Waking to the pouring rain, I wasn’t looking forward to the day – as a narrow dangerous road with tall grass on either side just got a whole lot more dangerous. Eish!! And I hate packing up in the rain.
So I delayed moving as long as I could, but eventually decided I just had to go and donned the rain jacket and got up – getting going as quickly as possible. While not particularly heavy rain (compared to the Magersfontein or Klipdam days), it was plentiful and just didn’t end.
The only breaks I usually take in the rain is to refill my bottles and maybe grab some food out of Tootsie (things like bread that don’t go too nicely in ones pocket), and today was no exception. By the time the rain had stopped I had done over 25 km with hardly a break and was feeling it. Fortunately I could see Derby, which I wanted to push through for the evening…
A 4×4 with four guys pulled up and we covered the usual topics of discussion, and then a queue formed… with another three cars standing in line. As the 4×4 pulled off, the next car moved forward and it started all over… and then the last car was my lucky car. Mother with three kids asked where I was staying and I said “somewhere on the other side of town”. Well, she picked up her phone and phoned a friend… and next thing I knew I was heading for a farm 6km other side of town – BONUS!
I arrived at the farm and waited outside as there is no intercom and the electric fence is 2.5 m high. A farm worked saw me and organised that I get in, and I was made to feel at home right away. While I showered the guys went hunting warthog, a major pest on the farm.
Stoffel arrived back before Johan, who has apparently started shooting kudu. A little while later Johan arrived, covered in blood – having run up into the mountains to catch the smaller of the two that had somehow managed to keep going.
After quite some time, he got the two kudu down to the sheds and started cutting out intestines, etc of the larger one… the smaller one they’d had to gut in the field because it was so far from the vehicle was (it was the only way they could carry it).
I went to bed one tired but dry guy.
