Wildsfees (Venison Festival) Club Mykonos

This year the Round Table decided to sponsor the Meeulanders to a table at the Venison Festival as a way of saying thank you for the club's efforts in collecting nearly two tons of non-perishable food stuff at the local supermarkets for distribution to those in need.

So it was that we gathered at Club Mykonos, a Greek style holiday resort just outside of Langebaan on a blustery Saturday afternoon, a gale force southerly wind was threatening to send the marquees flying over the nearby hills but thanks to the constant attention of the staff wielding sledge hammers they stayed with us, tugging hard at their long steel anchors.

We are bikers so a bit of wind was not going to put us off, you can still drink in the wind and we certainly managed to braai in the wind. Venison wors (sausage) and venison sosaties along with a whole Springbok was part of the function and whilst Malcolm braaied the wors and sosaties we decided to keep the Springbok for a future potjie occasion.

As the afternoon progressed more and more Meeulanders arrived although by the time we were braaiing not all had pitched up, maybe the wind had something to do with it, it was a pretty cold wind and later Janet retreated to the cosy warmth of the nearby Casino. Here a young visitor expressed a liking for Daan's Goldwing, a future biker perhaps?


Sooi gets the customary biker greeting from Gerrie, meanwhile Malcolm starts the braai. He started with the venison wors (sausage) and a little tasty item known colloquially as "Skilpatjies" which literally means "tortoises" but which is a piece of the liver wrapped in the caul or spleen fat and which is a particular favourite braai starter.
The mob soon made short order of that and the next on the braai was the venison sosaties, little chunks of venison and fat on a wooden skewer, also very nice.
The music blared out, the wine flowed and the ladies danced;

Malcolm with the sosaties and Stephen with the wine, I normally don't take enough wine to these things and end up drinking with him because he takes a five litre box!
 

You can probably guess what music they were dancing to, an old eighties number!
  

Sosaties at sunset, it was another good party although I ended up leaving by about 19h00, it was freezing and I was ill prepared. Thanks for a good jol, just a pity about the wind but I suppose you can't have it all.
We have another party this coming weekend, our club year end function at the hotel in Eland's Bay on Saturday, a sleep-over thank goodness because I expect the wheels to come off again!
Janet has taken a week's leave from Monday next week and we are off on a round about ride to arrive in Gansbaai on Wednesday, two night's there and head back home on Friday. I'm looking forward to that and I'll tell you all about it.
Stay safe, there was a bike rally in Saldanha this past weekend and sadly four bikers died in accidents. Not the kind of news one wants to hear.

Dart run 2016

This past weekend was my 6th dart run with the Meeulanders Motorcycle Club and it is not only in my opinion that this was the best one so far, others have also expressed the same opinion. As I have a lot of photos to publish I am going to post them small, if you would like to see them full size just click on them.

We started off at midday at the "Wingerd" dance hall, where we threw the first dart of the day, ate a very nice boerewors roll to line the stomach and paid R20 for a beer!

I am hopeless at darts when the board is at regulation height so when it is just resting on a chair I am even worse but at least it gives everyone an equal chance, here I threw a ten. Beverley opened with 54! Daan managed to get almost everyone on the road together at around 13h30 and we headed up to Velddrif where we threw the next dart at the "Wielhuis" pub, home of the Clique mcc, many of whom were with us for the day. In fact most of the local clubs were represented and we had some 96 bikes riding together, I brought up the rear looking out for stragglers.

 

Here on the left Bev lines up her shot and on the right Johan has a go. I threw another 10, pretty much not in the competition I thought. As soon as everyone had thrown their dart and finished their drink we got back on the road, not wanting to stay too long at any one spot so as to limit the alcohol consumption. 

It had turned out to be a lovely day after a bit of rain in the early morning, Janet and I cruised along the back road via Hopefield to the third venue; "Plaasmol" where I managed to throw a double 10!

