Its all about Adventure...

Ever since I can remember back in my teenager days I had a certain "lust" for motorcycles. In the early 80's my older brother purchased a used yellow 1979 Yamaha DT125 "street scrambler" as they were known in those days, so he could get around more independently. Needless to say I ended up spending more time on the bike than he did, together with my school friends we rode along dirt paths in the African bush in search of rivers, dams, farm reservoirs and other fishing sites that we previously looked up on detailed Geographic Survey Maps of our town, Hwange and the surrounding areas. Back in those days, GPS was not known to us, we physically had to plot the route out looking for mapped way points, such as steep hills, swamps, dry river beds, cattle dips, power-line service strip paths and the like, interpreting the contour lines, similar to airplane pilots plotting out their course under "VFR", visual flight rules on aeronautical charts. We had such great fun, often on our travels we came across antelopes and other African wildlife, we would meet local African tribes in remote villages that used to look at our motorcycles, eyes sparkling with excitement, the only two wheeled vehicle they were familiar with at the time, was the bicycle. To this day memories of those African adventure trips are as vivid and colorful as an African sunset, little did we know that we had become one with the motorcycle and would grow up to travel the world looking for new motorcycle adventures.

My BMW F800 GS Guatemala, Central America 2009

Those early adventures in Africa, took place when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, the end of a fierce 15 year long terrorist insurgent bush war that affected us all, but we lived our young lives to the fullest, the security situation was part of the adventure, one never new what to expect, living in Africa in those days was an adventure in itself. I remember a fishing trip we did to the banks of the mighty Zambezi river, Africa's fourth longest river. We were a group of young school lads on our motorcycles with our sleeping bags and fishing kit strapped to our bikes, often we would ride two up, backpacks and all, friends were many but motorcycles were few. We camped out in the bush veld, and the evenings were punctured by the call sounds of the wild animals, we were never afraid, we always respected the wildlife, had intimate knowledge about our native species and their behavior from reading "Bundu" native species guide books, internet wasn't invented yet. Back in the days before color TV, Nintendo, PlayStation, smart phones and personal computers, we grew up outdoors always searching for long adventurous trips into the African wild. Come to think about it, 30 years later, our minds have amassed valuable info and experiences that if translated into digital would consume megabytes of valuable memory in today's technological terms.