Andy's Racing Blog: African Safari

For the start of the week I was busy recovering from the weekend’s race so I had a bit of time for some sight seeing. Rosie and I went to the Umgeni Nature reserve to see some wildlife and some waterfalls. It was a kind of self-drive safari, which really tested out the brand new ford fiesta hire car. It was really nice but unfortunately we didn’t see any giraffes, we did see plenty of zebras and some other cool animals though, I’ll have to look up what they all were.

On Monday I meet up with a bunch of local guys and went for a tour of the local trails. There is plenty of riding here, I think I’ll have to come back.

On Tuesday Dan Mac and Katherine O’Shea arrived today and I took them around the track. It was good to see some familiar faces. This afternoon we went for a little tour out in the country to see another waterfall, Karkloof Falls. It was a very impressive sight standing on top of a 150-odd metre cliff and looking across at the falls which were similarly tall, even though Macca is a bit girly about heights.

I had a decent hit out on the track on Wednesday with a few single lap time trials. The race venue is really starting to come together and the atmosphere is building of the weekend. In the afternoon Rosie, Macca, Katherine, Chris J and I headed out to Tala Game Reserve. It was like Jurassic Park. We drove ourselves around the park in the little Fiesta in search of some big game. We spotted a giraffe, hippos, zebra and heaps of other animals but the highlight was the Rhino! Those things are massive. Macca, Blood and I walked up fairly close (well actually, they walked up and I cowered behind them), it was amazing.