Omni 24 hour MTB

My first Mountainbike Race a 24hour race at northern farms as a team.
I just got my first mountain bike a few months earlier, before then i just rock climbed.

94.7 Cycle Challenge Expo

This is me posing with the infamous Diadora girls at the 94.7 cycle challenge expo, and they are very cute as you can see!
Well a month ago I got my first bike, a mountain bike and since then this cycling thing bit me hard. I appreciate both Montainbiking and Road Cycling and think there is room for both. 

Home Climbing Wall

I build my own home climbing wall, It is made of a pine framework with ply sheets. The wall is bolted on the bottom to the side of the wall with rawl bolts and at the top chains hold it up at an adjustable angle.

Though the wall is not very big, it gives me at least some bouldering practise during the week, especialy when I am too busy at work to go to a climbing gym.

This is my pride an joy, and it was really fun building too! 

Sleeping on the cliffs

We parked our tent 3 meter from the edge close to the Tugela falls that was frozen at the time. The cliffs drop +-1km down while at the top you have a spectacular view of the Amphitheatre, Devel's Tooth and Tooth Pick. No picture can do the view justice. 

Drakensberg - Mont-aux-Sources

In 1836, the French missionaries Arbousset and Daumas named the largest of the domes rising from the plateau Mont-aux-Sources - a literal description of this source of five rivers. This is me at the summit of Mont-aux-Sources after a though be very rewarding climb. The Tugela river is one of the rivers originating from Mont-aux-Sources and plummets 948m of the cliff making it the world's seconds highest waterfall.

Drakensberg - Royal Natal National Park

At the top of the chain ladders in the Drakensberg leading to the Amphitheatre, a rock wall about 5km in length, and approximately 1000m in height between the Sentinel (3 165m) and Eastern Buttress (3 047m), with a number of domes rising from its relatively flat summit plateau.


http://www.drakensberg-tourism.com/royal-natal-national-park.html

Europe Tour

A month ago while everybody was freezing up in Jo’burg, I was fortunate to do a tour though Europe along with two friends of mine for 19 days. I was really amazed didn't think it could get so hot and humid in Europe, it was especially hot in the Mediterranean! (Maybe it was the hot girls in the south of France ;-)

Our tour started in London, were we joined up with one of our friends working there. We stayed in a SA home were 7 South Africans live, it didn't feel like you are overseas yet, there are so many South Africans living there, with SA pubs (The AardVark), people speaking Afrikaans on the street, and even Afrikaans newspapers available for free each morning
in the tube stations.

London

We spend 4 days in London exploring all the tourist attractions in and around the city. One day while visiting Trafalgar square we saw "The Strandbeesten" made famous by a BMW add, these mechanical monsters made out of wood are wind driven creatures storing energy in clever ways and converting it into movements that seems magical at times almost intelligent and surreal. http://www.strandbeest.com/ 

In London we went to "The Climbing Castle" an old castle they converted into a world class Rock Climbing Centre, It was amazing! I drooled all over the place as you can imagine. 

France

We flew to Paris, and then you know you are overseas, man! It took us about an hour to try and navigate ourselves around the
airport, everything is in French and nobody can speak English. We stayed in a hotel for 3 days and then started touring the countryside with a rental car, France is a beautiful country!

As the sun only sets around 10:30 pm in the evening we had exceptionally long days, and did the camping thing for the rest of our tour. It is amazing; there are so many camping sites. We didn't have a planned route, so we just drove as we liked, around 10pm we would start looking for a camping spot and we found plenty. After spending 6 days in France and driving though the Monte Carlo tunnel (famous in Grand Prix), we drove into Italy and spend a night in the small town of Aosta in the north close to the Alps.

Switzerland - (Schwiiz) +

We entered Switzerland though the great Saint Bernard tunnel going 10km through the alps, Switzerland is Breathtaking! Crystal clear lakes with waterfalls surrounded by majestical mountains with green grass. We stayed with locals (emigrated South Africans) there on their farmhouse and got some deeper insight on the Swiss culture and way of life, very very interesting lifestyle the Swiss have!

Netherlands

The last leg of our Europe tour took us to the Netherlands were we spend 3 days in the countryside and 2 days in Amsterdam.
The first nigh in the Netherlands we arrived 10pm at our camping site, went to buy some food and got trapped in a local pub chatting to the locals in Afrikaans and drinking local beer. 2am we went back to our camping site and tried to put up our tent, it was fun!

Bouldering

Working on a Bouldering problem in Fairy Glen Nature Reserve in Pretoria.

Waterfall Boven Adventure

From abseiling the waterfall to crossing the river and then going up a steep rockey hill, this was time very well spend!






....

What a priviledge to be in such a beautiful place!

At the bottom of the waterfall alot of moss is growing on the rocks making it very slippery. We saw some strange stuff that has fallen from above, like an old shoe with grass growing out of it.

Abseiling the Waterfall

Abseiling the waterfall at waterval boven.

Getting ready to abseil the waterfall in Waterval Boven.

Looking down from the cliff next to the waterfall, wondering if our rope will reach the bottom :-)

Waterval Boven

A view of the 50 meter waterfall as seen from the oppiside side of the old train tunnel, the tunnel is pitch dark inside, you can't even see your hand infront of you. 

This is me playing pool at work in our chill out room.

The day when I got my Jeep Wrangler 4x4, One very proud owner! 

My Cape holiday during the easter weekend of 2005, we also visited the KKNK (Klein Karoo Nasionale Kustefees) 

Rock Climbing @ Strubens Valley

Rock Climbing @ Strubens Valley

This is me doing some rock climbing at strubens valley, this was my first time climbing on real rock and must say it is much nicer than the climbing gyms. It is also more of a challenge, because you must figure out where the grips are, and sometimes there are no grips and you must improvise and just try to stick too the rock.