Buffalo Rally - day two

I surfaced at about 06h00, it was the sound of people talking that roused me and as usual I staggered bladderfully to the ablutions, it was pre dawn calm, the sky was clear and there was no wind, it was promising to be a beautiful day. Pieter and his wife had a kettle boiling and offered me a very welcome cup of coffee which I stood drinking, no where to sit except on the ground. I must buy myself a chair, they are too big to carry on the bike but with the big rallies someone usually goes in a car or a bakkie and will carry things for you. I have had one of the small three legged folding stools which are easy to carry on the bike but they are flimsy and the last one I flattened in a rather embarrasing manner one evening.

Div, Willie, Bernard and I went across the beach to a restaurant for breakfast which went down well, I decided not to go on the mass ride as it was already very hot by then and I just couldn't be bothered.It's a very picturesque spot and it was pleasant looking out over the beach from the restaurant balcony. The campsite is where the line of trees is in the picture.After a hearty breakfast I wandered around the rally, there was a wheelie machine in operation which looked like a good safe way to learn how to wheelie and it was certainly kept busy. More people were arriving throughout the morning, obviously those poor people who can't get off work on a Friday and the place was really beginning to fill up. As usual there were many interesting bikes to be seen, like these two old BMWs; they were in really good running condition and sounded lovely. Look at this "Rat bike" and try to imagine travelling any kind of distance on that saddle! That exhaust was very noisy too. As I said usually there is a bakkie to carry stuff to a rally, well these guys had taken a fridge along! Passers by were invited to sign the fridge or write a comment for posterity. Towards the middle of the day I wandered back to the camp, it was incredibly hot and I was so tired of walking and standing around, as luck would have it Marius' chair was vacant and I gratefully flopped down into it with Willie, Div and Bernard in the shade, it was so good to sit down! By then pretty much every available spot had a tent on it, the place was filling up although later on the organisers were to announce that attendance, at 5250 entries was considerably down on last year. Daan joined us for a bit, bringing along a bottle of brandy and a coke which he offered to share with us, I don't drink brandy but the others joined in and I fetched what was left of my whisky. This was a very neat Suzuki GT750 parked nearby, the first motorbike I owned when we moved down to South Africa in 1974 was one of these. There were four of these massive Honda Goldwing 1800 trikes that had amazing lights all over and under them, they cruised around in the dark making a very impressive light show, a bit kitsch for my taste but impressive nontheless. Another interesting trike although it looks bit narrow an unstable to me. Somebody's GSXR had been condomised in his absence! Later that evening we had a braai and then headed down to the main tent for the prizegiving, it was crowded and incredibly stuffy with thousands crammed into the tent and I couldn't wait to get out. I didn't win the main prize of R100,000, in fact I didn't win any of the prizes!

Back at the camp everyone was gathered around a fire braaiing the remainder of the meat and just quietly chatting, even the bike revving had died down and the campsite quietened down as people got an early night before the ride home next day. I climbed into my tent at about 11h00 and didn't have any trouble getting to sleep, my mattress was very comfortable after sitting on the hard ground! Looking forward to the ride home.