Olive's adolescence? Well, after the cart's wobbly wheels on day one, I have named her Olive (after Popeye's wobbly legged girlfriend). I think she's through her awkward stage though as she's proving to be a good strong work-horse! The only problems i've had have been with parts that were bought, everything that Greg designed and Charl built has been working perfectly! The wheels are settling in though, and despite one more bad buckle yesterday (which also sprung back instantly, this time when i just pulled the cart forwards), it's only been minor balancing that's been necessary. The permatubes that my friend Andrew and I fitted are working well to nullify the need to carry a pump and repair tubes after thorny ground, but are not coping as well as i had hoped with the weight of the cart. One tube in particular seems to be a lower density as it compresses quite severely under a centered load that the other tube copes just fine with. Jeremy left at the end of day 2 to tend to his research and I sent some stuff back to Cape Town with him. This allowed me to weight the cart further forward and transfer the eye-bolts that attach my back-pack to the cart (via a rope passed through the slot for the hip-strap) to the front of the handles, which ultimately put me in hands-free mode! This is how we intended the cart to work but it relies on the cart being slightly front-heavy. With my hands free from keeping Olive on a straight line, they can now be a part of the locomotive process by using trekking poles to alleviate some of the driving force from my feet. All in all Olive is looking pretty good!
Atomic walking? On day one we past Koeberg Nature Reserve, the only nature reserve i know with a nuclear power station on it! (Hence the atom above the hikers in the photo above)
Although the trip has started off alot tougher than i expected, it has started off pretty well! The first three nights i spent on the side of the road which wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. I was hoping for a camp-site on day 2 and thought i had one secured as Jeremy and his parents drove out of the parking lot of the padstal where i sat waiting for the lady who booked the camping to arrive. After some time re-packing the cart i turned to the small petrol station, where I had been told by one of the attendants that there was camping, and saw that it was closed. I tried to walk towards the campsite, set off the station's alarm, and then got ambushed by the booking lady screaming at me that I had to book in advance to camp. After politely informing them that their service and business sense was terrible, I found some water and carried on walking a further 4km in the dark to where there was supposed to be another campsite. There was nobody at the gate though so i slept in the unattended gate-house. That brought my distance of 25km on day 2 up to 29, day one was about 24, day 3 was 35km (after using trekking poles!) and day 4 was about 32km which brought me to Jacobsbaai...
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