Compulsory attendance in the real world

Posted on 19 May 2010

I have been delaying writing this final Coast2Coast4CANSA blog entry since the expedition around South Africa ended almost a week ago. Reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, I am inherently a lazy person and procrastination is one of my many vices. Secondly, and probably more importantly, I have not been keen on accepting that the glorious C2C4C mission, which took me from one corner of the country to the other via the scenic route (and then back again), is actually over.

Not all my experiences on the C2C4C expedition have been pleasant. Getting up before dawn every day took some getting used to. Although once the routine of waking up ridiculously early on a daily basis has been established, you do appreciate that seeing the sun rise over ocean (East Coast) or land (West Coast) is actually an amazing way to start the day. One of the more objectionable experiences was my daily encounter with the pair of stanky and putridly decaying undies which had been nesting in the nosecone of my trailer since early on in the trip. At the beginning of the tour, to minimize confusion and disorder, it was decided that the same two jet skis would be assigned to each bakkie and double trailer. So I kind of had an idea of whose manky skants were growing roots in my trailer. I’m not in to naming and shaming people (actually I am – but I have literally been threatened with my life if I divulge the name of the perpetrator), so all I can say that this individual, when confronted, graciously (and sheepishly) removed the offending item of clothing.

Brand se Baai, which is the epitome of a rugged West Coast stretch of coastline, was the reason for, and site of, another pair of less-than-ideal experiences. Due to the beach being extremely remote and inaccessible by land for the bakkies, a decision was made to leave the ski’s on the beach overnight. The guys landed at quite a high tide, and had pushed the ski’s a couple more metres up the beach just to be safe, so they were pretty confident that the R1 million worth of sponsored equipment was not going to get sucked back into Atlantic Ocean and float around at the mercy of the Benguela current. When we arrived back in Lutzville that evening, it was a 70 minute drive from beach to bed that day, that little nagging voice in my head started getting louder. “Spring tide was only two days ago”, it chooned me, “and there was like lank kelp washed up on the beach higher than where we had pushed the ski’s my bru”. Hmmmm. True, internal Lobe, true. I mentioned my concerns to the team that night, who were outwardly largely unconcerned with the potential loss of the jet ski’s to a West Coast high tide. I lost some sleep that night worrying about the future of the craft, but as it turned out the alleged apathy of the jet ski crew would go unpunished. Unnecessarily losing a few hours of sleep was not that great, and neither was pushing five 350kg jet ski’s the best part of 100m down the beach to the water’s edge before the sun had even risen. Win some, lose some more.

Being a karma-hippie and a ying-yangist (yes I just made that up), I know that for every epic experience there will be an equally un-epic experience – my science is pure! So the only way to tilt the scales in your favour is to remember the good times and forget the bad ones. And that’s all I have to say about that.






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tcat - Expeditions
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