Undaunted's tenth anniversary jol

It has been a great week, the weather has been fantastic and we've done a lot of riding, albeit only weekend riding because work keeps getting in the way. Dave Barr has been in South Africa and rode down from Pretoria to the Cape to promote his charity caring for people disabled in bike accidents, I was not able to join in the ride when they came down here also because of work commitments, damn I hate it when work gets in the way of riding! This guy is one of my heroes, maybe next time?

As I said we've done a lot of riding, last weekend Janet had to work Saturday morning so I decided to get out on the road, it was again one of those lovely mild Autumn days just perfect for the bike and I made full use of it, I took the long way through to Velddrif to say Hi to my old friend Des Clunie at his wonderfully iconic shop "Ek and Djy Visserye" on "Bokkom Laan", it was early and there were no customers, I bought a cup of coffee and Des poured a tot of whisky into it for me, we sat and chatted on the jetty in the warming sun while Dan carried out repairs to his boat door damaged by miscreants trying to break in the previous night, such is life in South Africa.

Moving on I rode down to the quaint little coastal village of Paternoster and ate a plate of Hake and Chips in the market area amongst tourists browsing through the stalls selling shells and old window frames with sea views behind the glass panes, had I not been on the bike I might have bought one or two they were that good.

Sunday Janet and I rode together, just a local cruise and ended up at "Vlakvarkgat" again, lunch was just alright, not fantastic although from the comments I suspect that Janet's "offal potjie" was better than my seafood buffet. A quick 20km ride home, leaning into the few bends that we have in the area, ended a really good weekend.

Jump ahead to Saturday 25th and "Undaunted's" 10th anniversary bash at "Plaasmol" just outside of Hopefield, nine of us on six bikes rode out of Vredenburg at 13h00 for the short spurt to join in the fun and support a local club. Although they had opened at 12h00 there were not many bikes there when we arrived but we knew they would soon be pulling in.

Frank was happy when lovely Monica arrived and gave him a cuddle.

"Slang" of the Mac's, Bev and Daan of the Meeulanders enjoying a chat and some of the good food on sale, bar prices were also very reasonable.

The site lends itself to a biker party, a large area under cover with a bar, a stage and plenty of seating.

Here's a happy group shot by Gerrie Pieterse that epitomises the biker scene in South Africa, three  or four different clubs in this shot all partying together.

As usual there were some good bikes to be seen and drooled over. Craig and Monica were on the new Yamaha MT09 Tracer, a demo model that I am definitely going to take for a ride,

An aggresively styled bike that received a very good write up in the recent motoring supplement.

 My friend Wessel arrived on this Hyabusa with an amazing custom paint job; the "Al Capone" bike, why he would be immortalised on such a bike is beyond me but the artwork was incredible.

As the afternoon progressed more bikers arrived and things started to look up for the Undaunted's efforts,

 tents were being erected and the party was gaining momentum, that's when I decided to leave. There's a fine line between leaving on time or having to stay over and I didn't cross it, I had a really good ride home in the cool of the late afternoon leaving my brothers to their party. I passed only one traffic police vehicle on the way and he didn't seem too interested in me, I had had a few drinks and I would not have passed any tests but I was more than capable of riding my bike, I just hope that my brothers and sisters either left soon or stayed over, it had been a good jol.