Everybody Loves a Montage

Homeward bound

So it's all over. If I am honest I am a little lost, the last week and a bit have been so intense, there is a feeling of a hole being left now that it's finished. Still, we still had to get home to England. We started off with a nice leisurely breakfast in the fantastic Raddisson restaurant. Jeff and John had prepared an oscar ceremony for the team, each of us receiving a little gift based on some aspect of our personality or riding. It was very funny, and had us all in fits of giggles! We were joined by Ian, our team leader, for final goodbyes. I don't think he wanted to let go of us really ;)

The group then split as there were two flights out of PE to Johannesburg, the early group leaving at 10:15 and the later group at 1:20. I was in the later group so spent the morning hanging around the hotel and had a couple of beers with some of the group. The flight to Johannesburg went smoothly - I slept for most of it, and we met up with the rest of the group in the airport. Lots more hanging about was achieved, before out 8:30 flight to the UK. The flight was fine on the most part, but I didn't manage to get any sleep (despite my lovely new squishy neck pillow - would have been better if it had come with a mesh bag though (only a few people will understand that seemingly random reference!))

The flight landed on time at Heathrow and once we had all collected our bags we said our goodbyes which was a fairly emotional experience, but we all know it is fair well rather than goodbye as we are sure to see each other again.

So it's all done without too many injuries (for me at least). I escaped with a badly bruised ankle, numb left hand, bruised hip and dodgy shoulder, I expect those to all work themselves out over the next few days and weeks.

Over the next few days I will update the daily entries with a bit more detail - much easier with a real keyboard than the iPhone - fix the typos and add some pictures.

Enduro Africa 2009 Mapped

View Enduro Africa 2009 in a larger map

The End - Port Alfred to Port Elizabeth

The epic adventure has come to an end today. A simple ride from port Alfred to PE passed without incident and we had a game drive on Scotia reserve to break up the day. Saw some great game and it was a treat to be driven for a change! We even rode our bikes through another reserve - scary when there are signs everywhere telling you not to leave your car!

30km from PE we assembled the whole group for an escorted ride along the coast to the Cherry Cafe - owned by Mike Glover for drinks and to say goodbye to our faithful Honda Crf230s.

We were then bused back to the splendid Radisson hotel to get cleaned up before another bus back for closing speeches and beers.

It feels very odd right now to have finished and I think tomorrow could be quite hard emotionally to be leaving the team to travel home. I came on this trip 11 days ago alone and I return tomorrow with a whole load of new friends and some if the best memories I could ask for.

Right now it's time to sleep and mentally take stock of what has been one of the greatest achievements of my life so far before the long journey back to real life tomorrow.

Port Elizabeth

Title: Port Elizabeth
Location: -33.9816,25.5933 - View in Google Maps
Tags:
Visit: 2009-10-25 16:52:16 +0200

Game Drive

Title: Game Drive
Location: -33.5409,25.8507 - View in Google Maps
Tags:
Visit: 2009-10-25 11:40:52 +0200

Morgan bay to Halyards

A long day of dirt and tar. 300km was the target to get to Port Alfred. A fairly tedious day required to cover the miles. Tiredness and complacency ended up in a fair few accidents. I came off in a rut and ended up with a bike hitting me - luckily no great injuries, but I did suffer from a total loss of confidence luckily the team pulled through and i had someone to follow for a few hours! Lots of wildlife tried to take us out - only a small cow succeeding!

Lovely hotel tonight, big rooms and it backs onto a Marina.

This evening, we were treated to a demonstration of recovering a drowned bike by way of a bike being driven into the hotel pool. 2 minutes or so later, the bike was drained of water and restarted - a really impressive demonstration of team work on behalf of the mechanics:

The evening was a late one with lots of beers, karaoke (a lovely rendition of King of the Road!) and pool - I think tomorrow is going to hurt!

Tomorrow Is a 200k day with a game drive and some sandy challenges.