Your perception of adventure, let's get academic...

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Jerrycan

Race Dog
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Nov 22, 2007
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Your perception of adventure, the more academic side of being an adventure rider..

To be an oke that would leave his tv couch/luxury heated cage seat, get on a bike and set off into the sunset picking the worst route there makes for a somewhat special character.

This strange habit was instilled in me by my father who worked for a bank and really started when we were transferred to South West Africa, Grootfontein, right up north where the terrs lurked in the bushes right outside town.  Adventure started on the edge of town, just past the school grounds to the west and just past Kuif's Total garage to the north. The east was rather boring in the end, there was a runway and huge army transit camp built and the southern side was cool, that was the main link with civilisation, Windhoek and Safrica was that way out.

Every weekend was a new adventure, my dad would fuel the VW Combi (later a straight four Landy) and jerrycans up, we would pack our sleeping bags, water and dry rations, side arms and the R3 semi-auto issued by the local civil commando and spare magazines and set off into the far corners of Namibia looking for places where no man tread before while karking ourselves silently but of course unmentioned about the possibility of running into a group of terrs.  My dad, having been bank manager in such a small community based in such a vast area knew every farmer and every nature conservation official in the north of Namibia.

Then soon the wanderlust kicked in and me and a schoolchum decided to do an unsupported bicycle trip down to Windhoek, (no adult in his right mind would have driven all that way in that heat in a cage behind us anyway), 600 odd kays with only 3 small towns in between.  My mom nearly fainted, my dad recognised the tone of pending adventure in my voice and he proclaimed: "Long as you at least take the 38 special with."  That 8 inch-barreled hand cannon weighed almost as much as my bicycle but it was a small price to pay for the adventure lying ahead.  We pulled it, 3 days down and 2 days and half a night back.  This past weekend some oke with neatly gelled hair and a very fair skin tuned me over the braai about doing the 94.7 in a whopping 4.5 hours on his 20 grand space-alloy framed bicycle, I acknowledged his feat, to him that was ultimate adventure.

After the 2 year stint with PW Botha & sons I worked as a press photographer in Windhoek.  I had a battered Isuzu 4wd diesel bakkie and later a Suzuki jeep and continued the "strange" way of life, off weekends I would disappear into some part of the desert armed with topo map and compass looking for "adventure". I do admit, I later wisened up and took a girl/model along on these trips, (a special kind of girl required to understand the adventure logic though).
Friends/colleagues would ask and it normally went like this:  "Where you off to for the long weekend?"  "Going to Crowthersquelle."  "Ok, who's throwing the party there?"  "No party there."  "Uh, who lives there?"  "Hopefully nobody, going to see if I can find it, should be a fountain there by the sounds of the name."  By now you start getting funny sideways glances from all around you.  "Where's it?"  "Dunno, somewhere in Damaraland, it should be between the Obob and Uniab rivers, just before they meet."  By now the interest turns into raw suspicion; "C'mon, jou donner!, don't tell, you're seeing a farm girl there, so far?, she must be super hot!, your next miss Namibia entry?"  "No farms there, it's right next to the Skeleton Coast."  By now all are baffled.  "So, what exactly are you going to do there?"  "Maybe sleep a night if there's water.."

This past Saturday night we went on a "jol" and ended up at a place called Aruba Lounge or something like that at 3am.  It's a club, music super loud as clubs go, I looked at the people, most just standing around drink in hand, unable to communicate for the decibel levels of the ambient audio, some zonked out on some chemical other than exhaust fumes from a serious backwind doing 40 through the rocks, some dancing away to the throbbing music, lights flashing on their sweaty faces.  And I thought to myself; do they know?, do they know about a crackling campfire somewhere in the middle of fokkol, do they know of the morning dew on your face the wind carried over the desert from the Atlantic the night before?, do they know the karking yourself for fuel running low too far from anything to turn around and too far from water to walk out?  Then up came a girlfriend of ours, just back from London where she waitressed and extensively clubbed night after night for a year.  She told about ending up on tables roughing it on parties, she told of drinking sprees naming all sorts of concoctions and exact amounts consumed, and I could not help thinking this is exactly what she said last we saw her.  Then it dawned upon me, to her that must be adventure, if I were to explain to her that two weekends from now I'm going to ride my bike to Harrisburg, take the worst gravel road from there to find a bridge I saw on a map, then sleep over in the bush in a tent on the riverbank on an abandoned farm and then go to find a pan in the sand I saw on Google Earth, this time using no road at all, she might give me a confused look and say, "that's nice" and then continue to tell which school friend she saw at which party and what brand of alcohol she consumed with them.

So yeah, we all perceive adventure differently, and as crazy as some people would like to make us out to be, we must be doing something right to earn at least some envy because there's a multi-million rand industry out there selling merchandise to people trying to look adventurous by sporting said equipment without doing mentioned deeds.  Count how many all wheel drive adventure capable vehicles you see in a city, vehicles engineers gave their best to achieve ultimate ground clearance for, only for "lookers" to put low profile aftermarket tyres on causing lightshows of brakelights at every two inch high traffic bump in every shopping mall parking lot.

I'm glad I found this forum, it proves to me that I'm not the exception but rather the rule amongst a lot of others who would simply argue "because I can" when confronted with questions like; "what the moer are you going there for on bike?"

Adventure, where does it start and where does it become stupidity or recklessness?  Doing a freefall jump with frayed main shute ropes would be adventurous if you triple checked your reserve would it?  Heading off to find Ombarundu in Kaokoveld on a single bike and not taking a satphone with, would it be ultimate adventure or plain recklessness?  How do we argue available technology?, why not simply dial the co-ords into a GPS and fly there by chopper? 

I have come to the conclusion that my own capabilities and the resources I allow myself would determine the degree of adventure I would perceive.  I could go to Sossusvlei taking a fly-in safari, I could go there in the Pajero, I could go there on a bike or I could walk there.  Which would be the ultimate challenge and adventure?  Walking of course, but 'cause time won't allow I'd take the bike, but 'cause that would be easier than walking I'd try my luck via Rosh Pinah rather than via Maltahohe.

Now, the bridge near Harrisburg, I could send someone to go check it out for me, but I won't, I'll share the tale with people who understand and appreciate when we get back..
 
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