Morning all...
No doggie upping-date from me this weekend, instead it's new chariot update
I went to my weekend retreat in the new chariot, and arrived 10 minutes before a downpour of note. Lasted all of Sat afternoon & night, so I left on Saturday about 90:00 ish, still raining medium hard.
Now the geological history of that area is actually quite interesting, and millenia ago it was a huge inland sea. Because of this, the entire area is clay........ And real snotty stuff, But fortunately the access roads to the farm where my retreat is have been gravelled, but if you slip just once... you are stuck. You break through the gravel, the differential does it's job and you stand in one place.
So I moseyed outta there at 2Km / H.... All the way toe the main road.... Drifted sieways once or twice but got through OK
Below, are photos of the farm road... (First one I took this because I thought it funny <Its the Jeep - Landrover thing>)
However I said that the area is quite interesting, here are some of the interesting things about it.
Has one of the biggest extint volcanoes in South Africa.... Pielansberg, where the famous Sun City is. (you can google it)
The Magalliesberg (to you guy's hills, to us mountains) are the oldest hills in the world!
The armistice to the second Anglo-boer-war- was signed under a boabab tree in the area
The British lost their socks during the Second Anglo boer war due to a Famous Boer General, General Da La Rey who led his troop all along the top of the Magaliesberg to Skeerpoort, where the British tried to break through one of the few gaps along the mountain range, and where utterly decimated by astonishingly accurate boer shooting.
All your "Rustenburg Granite" kitchen tops come from the hills there.
It was in this area that we had the recient Marikana shooting of the miners.
Then, (un-substantiated) I believe it provided the basis for the topogrophy for the map of middle earth, for Tolkien's Lord of the rings.
I can see every single major feature on the map, with the excepton of Fangorn, and pretty much in the same place...
The lands of Gondor / Mordor / the badlands / the mountain / the dragon's lair / the brandywine / mines of Morior / representation of the steps of kasa-doom... where Gandalf battled the balrog) and much more...... One day, when I'm on pension, I'll film all of this and put it on the net....
But anyhow, the new chariot.... It has a wonderful feature that it calculates your average consumption every kilometer....
Over a distance there and back, of 270Km I averaged 5.8 there and by the time I got home 6.1 (probibly due to the wet roads)
Now all of the above is the excuse why there is no update on Grumbles's weight & height.....
Photo of secrete field trials of Jeep's new technology destined for Africa
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Exploring round on the back roads in the Brits area, where my weekend retreat is
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Those hills are where all the famous Rustenberg Granite (A peculuar red - flecked coloured granite) that make those kitchen tops come from....
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