Reminiscing an old trip

This part of the code is definitely appropriate to our situation here in the Saldanha/Vredenburg area at the moment, and when I say "our" I mean the biker family, if you've been reading my ramblings you will have read of the Phoenix Bar and its subsequent closure. Since then we just don't see any of the family any more.

Sure there are a couple of other pubs around but they just don't match up to the Phoenix which was acknowledged as a "Biker bar", whilst there we would see other bikers coming and going all the time but this doesn't happen anymore and consequently we are out of touch with what is going on.

Sunday or weekend rides would usually end off with everyone stopping off for an A.B.F. and a bit of a post-mortem and Janet and I used to enjoy pulling in there for a last beer and to see who was around.

Frank and I would play pool there almost every Friday afternoon and would see many of our biker friends throughout the afternoon, preceeded by the lovely sound of motorcycle exhausts in the car park, I must say I really miss that.

There is hope, however, that the Phoenix will rise again! Danny and Eduardo are in talks to set up a new pub within a couple of months so we remain positive, I will let you know when this happens and we will see if we can get some numbers to attend the opening.

On a completely different note, in those far off days before cellphones, GPS' and digital cameras, four of us undertook an 8760km trip around South Africa and the then South West Africa and here we are on the long, dead straight road running through the desert scrubland. I was then on a '82 Yamaha 1.1 and my friend Eddie and his wife Althea were riding a Honda 500 Silverwing.

That was way back in 1984 and what a fantastic trip that was, according to Janet that was the best holiday she has ever had.

As you can see the Yamaha was quite well loaded and it was so hot up there that we bundled our jackets up as well. We have done many other long bike trips and holidays since then but nothing anywhere close to that month on the road, we would both really love to do that trip again, maybe retrace our route as far as possible, perhaps in the other direction.

Perhaps we should just get out and do it, you know that it is all coming to an end on 21st December this year don't you? According to the Mayan calendar and the i Ching the world ends on that day, why carry on working if that's the case - just get out and do it, and don't buy any long playing records!