From Neil a lovely little poem November 10, 2009

Neil Rathbone
I rode a bike for over a week,
My knackered old knees began to squeek!
I gave my supports the occasional tweek,
Comfort with protection I aimed to seek!

There was dust and mud followed by bloody great ruts,
Slippery tracks past little mud huts,
We all fell off (Some more than others!) and bruised our butts,
But showed beyond …doubt we all had guts!

With Daryl at the bow and Martin at the stern,
It soon became clear we had lots to learn,
If not for “Wilson” we’d have missed our turn,
But to do it again is what I yern.

A tiny wee tick found somewhere new,
He jumped on my back and had bit of a chew,
It made me quite poorly and gave me “tick flu”,
I was given some tablets called TTFU!

xxxxxxxxxx

Tick Tick November 9, 2009

Back in the land of the living November 9, 2009

Apologies to all who have been checking the blog for photos… Just to keep you updated yours truly managed to get bitten by a river tick in SA. I didn’t know anything about it until we got back. Scratched what i thought was a mozi bite and ended up in bed for 5 days with tick bite fever and a hole in my back.. Luckilty the right antibiotics were found and back on my feet again… A few choice comments and poems came through which i will attempt to add to the blog. Anyway less of that there are now 300 odd photos in the elepharts gallery and maybe if i can sort the technology a slide show too. So have a look. A quick word of thanks to Paul at the Ferry who raised another £25.00 from the helicopter ride day… Everything no matter how small counts whether £1.00 or £1000.00….
Over the next few weeks we are changing the face of elepharts… (the face and not the bottom!! Elepharts will be supporting Touch Africa as its primary charity. Touch Africa primary objective is getting kids in rural areas into education. This is a hard task where there are not that many schools and where there is a school the facilities are basic to say the least. Touch Africa gives support to schools directly and the results and attendance are monitored regularly. In so many places there has been money given that has not been used for the purpose it was designed for… Materials and equipment have gone missing and attendance has been poor to say the least. Touch Africa only works with schools where there is strong leadership from the headmaster and strong support from the community. The aim is to get more kids into school and the funding is for precisely that. If equipment goes walkies or attendance levels drop for no good reason the funding is re -assessd. Many of the kids walk 5 miles there and back to school each day so the willingness to learn is there.
Elepharts is looking to bring together not only donations but also collections of pens,pencils, paper, books etc and we will be putting more on the site … watch this space..

Now for some photos……. October 16, 2009

He’s hiding the screaming cats!!!

Dirty Dozen from hells kitchen

Brad, Guy DD members

Pip, Mel ,Stuart DD members

some of these have little tags on them, others

Now they are coming October 16, 2009

Another brilliant elephart from bob blues and twos.. this is what elepharts are about…. keep them coming… if you can’t see it the boats name is w.anchor…..

Zoom in on the window!!!

Back to reality…. October 16, 2009

Well back to reality again.. its a bit of a come down after the months and months of build up and trip itself… What can we say about it… I could write for days and not even touch the surface. I must just say a massive thanks to all of the people who supported both ant and myself both in the run up to the trip and last year in the dark days when both of us were battling with injuries that were looking as though we couldn’t do it…. Another massive thanks to the manufacturers of co codamol, neurofen and the other general painkillers that kept us going throughout…..borrowing a comment from a famous film “there’s nothing like the smell of coffee and neurofen in the morning” I have put a couple of taster photo’s up for the moment more to follow.. There are loads of items being posted inc film on you tube ‘enduro africa 2009′ check them out..
The teams seemed to be intent on decimating the stray dog population count 5 dogs and 1 tortoise .. luckily all other wildlife intact.. Still have 2 tonnes of mud on clothes and wet boots.. keep watching for more snippets…

Heathrow 6 am tuesday October 13, 2009

Well after all that we are back and sorting through the photos etc… I have 350 and there are probably another 600 in the pipe;line i will attempt to catalogue these this week so keep looking… I did have top admit to kris today that i dislocated my knee last tuesday (and that’s the good one) so i had two leg braces) but we got through and it was unbelievably hard both mentally and physically for a pair of old pharts … well one older than the other …..two days of riding on shale tracks in the rain which were like glass kept us awake… but one thing we agree on we wouldn’t of missed it ….

At last we have some net service… October 11, 2009

Apologies to all out there who have been waiting for the updates… we have been in some pretty remote areas running up the coastline… Unbelievable scenery and riding..Plenty of offs .. no major problems though..From the first post when we were all fresh and feisty we now all look slightly more weary..a couple of days we have only travelled 77km and 44km in 8 hours so you can imagine the terrain… plenty of steep descents and near vertical ascents…We had a rest day on wednesday where we went to a vilage school and refurbed some classrooms etc.. One of our team rathers just happened to bring his bagpipes…The look on the 300+ kids faces as a bald bloke with a bag of screaming cats came marching up the hill… hilarious.. in the end he was parading round the school with all the children following him.. just like the pied piper..
We are now at the mbotyi river … after riding 144 km in the rain yesterday . the ravines and hills were like mud baths with rivers over the bikes… slipping and sliding all the way…some call it fun we just take it as another day in heaven!!!!Mbyoti is where the great sardine hunt takes place all the tuna,dolphins, sharks and whales work together to round up the sardines and have a good meal… beautiful place… We ide back up the caost agin today to end up in Port Edward and the end of the trip…
It has been impossible to upload the photos and vid fromhere but watch this space next week… There areb prob over 500pics etc and e will do a full recap with maps and scenes of carnage…. 207km today some road with some little suprises from Mike glover who runs the show…On his little suprises yesterday he fell over a dozen times himself so imagine the rest of the 80+ riders…
back into wet boots and gear now for the final push …see you all next week …

Thursday October 9, 2009

hard day 2day, in middle of transskei and 2 hours from tarmac. internet access limited but we are still alive

first day in the dust…247km in 8hours. October 4, 2009

Is that all you may say… well after nearly
20hrs travelling to get to Port Elizabeth 247 km mainly off road has been a giggle. With over 80 riders
leaving the digs from last nite in a calvacade everyone had a smile on their faces. Normally
you would expect to take it a bit easy and
build up the tempo…
Not here , after a blast along the seafront
with police
escorts we were straight into the rough stuff.
Now for many it was a baptism of fire in fact all of us.
Straight into 1 in who knows what (steep) downh
hill slope (lets get this in perspective you
couldn’t walk up or down it…… into mud,
stream crossings, bushes and the like it was superb and everybody made it through..
At lunch time we were split into different
groups of about 12 riders. The dirty dozen from Hells kitchen were now minus ant Woodcock and
myself.. We ended up in the lead group which
means we just fall off faster… Not tempting fate.
The standard of every single rider from all of the groups is a big shock.. you have guys who have only just passed their bike test riding so well.. brilliant
This whole ride is aboout teamwork and everyone supporting everyone else. it doesn’t matter
how good or bad you are … A good lesson to
be learnt here… Tomorrows ride 307 km
from Port Alfred to end up in Morgans Bay…
ps The helmet cam is doing a great job when not cake in dust…. Oh yes the first one in the
ditch was me after lunch at 2kmph ……
Cannot seem to load pics tonite from the camera as windows 7 doesnt want to know.. will try again tomorrow