We decided sometime ago to praise our time in South Africa. Not because it isn’t worthy of more detail, hey, it’s a stunning country, but the vast majority of our time in SA was spent on the less glamorous side of our project. Bike fixing, money panicking and desperately trying to find organisations that would offer some kind of sponsorship, helping us to continue on to our next continent. And yes it was bloody hard work. That said we have left Africa better prepared for South America than we could ever have dreamt possible. We’ve said it a thousand times over the last few months; we’ve been left speechless at the hospitality and unquestionable generosity of South African’s.

We arrived back in South Africa from Mozambique on the 9th of September 2004 and if we’re honest were glad to be back and out of Moz’. More than a few aggressive encounters and Lisa’s bike giving her hell as her broken rear shock continuously tried to send her skyward ensured that our memories of Moz’ weren’t the happiest.
With our passports and Carnets stamped we made easy headway as we cruised back to Northern Pretoria and the familiar surrounding at Hein & Amanda’s we’d left a few months earlier. Hein’s and Amanda’s welcome was as friendly and genuine as the first and the next few days were spent cleaning our kit and checking the bikes. Our main reason for being back was to meet up with Rob Barnes at BMW’s head office. Rob had mentioned wanting to highlight our journey at the first of what they hope would become an annual event ‘The Great GS Challenge’. Unfortunately we’d all got our wires crossed with the dates and the event was to start on the 25th September. Lisa’s parents were arriving on the 23rd. Crunch time we’d thought had arrived; our hopes of support from BMW were dependant on us waiving the BM’ flag at the ‘big event’, but not meeting or seeing Lisa’s mum and dad in Cape Town was unthinkable. With our goodbyes said to Rob we left for Cape Town, on the understanding that BMW South Africa would still consider supporting us but would make their decision based on the media interest we’d generate during our time here. This was a pretty fair call remembering they are a business and not a charity, if we wanted their support we’d have to work for it. …And work we did!
As you can imagine, meeting Alan and Trish (Lisa’s Mum and Dad) at the Cape Town Airport was a pretty emotional affair. Lisa had practically burst with the antici…………………..pation ? The next three weeks flew by as we all headed East along the coast, spending nights in Plettenburg Bay, Jeffries Bay, Knysna before heading North into the Karroo. The Swartsberg Pass was just too tempting to resist. We’d been hearing of this glorious ride since arriving in Cape Town back in April. Besides Alan hadn’t yet abused his ‘rent `a’ car’, it was due! With the ‘rent ‘a’ car’ carrying our heavy bags and the route decided by Lisa’s parents it was great, we were just tourists. Whale watching in Hermanus was a highlight that’ll be with us for a long time. Being only a few metres away as huge Right Whales swim slowly but elegantly past is…mesmerising. I could use a plethora of other cliché’s and they’d all be accurate. Lisa’s parents couldn’t come to South Africa without visiting the big cats and so a couple of days later we’d swapped Whales for Lions and Cheetah stroking. With their time coming to an end we spent a few nights with friends in Strand, Hennie and Anandie. We’d met Hennie on his GS 1150 in Tanzania some months back and taken him up on his invite to stay.

By Mid October home was again Nati & Nicki’s as it had been in May of last year and Lisa’s parents had left. It was time to start on the sponsorship trail. We sent out hundreds of Emails, letters and phone calls, hoping to entice just a few companies to help us in return for trip photos, editorials and PR. We lost count after the meetings attended got past 40. We had some pretty weird and wonderful ‘turn-downs’. Our camping kit had seen better days and we’d hoped to find a ‘kit’ sponsor so armed with a healthy dose of enthusiasm and a shiny new presentation we submitted to 3 different outdoor suppliers. After inviting us to two separate meetings and asking us to go to their flagship Waterfront store to put aside what equipment we need (holy shit! Fantastic we thought!) Cape Union Mart (one of the largest outdoor apparel outfitters in South Africa) decided their involvement wasn’t appropriate. They decided not to go with the normal turn-down of “We’re terribly sorry but all this years budget has been allocated…”, and informed us that “…”they are proudly South African and that it had come to their attention that, er, ummm….we weren’t”! Nope” we replied, “We’ve been English for quite a long time now, in fact even at the beginning of this journey we’d been English”. We wouldn’t have minded so much (No’s are part of the game) but the disappointment was made worse by the fact that we’d had two wonderfully enthusiastic meetings and even been sent to choose the gear. You’d have thought that 5 minutes into the first meeting they’d have cottoned onto the idea that our journey started in the UK and that we ‘shockingly’ are, in fact not South African! Sorry, I’m writing this now and I’ve got the giggles thinking about that.
I think our favourite turn down came from Shell’s head office in Cape Town. Again, we’d had two meetings, both had been received surprisingly enthusiastically, colour presentations had been given and read highlighting our goals, origins, forward Itinerary and mode of transport. At our third meeting, with the big boss, we were politely informed by his receptionist that the meeting had been cancelled and could not be rescheduled. When we asked why? We were told that “at Shell we have and enjoy a global alignment with Ferrari”. “…err yes”, we asked more than a little confused. The answer came back…“well you see, you ride BMW’s”. We were dumb struck. But Ferrari don’t make motorbikes we explained desperately. It didn’t matter, we weren’t going to get any further. Sorry, I’ve got the giggles again ? ? ?

Since September we’d been putting together a digital presentation of our journey, using Macromedia Flash, it was now almost complete. So rather nervously we approached TREFCO BMW in Bellville and asked if they’d like to put on a evening and we’d supply the entertainment. It was Don, Justin and the team who’d given us so much help since we’d arrived in Cape Town. It seemed only appropriate that our first presentation of our slide show be here. And so after a few weeks of advertising the night, on the 5th of November 2004 we shared our journey for the first time with 150 people, most of whom we’d never met. To say it was a ‘buzz’ would be an massive understatement. The thrill of being able to share parts of our journey in such a vibrant visual way was just brilliant. Thank you to all those people who’ve given up their time to spend it with us sharing our journey. It really is appreciated.

By Mid November most businesses were closing down for the Christmas season. Trying to pursue sponsorship was pointless, besides this was going to be a first semi-normal X-mass for a while. Alta, Ruan’s mum was flying out to London to see Ruan and we’d been invited to housesit. We didn’t need asking twice. We’d been so busy we hadn’t really given much thought as to where we were going to stay over the festivities.

With a new year started we jumped back on the sponsorship trail. January was a busy time. We want to say a big tank you to Donovan and Jenny Barnes for taking us into their home. We were on the move again. Donovan and Jenny had graciously offered us their spare room so by 2nd week of January we’d dropped off our few bags and were made to feel at home. Easy company with great people. For those of you that have read our earlier diary entries, you’ll remember Donovan’s name, he‘s the guy that made my CNC aluminium bar risers for ‘Tinkerbelle’.

Amongst other the other jobs we’d lines up we decided to take a really good at look at both the bikes in preparation for South America and so with the help of our good friend Alf (head mechanic at Trefco BMW) and the kind support of his dad (Joseph) who leant us his garage, we started to strip my bike. It wasn’t long before we’d found out that the Big GS had a few more problems than we’d initially realized. The 3 sizable cracks in the sub frame weren’t going to take much more abuse before breaking completely. With that realisation we removed the rear frame and dropped it off at ‘The Wheel Service Centre’, who kindly sandblasted it and didn’t charge a fortune. The frame was then left in the capable hands of Joel and Travis at Thenga Trading who did a great repair job and added a number of gussets to strengthen other areas that were showing stress.