This is part 1 of 3 posts...it was 3 days
Today my blog title is dedicated to the two awesome sexy cows that travelled with us to STRAB and back. They were our seats, our jokes, our pillows and of course our sexy cows. Gomez is such a cool cat (I mean cow) with his blue colour and hat. Sunny being the bright ray of sunshine in our mist. They got so much attention from passing motorists, pedestrians and even the border guards greeted them.
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| Peek - A - Moo: Sunny and Gomez |
Most of the humble Nelspartans that could not make this year STRAB have been dying to know what went down, what went up and who got drunk. Ha! That last one is a fact that all got very merry and the Saturday night I feel a cheers should go to the Captain(s). Let me begin from the first day of travels, you see I accompanied Christine up to our capitol city (Pretoria for those who didn't know) to get her passport the day before we officially left. That was like a warm up jog to the marathon of driving lying ahead.
At 4 am Thursday Lee and Christine stopped at my house to get me and the one bag we forgot to pack the previous night, and set off into the sun rise. I can honestly tell you it is now winter even a polo bear would have shivered. We stopped to watch the sun rise a few km before Swaziland and arriving at the boarder standing in line for some real road side coffee, hmmm. The border opened we were in and out within 20 minutes on both sides and I had my first look at Swaziland. Yes my first time in the Kingdom and I must agree with everyone it is total different feeling. One of the first things I noticed was how clean it was, hardly any rubbish laying around unlike here in SA. The country pretty much reminds me of ours but the mountains and plains are majestic. And that they love their KFC everywhere there was a billboard for KFC, crazy stuff.
2 hours later we stopped at our exit border to go back into SA, they busy upgrading the border gate on the Swaziland side which a bit of mess but if it looks like anything the current SA border control office then it will be a breeze. Off we went into KZN driving along the beautiful Pongola River. Up the mountain we stopped for a view and let Gomez and Sunny have bit of graze and a leg stretch for the humans.
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| Boarder control |
I must say huge thanks to Lee for being our driver most of the way, I took over about 40 km before the Mozambique border but we had to stop for some comfort food at the KFC. Soon we were on way again and had some potholes and the road works which wasn't too hectic. Even a few cows that had some kind of a life crisis and played "chicken" on the road. Soon we were approaching the Kosibay Border gate, passports in hand we went through SA to Mozambique where we had to fill in more paper work and get the awesome little Daihatsu tires inflated. Why you ask? Well you drive on beach sand. Quite a difficult thing to do I'm glad I didn't try driving. I would have got stuck in the sand. Rally driving was now the order of the day and I had to keep Gomez and Sunny up while Christine directed Lee. I didn't know what to except from Mozambique but once we got closer to the venue I could see that still poverty is the issue of the day in a very beautiful African country.
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| Sandy roads only made for 4x4 |
Finally arriving just after lunch at STRAB we got booked in, arm band and entrance permit for the car. Now to look for a good camping spot, Lee and Christine being the ones who was there before knew what to look for and the camp site looked pretty much full. We choose a spot close to the ablutions of course and set up the tent. After set up we mission down to the stage to get the last bit of Pedro Barbosa (Mrs. B) and Andre Kriel (Black Cat Bones) set, dying for my first Mozambique beer we sat down to meet up with Anthony of Blue Moon, friends Chantelle, Frank, Adriaan and Annie at the round table. After Mrs. B we watch Gerald Clark (one cool ginger) and his friend Stefan Dixon for a set. Wow those two guys really impressed us and Dan Patlansky even joined Gerald for a song. Watch the master in action here.
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| Pedro Barbosa & Andre Kriel |
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| Stefan Dixon & Gerald Clark |
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| Dan Patlansky |
The next artist was from Perth, Australia but she didn't really impressed me and it was time to finally hit that wonderful beach. We sat down and enjoyed the ocean with an R'nR (double shot of Moz rum and Raspberry - Titanic still kick ass), then off to the camp site (which we now realized is almost at the entrance gate which means a 10 - 15 minute walk to the stage every time) to get warmer clothes.
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| R 'n R |
We made it just in time to watch fellow Nelspartan band, Voetstoots, on stage. Sitting on the sand in front of main stage and have the few handful people turning into a bigger crowd which was quite good. Next up was Gerald Clark & Stefan Dixon again and a master in own creativity form was Jan Blohm. But the drive down to STRAB has finally caught up to the 3 of us and just before Jan Blohm took the stage Christine and I went back to the tent to get some sleep.
Click here to read what happened the next day
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| Smook & Stefan of Voetstoots |
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