Hi, all you robust mountaineers , I believe we are all going to attempt Kili in the early New Year! Difficult to accept that it is only about 50 days to go and counting .
“ Life is what you make of it “ and “ You have to be a little mad to enjoy life “ depicts perhaps my feelings of why I want to go scrambling from the equator to the south pole in 5 days . It may not be the ultimate but it will satisfy my sense of adventure , particularly on the short term .
I started off many years ago as an agriculturalist with a life philosophy of wanting to feed the nation . I joined organised agriculture where I worked for 25 years in different categories of grain production from behind the wheel of a car or driving a desk , helping farmers but not farming myself , nationally from Pretoria and locally in the Eastern Cape . All very noble and frightfully professional but eventually , just not enough …
During my early forties I decided a change was called for and started to look for a suitable mountain farm in the Boland . This took 7 years to accomplish but suddenly I was back on a farm with vineyards , mountains and fynbos … and strangely enough a hiking trail . Without first dreaming about it , I would not have recognised the opportunity when it came by and would perhaps have stayed on the sideline instead of trying to run with the ball .
Over the last 10 years I have spent a lot of time in the mountains …just walking , or rescuing dogs from baboons and even rescuing hikers who have fallen and hurt themselves , or any other damn thing , but always looking at flowers . Often I have joined the hikers at their fire and talking late into the night, discussed their various feats ….and perhaps the one that has attracted me the most and was always the most awesome was Kili .
When Thomas phoned in March to book you guys in on the Genadendal trail for your November hike and mentioned it as a training hike for Kili , I just grabbed the opportunity and here I am .
Incidentally , I am now a wine farmer in my spare time , also farming with proteas , peaches , apricots , hikers , rearing baby ostriches , growing lavender , rose geraniums and running a few experiments with buchu for oil production just to ensure that some of the accounts are paid . I am also a very fit 59 year old widower who has a very nice/kind girlfriend and who is just mad enough to want to join you guys on this fantastic stroll in the koppies .
