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Pretrun by Waterkloof Lughawe. 22 Junie 2013
1e Foto weer Linda, 2e Foto Tammy en SJ
Schalk se rit Junie 2013. Verslag deur Schalk Ek kon nie al sy foto’s en grafieke insit. Te lui
Nico Nagel, Derek Wallace and Schalk Pretorius attempted the 175Km Kremetart One Day Stage Race on the 8th of June.
Still not sure how exactly this happened, think it was Nico that planted the seed about riding the Kremetart race (having done it once before) and Derek that poured some water on the idea (having done it twice before) but before we knew it we had decided to enter the 2013 edition.
The race takes place in the picturesque town of Makhado better known to most of us as Louis Trichardt at the foot of the Soutpansberg mountain range. The 175 km is divided into 4 stages that are all completed in one day.
We left Pretoria Friday morning and reached our destination the afternoon, and was treated to some beautiful views of the Soutpansberg upon our arrival at the Guest house. Booking our accommodation over the internet led us to believe that we would be staying in a cottage with 2 rooms and enough space for the 5 of us (Nico and his wife, Derek, My dad and I). We were a bit surprised to find that we would all sleep in a single room and would get to know each other really well over the next 2 days, we all very quickly agreed that what happens in the room stays in the room
Race day arrived and we were all exited and ready for action, some of us more prepared than the others for what lay ahead. We had good weather and it was a cool 8 degrees when we started off in town heading up a 10km climb over the Soutpansberg, treated to spectacular views along the way.
We had an incident free stage 1 except for Nico that decided that it would be ok for some reason to leave his water bottles in the car, this lead to him cramping more than usual and he arrived at the end of the 53km quite thirsty.
Stage 2 according to the route guide would have a big push from behind, except this year the wind was blowing the opposite way and we headed into a very strong headwind for the next 42km. Derek starting 5 minutes after I did, managed to catch me and we rode together over the last 20km, till he broke away for an even stronger finish of stage 2.
Stage 3 was much better with the wind slightly from behind, but you would never hear any cyclist admit to having the wind from behind, a statement of “I was feeling really strong” would rather be heard.  We arrived at the end very tired especially with a 1 km uphill finish follow by another 1 km up the same hill to the resting area. Here we could lie on the grass under some trees and gather ourselves for the final 22km. Unfortunately during the stage Derek developed a massive migraine and decided to rather not push to the end.
Stage 4 had one nasty hill called Otto’s Hoogte which is a real deal breaker after riding 165km, thereafter if was all downhill and flat to the finish where a ice cold bear was waiting for us after a hard day’s riding.
We need to thank Nico’s wife, she was doing the support vehicle duties for us, always waiting for us at the next finish line, ready to take our bikes, cheer us on and motivate us for some more pain. We also need to thank Riyaaz and Rofi for taking care of the June release at 02h00 Sunday morning, due to very bad cell reception we had no choice but to ask them for their assistance, they were very keen to help us out. Thanks Sanjay for keeping an eye on them at the office.
We will all go back next year and hope that some of you will be joining us.
Mario is weg England toe. Ek gaan hom mis: 2012: En hy is terug!!!
Christo en Drienie het ‘n tweeling dogters bygekry. Daar is nou ‘n totaal van 4 dogters!!! Baie geluk. Die arme vryers wat eendag verby hierdie pa moet kom. Shame.
Christo en Drienie se vier prinsesse
Christo as dogters groter is
Foto’s van Dawie, Ne’Tanya, Daniel en Ethan. Dit kom uit Dawie se Facebook fotos
Dawie en Ne’Tanya Fotos
Die gym se personeel het ‘n fitness challenge gehou by Virgin Active Menlyn op 28 November 2009. Ek was daar as tydhouer en fotograaf. Ongelukkig was meeste fotos maar teleurstellend. Natuurlik kamera se fout. Tyd vir ‘n nuwe lens
Billy, Charmaine, Ek,Wikus,Linda, johan, Susan en Lourene
Lourene het met ‘n kortkop gewen. Hulle was so na aan mekaardat dit onmoontlik was om ‘n wenner vas te stel totdat die punte opgetel is.
Ek is trots op julle almal
Al die ander foto’s is hier:
Ek moet net hieroor iets oor ons gym sê: ek is seker ons is die enigste so ‘n groep in die land.
‘n Klomp mense wat saam oefen, vriende word en hoofsaaklik by die gym kuier.
In die proses word ons fiks, maar ons sal lieg as ons beweer ons is daar vir die oefen!!
