260Km trip to the local Spar - via Mtunzini.

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It seems to me my good friend C. (777) knows me a little better than I know myself.

Today's plan was to ride 1.2 Km round trip to the local Spar to see if I could remember how to ride a bike, and to see if I could pull the clutch and push the indicators.

I ended up going a little further than I planned, exactly as Mr. 777 predicted.

I started out trying to find a garage that had unleaded, and after four failures I found one in Umhlanga, and I thought that since I made it there, why don't I head off to Balito to a pottery studio that serves good tea and sticky-buns on Sundays. Once there I heard the open road calling and thought, what the hell, let's do a bit of the N2 and give the bike a good workout.

On the way I met this poor guy on a no-name Chinese 250 who had run out of petrol. A local guy in a bakkie had offered to get him petrol, for which he paid R50.

I waited with him and took a short walk to admire the view from the top of the cutting.

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You guessed it. After waiting for 40 or so minutes there was no sign of either the bakkie or his R50.

I had a thief-pipe in the top-box, so I gulped down an Energade and we put in enough petrol to get him to Salt Rock where the local garage had petrol so he could fill the tank and get going.

Now I was on a roll, a just kept the front wheel facing North and before long I was closer to Umtunzini than I was from Durban, so I just kept riding. The temptation to ride the "Chicco road" along the railway line service road through the Sappi plantations and some indigenous forest to Umtinzini was just too strong so I took the turn-off. The road was good. There must have been a cloudburst during the night as the road had many puddles, but not enough rain to wake the Mudmonster, and my E07s never twitched once.

The saligna plantations

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Indigenous forest.

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I love these raffia palms. They are not indigenous to the area as the seeds were brought from the Kosi Bay area and planted in about 1900, but they have provided food for the rare and unusual Palm Nut Vultures that live in the area.

For the botanists among you, these palms have the largest leaves of any plant currently alive.

see - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm-nut_Vulture

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I then  paid a  R10 entry fee and took a ride down to the very pretty lagoon in the Umlalazi Nature Reserve.
This warning sign was totally ignored by the two fishermen you can see in the gap between the signs.  

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I found a young boy staring at this print – We decided it was a vervet monkey, but I am not totally sure. Any ideas?

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I stopped to look at a bit of estuarine mangrove full of crawling bug-eyed fish and tiny crabs.

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I then headed for brunch at the Fat Cat in ‘Zini and then slabbed it back home riding through a few light showers into the teeth of a fresh South Wester. Irritating? Nope. I have not felt so alive for a few months.

And the hand? A bit sore at the moment, but I am sure it’s just the pressure of the glove rather than the stress of riding. It’s still a bit sore pulling the clutch, but I’ll rest it through the week and I am sure it will be okay for a gentle ride by next weekend.  

Oh, and I forgot to go to the Spar  ::)
 
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