160km/h

I left the Wild Coast this morning a little later than we'd planned. It's a 630km trip, 32km over dirt roads and potholes, and then we were also slowed up by...well...all sorts of things. When I tried to draw money the slot where the card is supposed to go in was empty...I looked through it and a person was on the other side. Deciding to make this stop in Butterworth THE stop of the whole trip proved to be a costly error timewise. The shadowy figure on the other side of the slot (where the money, machinery and receipts are supposed to be) said, "5 minutes." I washed Fransa's car while I waited (caked in dust) while I waited for them to get the BOB ATM up and running. 5 minutes turned into at least half an hour.
The roads, such as they are in South Africa, mean you can hit speeds well in excess of 160km/h (I averaged about 115km/h for about 6hours, maximum 160km/h)...all you need is a strong enough engine and a decent constitution, and a stretch of long straight tar stretching from horizon to horizon. Oh, and one more thing. Oil. Cheap oil. Believe it or not, there's still plenty!

I made it to the Free State University Microbiology Department within a minute of the 16:00 window. The interveiw with Professor Robert Bragg (an expert on avian influenza) was recorded. I'll transcribe it when I can, but it was superb (speaking to an expert)
and I'm going to see if I can interview Lance Armstrong next. He is in South Africa soon. I imagine I need to get hold of his agent etc etc. I can't imagine it is going to be easy. On the Wild Coast I took some interesting shots of my LIVESTRONG bracelet on a background of barnacles/limets. They might be interested in using that in future campaigns.

I have red, red, sunburnt knees. Also my hands are red and sore from paddling the whole morning up the Qora River (local spelling, so there's no 'u'). Fransa and I paddled about as far as you can paddle without carrying your boat. The paddle back was against really strong wind, and an incoming tide. Fransa has a lot of strength in her small body. Without her help the hour plus of hard paddling back would have taken a lot longer, and been a lot more difficult. She got her legs badly sunburnt too even though she, like me, used a good sunblock. The keyword: apply generously everywhere.
Still, it was awesome day...and I haven't even mentioned the afternoon. I'll provide pictures when I change color.

Note: Thanks to Jenny Lake for publishing "Forgotten Road". I couldn't do any more than email the text from the Wild Coast (the internet connection was too slow to allow me to even look at at this page). She provided the image also, so Jenny, ;-)