Linda hou die spulletjie bymekaar met Charmaine nou as vennoot en Lourene die regterhand. Susan sorg vir almal se gesondheid.
Hannetjie het nou dosent geword en Ricki hou kontak en vermaak ons met haar sang wanneer ons bymekaarkom.
Jong Danny is mos eers Namibië toe waar haar ouers is, daarna gaan werk in Duitsland en het nou ‘n praktyk in Windhoek. Sy het intussen beroemd geraak vir die wêreld se langste emails. Dit vat ‘n oggend om te lees….Letterlik bladsye op ‘n slag wat dit onmoontlik maak om haar elke keer te antwoord want jou poging lyk dan net te effens. Kan nie wag om haar te sien.
Nou ja, soos ek sê: hierdie gym, vriende ding is uniek en mense kyk jou aan asof jy mal is as jy dit vertel. Niemand het al van so-iets gehoor, maar, as hulle vir Linda, Charmaine en hulle kollegas ontmoet sal hulle verstaan.
Willie se Foto’s van ons Gym Funksie Nov09. Daar is ook ‘n paar algemene gym foto’s by. Kliek op die link
Jaar Funksie November 2009
Willie terwyl hy fotos neem:
Tydens Ina se verjaarsdag by die gym, het ek en sy so ‘n paar draaie gegooi op die vloer.
Sy beweer sy gaan nooit oud word en gaan nooit ophou gym. Toe ons die nuwe gym oopmaak was sy heeltyd op haar kniee besig om te skrop en skoon te maak.
Sy word voorwaar elke jaar jonger
Ina en Fanie Dans Die “movie” wat speel is bietjie groot en gaan nie op alle rekenaars werk
Ricki sing vir ons.gif
Anuschka fotos 24 September 2006 011.jpg
Foto vir Dawie: Herinner dit jou aan iets? Ek sal later tyd spandeer om hierdie storie van Dawie en die breekwater te vertel
Christo storie in Engels: Hy het my gevra vir ‘n getuigskrif
We first met when I started diving for diamonds and Christo was the first diver I employed.
He worked for me for 4 years and after that went off after bigger fish. We have been friends now for 20 years. He is the only person I know who is without fear, for him everything is possible, there is no place in his life for fear. As a diamond diver he is without peer. Strong and calm under pressure, the qualities that keep you safe. Did I say strong?
Like I said, we started diving together for diamonds. We did not have a single experienced guy with us. We were 5 people who only knew about diving, without any clue of how to find diamonds. The things we did!! I try to block out most of it, we were just so unbelievably stupid.
It took us 6 months before finding our first diamonds and almost as long to learn the proper way to anchor a big boat securely in rough seas.
It was Christo who found the first diamonds, after that he was unstoppable. He had a feeling for it and I just shut my mouth and looked agreeable.
Diamond diving sounds more glamorous than it is. Mostly you move rocks, pump a little bit of gravel, move rocks, pump, more rocks. The divers work alone and it is easy to fuck up the face. Get lazy, pump around the rocks, skip a little bit and the next diver down has no idea what to do. Visibility is mostly less than 2 meters and it is not easy for a diver to get a clear picture. Christo is one of the very few okes who’s able to form a mental map of the area. When he goes down and there is this long silence, everyone knows that he is moving the pipes and shifting the rocks the other guys left. When he eventually came out of deco, the guy before him better have a good story.
I personally get so lost under water, you can see squid, you go down in circles and when down there can’t even tell where the boat is.
So one day I was prospecting with Christo … now at that stage we all wore a harness jacket thing to which our weights and air pipe were fixed. Works much better than a belt as you have the weight where you need it on the upper body, up to 10 kg of weights. No fins are used; we are bottom crawlers not swimmers. This day we carried some markers with us, putting one down every time we found a good spot. Eventually we ran out of markers and as we turned back, found a real promising site. I was not willing to loose it and gestured Christo that I need his harness. This you cannot do at 30m, there are so many reasons why, I cannot even begin to explain. Christo gave me a look of so much hate, took his jacket off and showed me the finger with both hands as he swam up without air. When he reached the surface he still had to swim like 150m to the boat against the current… without fins. I was slowly going back to the boat, when suddenly I was jerked off my feet by the airline and dragged like a bag of potatoes towards the boat. Ah, Christo made it!