 

Sampie and Cathy did an excellent job of getting the dart throwers organised and Vice Pres. (acting President) Daan kept them moving, lots of guys moved on to the next venue; "Juffroeshoogte" early because they wanted to watch the rugby. 

We spent a bit more time here, I managed to throw a measly 8, gradually guys rode out when they were ready, from here we rode through to our overnight stop in Jakob's Bay called "The Plot" a backpackers resort where the last dart was to be thrown, even though the Plot is only about fifteen minutes from our home we had never been there and it turned out to be a perfect, quite charming though rather rustic party venue and the bikers made good.

This was how we had to throw the last dart! Bloody difficult and it took me ages to even hit the board but when I did eventually hit it I scored a cherry, 50 points which put me back in the competition and I came third overall, rather chuffed I was!

The place absolutely lends itself to a group party, our rustic accommodation was very basic but comfortable enough although it was unfortunately right next to the fire pit where Frank sat all night talking, and I do mean all night, he didn't go to bed!

 

First order of business; get the braai going, an excellent braai pack was part of our entry and the ladies made great salads so we had a very good meal. 

 

As the night progressed some started going off to bed, perchance to sleep - good luck with that! The party moved into the bar and the rock music, mostly AC/DC was cranked up.

 

Frank seen here among the ladies where he likes to be, not sure why Alex the Mohicans Pres. is laughing at me! 

 

Steve, one of the hard working organizers of run and me with matching bottles, the red wine soon ran out. In the right hand picture we see Frank "getting down".

 

Anton was moved to perform a strip, Rinette gets hastily out of the way as the mob shouts encouragement.

 

 

The ladies danced and the last of the red wine was emptied out, Elsja our photographer was into the music big time and the party raged on into the early hours.

 

It was a great party, gradually the mob thinned out though and I stumbled off to bed at around 03h30. I haven't partied like that in quite a while. A couple of hours later we were up again getting the new day started.

 

Frank was where we had left him, still drinking and still talking to whoever would listen, gradually people were surfacing, bleary eyed, dry mouthed and most were hung over. What a party it had been, breakfast went down singing hymns.

Monica and Craig

left Cathy who helped with the dart scoring and Elise

Craig and Monica, Malcolm and Elise and Steve did the organizing and they did an excellent job, thanks for a great sleepover party. To all of the other clubs who joined us and helped make it a successful dart run, you rock! Thanks guys and gals and let's see what happens next year, it can only get better!
I'll leave you with this classic retort from Anton, who when called by Frank to "Come and blow" - he was trying to get the fire going again in the morning - replied "I don't blow, I get blown!" 

Meeulanders tin run 2016

This past weekend saw some of the members of the Meeulanders MCC gathering at three of the local supermarkets to persuade the public to donate non perishable food items for distribution to those in need. This had been scheduled for mid September but was cancelled due to the sad, untimely passing of our President Divi de Vries.

Unfortunately Janet and I were unable to attend or assist in this event due to a prior commitment but I have spoken to Craig and I have seen the photos, some of which I will show you, and this turned out to be a very successful collection thanks to the club members who were willing to donate their time and to those members of the public who generously donated food items.

Outside the Pick 'n Pay in Langebaan Mall, who would not donate food when confronted by Steve?!

 

Two of the ladies and the trollies get filled up, eventually six trollies were filled to the brim at this collection point. This was the only mall that allowed motorcycles to be taken inside.

 

Meanwhile those worthy members outside the Pick 'n Pay in Vredenburg were also on the go, they eventually managed to collect 5 trollies full of food.

Here we see Craig, Monica, Malcolm, Elize, Melinda, Christo and Carlo with the fruits of their labour, and at the Weskus Mall, Checkers the brothers and sisters collected 4 trollies full.

This picture of Craig and Monica sums up the wonderful attitude of the members of the Meeulanders Motorcycle club and I'm sorry that we weren't there to help.

Fifteen supermarket trollies full of groceries for those in need, this will soon be handed over to the local Round Table chapter who are better organised to do the distribution and I will document that occasion later. Well done guys and gals, bikers ROCK!