Hectic.....

OK, so I have been unavailable for some time - and my site has been "Off-line" for some time too. Many reasons for both, but I'm not going to go into them for now, suffice to say, I'm back. However, by now, I probably have no more readers left - ah well, that's life!

So what have I been up to? Well, after finishing up at IBM, I came in to the new job offices for a week, to start getting into the new role. Did some work on a new deal, and sorted out what was a seriously questionable document (Quality was poor), it would seem that I have learned something at my previous employer after all, even if it's only to do a professional document - nah, I learned a lot there!
The next week I went in for one day. The Friday in court was short and sweet, postponed again, then me and LuckyL went home, packed the car, loaded the two bikes, and set off for Richards Bay, and the Hippo rally!

Hippo Rally - we had a reasonably good drive down to RB. Got there, and went straight to my brothers home. Unpacked the car, unloaded the bikes, and chilled. Decided we would go and register the next day.
Saturday morning a quick blitz down to the rally site, paid, collected our badges, then blitzed back to town to have breakfast with brother - Big Bear!

So, the Hippo rally was not very well attended. Seems like the previous 2 years were similar. In the past, the local cops were seriously full of shit, continuously harassing the bikers, making it difficult to get around without being stopped 2, 3, 4 times a day! The inland bikers had told the organizers this would happen. Also, due to problems with getting a venue approved by the organizers with the local municipal bodies, meant they had a late announcement, and most of the bikers had already made alternative plans. Be that as it may, we didn't care much either way, as we had the opportunity to attend the rally as the program showed events we wanted to be in / see, and leave to ride around at our leisure at other times.
The Sunday morning mass ride was attended by between 80 and 100 riders. Upfront was a SAPS / Highway police car (VW Golf GTI), followed by a local traffic police car (not sure what it was, then a massive Dodge double cab truck, then the bikers. The drive through town was slow, as expected, but once we got onto the highway to Empangeni, the SAPS car, driven by a policeman who is also a biker stepped up to 160 - 170km/h! And we,naturally, chased him! Highlight of the ride was the lights on top of the traffic officials car, which, at 160km/h decided to desert the vehicle, flew off the roof, and landed somewhere in the veld next to the highway! He had to pull off to recover the unit, and probably spent a lot of time trying to think of a good excuse to give to his boss back at the office!!!! Anyway, overall the cops were quite accommodating, a few roadblocks were set up around the area, mainly to check for drunken driving (I have no problem with that), and we managed to evade all of them, knowing the area as well as we do, and knowing the back-roads.

We hung around in RB for a few more days. Whilst we were there, I visited Alan P (He of the recent cancer operation) and his family, at their home several times. Was great to get together with them again, out of the hospital environment. He's doing much better, ans now has started his next round of chemo. We then made our way down to Durban, to another mates place, to await Friday morning when we were driving up to Harrismith for the Rhino Rally! This is the biggest bike rally in the country. Every year it gets bigger and better - 2012 was going to be no different. It would also be the first rally that LuckyL would attend, where he stayed on site for the duration of the rally, and would witness first hand the shenanigans that go on - throughout the weekend, 24x7! A real eye opener for him, and to boot, one that would start with a serious, destructive storm!

More to follow.

Salagatle!