De Wildt - 19th July - Bapsie’s son’s birthday ride

Hendrik Jansen aka Mr. Bapsontein aka The Lamborgreenie called me about two months ago asking me to reserve Saturday, 19th July for an epic De Wildt ride for his son’s birthday. Me, being true to my word, did just that and “epic” is an understatement to describe it.

Mr. Baps,

Junior Baps,

Baps family friend (humble apologies for not remembering his name)

Pixie

CCubed

Pierre

Andrew

PaddyC

Yours truly

The 9 of us left the Morula Sun hotel at 9:00. The route we followed took us from the hotel to the base of Long Rocks, down to the River Bed, along the River Bed to the Twisties, Twisties to 3-Fences shop. A beer and a puncture fix, and a lot of smiles for a great ride so far were enjoyed by all before we set off on the trail to Jericho. Great little ride and most unfortunate that we didn’t have a camera to capture the cattle skull, complete with horns, that I fixed to the front of my bike for a while…. had this really cool southern dixie thing going for a while!! At Jericho we topped up with fuel and headed down the dry river bed to the Rock. The Rock, as always was intimidating but fun. However, the news of the day was that instead of claiming victims, it made champions when two guys, Andrew and Pierre, both rookie-to-intermediate level riders conquered the heap of stone, both up and down!

After the rock it was a stop at the Bafana Bafana shebeen for another refreshment and then off to the dry river bed again on the return journey. From the Jericho river bed it was a sand-road short cut route back to the 3-Fences shop for, you guessed it, another refreshment. After that we rode up past the entrance to the Twisties to the start of the River trail from which we trailed all the way back to the main River Bed which we jumped out of for……….. another “refreshment” at the Secret Shebeen. Once the kids had received their traditional sweets, it was back down into the River Bed where we tested the stamina of the group by remaining in the River Bed all the way to the Coconuts exit, and up to the base of Coconuts. Well done to all the guys for still managing to get up Coconuts, including PaddyC who, only made it 2/3rds but with a solid effort, not too much swearing, and finished with the help of Mr. Baps.

From the top of Coconuts it was an as-fast-as-you-could-ride sprint back to the hotel so that we didn’t get caught in the dark. We arrived a minute before the final rays of sunlight left us and enjoyed Baps’ special boerie rolls and brandy and coke in the dark.

I’d say that 4 shebeens, 128km, 9 hours,  no injuries, and big smiles qualifies as an “epic”

Happy birthday Baps Jnr.