With the bikes taking a hammering on the route down to South Africa and a few lessons learnt we met up with Travis and Joel of Thenga Trading purely by chance at the Water Front area in Cape Town, they were inspecting the bikes as we returned to them.

In conversation we mentioned we had an idea to transform Lisa's right hand exhaust silencer into a carrying compartment, Travis quickly replied, ....

"well you should bring it round to us, we specialise in metal work and stainless steel, we'll sort it for you!" "How much we asked?". "No we'll just do it for you" Travis anwered. Talk about the right people at the the right time. You could have pushed us over with a feather,

True to their word...sort it they did!

They also organised the fabrication of some steel covers I'd designed to protect the auxiliary lights on the R1100GS and then also managed to get some rubber sheeting that I cut up and attached to the back of the panniers to stop the aluminium rubbing through where it attached to the steel pannier frame. We can now get ready for our next African leg knowing that our bikes are in better shape than when we arrived in Cape Town.

Thanks guys.