One time, we were working a real rocky area. The gulley soon split into two, some guys working the left side while others believe the other side to be better. So Christo went down and I soon followed to see what is happening. I followed the pipe and could see that Christo was not pumping. I found him in one gulley, pushing at the rock face dividing the gulleys with his back, using his legs for leverage. I thought he has really lost it as it was a rock around 2 meters high and 6 m long. What kind of man will try to move that? The next moment the whole thing tumbled over, breaking into several smaller pieces as it did. I was laughing so much I almost drowned. No more arguments, we now had only one big gulley.
Driving Skills: One day he went off the road about 200km from Luderitz and so started an epic fight with the insurance and the panel beater from hell in Keetmanshoop. Eventually one day we had to collect his car, the insurance had someone drive down from Windhoek and we would all meet at the panel beater. We decided that we will sommer camp in the caravan park in Keetmans. Christo and Cobus already very friendly, sitting in the back under the canopy of the Mazda, Dawie in front with me. I wanted Christo to be real sober when we arrive at Keetmans and told him that the beers are for after the car has been collected. 3 minutes later the sound of a beer can being opened. “Christo!!”… “oh sorry” and he passed the beer to me, opening another one for Dawie. Then he and Cobus started talking, laughing about something and opened a beer “Christo!!!” and I get another beer. Soon Dawie had six open beers between his legs.
Silence from the back as Christo and Cobus were now really bored. Next moment I almost lost control when a gun shot went off in the back. He and Cobus were lying on their stomachs taking potshots at the stone markers. I just held out my hand and Dawie had six beers and a pistol.
When we arrived at Keetmans there were no beers left and Christo immediately started building a camp fire with Cobus skulking off to the bathrooms. We later found him asleep in a shower cubicle. Dawie and I collected the car with Christo happily pitching the tent, if you can use that word for what he did.
Practicality: The boat was in Walvisbay to be surveyed and my wife, Christo and myself drove down there with an Opel Monza that was passed down from my brother for company use! We decided to take the shortcut past Helmeringhausen and Solitaire. We did this route before in a 4×4 and found it easy. From the beginning it was clear that this car will not cope. The road was terrible, full of loose gravelly rocks and the car couldn’t clear it. So it was a constant thunder of rocks hitting the car everywhere. It deteriorated even further the nearer we got to Solitaire. About 30km from Solitaire the car ground to a standstill, leaking fuel.
The biggest problem was that the copper pipe running from the fuel tank was torn away.
I used the plastic pipe from the windscreen washer to build another pipe but we had no way to connect it to the much wider copper pipe. Christo said not to worry, he will fix it while I fit some other loose bits. Checking on Christo I found that he has warmed a 9mm bullet by heating it with his lighter and then using the warm bullet to stretch the plastic pipe. Well, it worked.
We used the tar road back from Walvis and actually drove the car all the way to Cape Town. One of the front wheels fell off just as we reached Cape Town and we towed it to a dealer who gave us a nice trade in on a new Opel. They did say the Monza will probably be scrapped.
Exhaust mod: Lyk so bekend
Language Proficiency: Christo was raised by his German mother in an English neighbourhood in an Afrikaans school. The English divers and friends know that he is actually English as you can hear an Afrikaans oke from miles away. His Afrikaans friends know that he is Afrikaans, his German friends know…. A gift for languages, he worked in Angola for a while and can communicate in Portuguese. He can now speak French as well. No really..
Racism: He has no idea of the concept, treated the black deckhands, coloured skipper and white divers with equal contempt. He had no problem using his superior strength to convince a deckhand to do his job, even bleeding as he does. They all loved him as it is clear that in his mind everyone is equal. When passing near his flat they will quickly pop in to say hello. Always welcome if they carry beer. Sometimes spending his free time in the harbour to teach the Ovambo deckhands to swim. Some of them even became divers later. Much later.
He just came back from a mining drill off the Nigerian coast and from all his swearing I am no longer sure that he is not a racist. Apparently the Nigerians went on a strike and threw all the beer overboard. If you give him a gun with enough bullets the Nigerian problem will be solved.
Christo hike na Lughawe
Income: He is the only guy I know who once earned R500,000 a day in commission … and spend it in a month. Just joking. Two months.
Foto Van Koos en Willemien Olivier tydens ‘n fees of iets.
Ek het vir hierdie twee mense soveel respek. Soos mens ouer word kry mens meer perspektief en besef die waarde van mense.
Heeltemal kontak met hulle verloor. My verlies
My vrou is ook op soek na haar Amerikaanse vriendin Jennifer Macdonald (nooiensvan). Sy is met ‘n Luderitz ou getroud. Ons sal haar so graag wil opspoor.