Saturday 7 March

The ride from Notts. was fairly uneventful.

Half way to Himeville we came across a burning bus. The passengers had escaped through the rear window, without any serious injuries, and the arrival of a fully equipped Land Rover with a fire extinguisher, helped.

Needless to say Mark wasn't much help and suggested we had an early lunch!We were to learn quite quickly that food would be a serious issue on this t

rip.

It's all now started

After much talk and pre-ride banter the real thing started at Nottingham Road on Saturday 7th March 2009.

The group has been decimated from 6 down to 4 and only 3 were at Nott's.

In disguise are from left Mark J, me (Jim) and Simon.

The plans were to try some real adventure riding in preperation for leaving for Cairo in late May.

There had been a lot of discussion about what bikes we should be riding but in the end we all bought new BMW 800 GS's. At least we would all be on the same bikes!

It had been a difficult start. Simon crashed in the Transkei in December and had 20 stitches in his face.

Jim's bike sheared a front axle coming back from Cape Town, fortunately without injury, and BMW replaced it witha new bike which was ony delivered the day before this ride.

The ride report will follow.

Jim.