Welcome!

Welcome to my blog, these are the ramblings and musings of an (upper) middle aged biker and if you enjoy braais, (barbeques) beers and motorbikes then hopefully you will enjoy what Janet and I do; we do lots of braais, we drink lots of beer and we tour South Africa on our motorbike, which at the moment is a BMW R1200RT. Join us, read about what we do and please leave us your comments.



Monday, January 12, 2009

Heroic tussle with City traffic

Yesterday evening's braai went very well! As we had had a breakfast and we ate some very good biltong while watching the cricket we weren't hungry, so after Janet had her usual afternoon nap we started the braai quite late. Check out the lamb shoulder chops, mushrooms, potatoes and the boerewors that we got from Linda!
I had started with the potatoes a bit earlier because they take just that little longer to cook, you don't want a hard half cooked potato. I had good hot coals so next I put the mushrooms on and these I had previously prepared with some chunks of butter, aromat and garlic flakes and you only have to cook them from underneath, no need to turn them over.
While the coals are still hot the lamb chops go on and these do not have to be well done, medium rare is good, this also applies to the boerewors which goes over hot coals at the last minute really just to warm through. Too many people dry their boerewors out completely and really ruin it, to get the benefit of the flavour it must still be juicy but very hot.
Just look at this plate of food; lamb chops, boerewors, mushrooms and potato - fantastic!
My day started out nicely today; it appears that there is a bit of a "red tide" problem on the mussel farm and it became necessary to get a current sample down to the research institute in Capetown very urgently. I immediately offered to take the sample down on the motorbike as it would be a lot quicker, what a good idea!
I prepared the sample and roared out of Saldanha on my important mission at about 0820, it was already 25 degrees but what did I care? I was a man on a mission. I decided not to get a traffic fine on the way down, 130 to 140kmh would be fast enough, and the benefit of being on the bike would only become evident once I encountered the morning town traffic.
Sure enough as I roared into the outskirts after enjoying a lovely early morning cruise the traffic was beginning to pile up, man I would hate to live in the town and have to do this every day! On a bike you just don't get held up and most people are prepared to let you ride down the gaps to get to the front at the traffic lights. As the light goes green you blast away leaving the cages far behind, what a fantastic feeling!
I played in the traffic for about half an hour, loving every minute of it while almost everyone else was fuming and sweating and cursing the gridlock, why the hell they were in cars is a mystery to me. Boundary road is only about a kilometer long, a double lane leading from the R27 to Koeberg road and almost everyone wants to turn right into Koeberg so a very long queue forms at the traffic lights and the left hand side is virtually empty.
I sped up the left side of the queue to the traffic lights and as they turned green I accelerated around the first car and wound it up along a now deserted Koeberg road! It was great fun and that was pretty much how my ride went. In a car it could take three rotations of the traffic lights before you get into Koeberg road.
I delivered my sample in heroic style and mounted my steed for the return, eagerly anticipating the tussle with the traffic again. Soon I was speeding back out along the R27 homeward bound and really enjoying being a biker scum!



2 comments:

The Hales' said...

And all we have to contend with is smoked salmon and 40ton trucks carrying swedes on muddy roads, ah but nothing like a warm Baileys and an ice cold Frosters from outside the backdoor! Show off! lol
Miles

the rider said...

Hi Miles, I'm sure you guys still do lots of braais whenever the weather allows. Get yourselves over here for a visit and you can do all the braais!