesome. We had a brief chance to meet our own bikes, start ‘em up and do a lap of the car-park before bed. Mark and I added the numbers we had bought in the UK to make our bikes stand out (Important when there are 100 other identical ones at every stop point. Mark is running 77 and I am 23).
We gathered in the car park at 7.30am, loaded up the support wagons with our luggage and got into the spirit of Enduro Africa with a bunch of African warriors – dancing, singing and drumming with them before the start of the enduro rally. The atmosphere was fantastic. We have been divided into five groups. Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue and Green. Mark and I are riding for Team Orange, but for the ride out of PE we rode en masse, all teams mixing it together.
It was an emotional start to our event. Lots of horn tooting and high five-ing and there was big a grin inside every single crash helmet.
The reason we are here was apparent right from the start, although to a less extent in PE. The visible poverty was a bit of a shock. Nothing terrible at this point but there were plenty of vagrants on the road sides earning a buck or two cleaning car windscreens. I didn’t expect to see it so quickly. We will see much more serious poverty over the coming days I’m sure.
We rode out of town and traveled north a little way with the Indian Ocean to our left. The breakers were rolling in along the sandy coast that stretched for 
as far as the eye could see.
A couple of whales were sighted (not by me or Mark)
and our first stop was at a beach car-park about 10km out of PE. From here we broke off into our groups and started the ride proper. The rest of the morning was a mixture of road and gravel. Dusty and exhilarating.
Talking of exhilarating, lets talk about our lunch stop. We rode into a safari park where we were treated to a two hour game tour with a hearty lunch at the end. It was an incredible couple of hours. Lions, Giraffes, Zebra, White Rhinos, Monkeys and all sorts of African horse/deer type things.
When I say we rode into the safari park, that is exactly what we did, with instructions not to stop at any cost. The Lions were quite close apparently. Its a great way to teach bike riders how to get a move on on sandy tracks!
We left the game park and moved north taking some rutty and gravelly tracks and roads up to Port Alfred. The loose gravel seems to be the demon surface at this point. Orange group had their first big off on a right hand bend on loose gravel and I was right in the middle of it. The ground dropped away sharply on the left as the road swept into the right hander. We were getting on at a good pace and unfortunately riding a bit too close (the dust from the roads is like fog). The rider two in front of me laid the bike down half way through the corner, the rider in front of me went down in sympathy and clattered into the first bike. How, I don’t know, but I managed to avoid them both with my back wheel locked and my bike sideways in good old speedway style. The poor guy behind me didn’t have a chance to react and clattered into them at a good pace and went over his handle bars and straight down the bank, closely followed by his bike. Thankfully no one had any injuries more serious than bruises and a few little grazes. Very lucky indeed. We carried on just a little bit slower.
After a visit to the ocean at Port Alfred we headed for our night stop, another game reserve. As we entered the park, our team leader David pulled us up and announced that a special riding section had been prepared to get us to our digs, and it was going to be challenging. It was, but it was also huge fun. A steep and long rocky descent took us onto a quick little trials track. The grins and whoops were back and we all had a blast.
We pulled up at the lodge along the side of the river to park the bikes and check in. What a spectacular place. The accommodation was mixed and a lot of the men were in a big bivouac tent. Basically a big cushion on the floor for each rider and a sleeping bag. Real hardy stuff. We had another good meal then sat around the camp fires drinking and swapping stories from the first day. Great stuff.
I climbed into my sleeping bag at about 11pm with my alarm set for 6am. Looks like early starts every day. I was shattered and happy but the big tent we were all sleeping in was cold, damp and sounded like the biggest farm yard you have ever heard. Everything we put on the next day was cold and damp. Sounds like we are going to have to toughen up boys and girls!!! Its perfect!!
P.S. Not everyone slept in the bivouac tent. There were some beautiful small lodges up high in the trees and an even plusher lodge a couple of km away for the very lucky ones. They had walls and a roof and everything!! (o:
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Mark – Sunday, October 5, 2008
Day 2 – Up into the Hills
It is hard to believe that we have only been riding for 2 days. Everyone looks so dusty and “well used”. The night in the marquis was pretty cool for a lot of people. Thank goodness my Marmott sleeping bag kept me nice and warm and the ear plugs kept out unwanted noises. Apparently we may have had a visitor last night. A friendly giraffe at the game park we were at has a habit of nuzzling up to you if you go outside for a pee at night! I did not see him but he is a bit of a local star.
Breakfast was absolutely fantastic although I am cutting back on rations. I am not sure if the Enduro refers to the amount of food we eat or the riding.
We set off out of the game park up the hills we came down last night. Great fun and I was able to get off and video everything. We will upload videos to YouTube soon and put links in the blog when we get a chance. Pete and I both managed the hill which had a lot of people nervous and intimidated.
After that I made an ass of myself on a fast gravel corner. Riding beside Pete on the outside, I was being lazy and not paying attention when I realised I would not make the corner I was into when I was riding on the loose gravel on the edge of the road. I had no choice but to lay the bike down and avoid going over an embankment. I was really ticked with myself and thought I would for sure be the first mishap of the day when we all realised that sitting across the street was Team Red with a rider with an apparent broken ankle after jumping over the bank and into the middle of the asphalt road. I got off lightly with nothing more than a dented ego! The good news is that all of the safety gear that Enduro Africa insists on really works.
The day would prove to be tough for Team Red as couple more accidents claimed some victims and their numbers started to dwindle. Everybody involved is well and taken extremely good care of and in fact, I must admit from a safety point of view, it is very much like being in a competitive rally with stages not “live” until first aid and responders are in place.
Everybody’s riding is improving and Team Orange so far appears to have a very competent group of riders across a range of levels. The morning consisted of several fast gravel roads interspersed with small “tests”. One of these, took us to the top of a hill in a university town with spectacular views. A real treat and then we rode down into town for an extended gas up/lunch.
It is great to be riding with Pete. After all these years of not spending much time together, I am really enjoying the experience and I know he will have more adventures planned after this. It feels great to be outside enjoying everyone’s company yet riding through some very impoverished areas that you know you are helping in some small way.
After lunch we rode through another game park and caught site of some Wilderbeest and other deer type animals and a couple of wild hogs. The a long slog uphill to the top of a pass that you would have thought was the highest place in South Africa. Great views of the range that we just traversed were available to one and all.
We then had a fantastic decent down a series of rocky ledges and switchbacks. This was enduro riding for sure. We will be doing an uphill version of that tomorrow with over 100 natural steps to ride up, it sounds like fun.
A few riders were short of energy at the end of the day but were treated to a night at a beautiful golf resort with spa!! After a steaming sauna with a few other riders, Pete and I were able to catch up on battery charging and write these entries! At dinner, we were told of tomorrow’s adventure, another 290km ride, which will make a total of almost 1000km’s in the first three days! Then we arrive at one of the most remote and beautiful parts of South Africa. Beaches without footprints, no towns, just small villages that really need help. At one of them in the next few days we will be installing some solar panels which all sounds very cool.
One final note for Kim of The Soze Group… the bamboo socks don’t stink so far. In fact I have used the same pair for three days and they feel totally dry and soft each morning. I will do my best to see if I can get through without using the second pair. Thanks for supporting us.
Another great day in our African adventure.. back to Pete
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Pete – Monday, October 6, 2008
The Wild Coast – finally
Hi readers. Thanks for keeping track with our trip. We are having an amazing time here in SA and day 3 has been the best yet by a long shot.
We had a hearty breakfast and were in the saddle and on the road by 8.15am. Todays riding had a bit of everything, rocks, ruts, mud, gravel, hill climbs and descents, road, grass, dust…..in fact everything apart from snow. At one point we were so high in the mountains, we were riding in thick cloud and couldn’t see a thing!
The day started with us leaving the hotel fourth out of five groups. (fourth, remember that!). The first stage of the day is known as the hundred steps. A steep dusty, rocky ascent that was as challenging as it comes (so far at least!). Orange team rode it superbly and got all team members up in super quick time, passing one of the other groups on the way. From then the day just got better and better for team Orange. Our pace has quickened over the course of the rally so far and we have blasted through the stages all day. We took a slippy, muddy track that wound up and up until we were in the clouds. There were a few little offs on the way but nothing serious and we all enjoyed the spectacular route and scenery.
Fuel has been an issue today (much more for some other teams). We had to really conserve the juice coming out of the mountains. I am always the first to go on to reserve for some reason (surely it can’t be my over use of the twisty thing on the right handle bar). Its got to the point now where if other riders see me slow and lean down to flick onto reserve, they do it too.
I have become something of a fuel marker!
After a good lunch high in the middle of nowhere, we headed off on our last 100km of the day. At this point it looked like we had passed another group too. Up to second!!
Team Orange all rode with good confidence over some really tough stages and our pace was exceptional (even getting a few congratulations from our team leader Dave). There is always a lot of hustle and bustle behind Dave when ever we leave from a rest break and lots of guys trying to get in behind the boss and follow his lines through the stages. Its very funny to watch. Mark and I are usually up there jockeying for position every time.
The final run into the night spot was about 20km of road. It was pretty windy, starting to get dark and we were all very low on fuel, but we made it, and due to our solid pace all day, we were the first team to reach the stop (We were helped a little by other teams getting lost,
splitting up, running out of fuel etc). Rain drops just started to hit the ground as we were getting off the bikes. Great timing. Tired, dirty, smelly and very thirsty, we went straight to the bar and team orange leader Dave got the beers in. We were all in very good spirits and a lot of beer bottle clinking and congratulations were heard. A great end to the day. We had covered a lot of ground and were all shattered but that beer tasted very very good. Once again a good dinner was served and tales from the day were shared over grub and a beer or glass of wine. Perhaps not surprisingly, the bar was deserted by 10pm. It had been a long day. Tomorrow was going to be longer……….