weekend fishing trip

[dalkill]

Me and the crew decided to fish De Dam this weekend.

Boy are them dirt road in bad shape after the heavy storms they had last week. Everything on the bakkie, including my liver, felt the shaking.

Did fair bit of offroad drive. Sand driving on small stretches of beach, where track had no other choice, was quite exciting. However I always thought, and what I saw from Andrew S P White doccie, a vehicle supposed to stay on the tracks when driving on sand. Mine had his own ideas. I had to fisht to keep it on track. Granted it was at slight angle against the foot of the dune. Exiting on stretch of beach, I took my eye off the off the 'road' for a split second to check the sidemirror, what for I don't know, and the bakkie veered to the left and down a small ditch. jeesh almost we went tumbling over.
Lot of places thru the bush where I could hear the suspension moan and groan .

We decide to takle THAT HILL. The last time I tried, the lux just would not make it. Also the rods where sticking out the window, and the turn at the top was tight for the rods. This time the rods was on the roof. There are two path going up. Shorter one, which I thought was not as steep, alas, the unevenness of the tracks proved the undoing of the lux. you need to have a diesel up there, where slow and steady is better. OK, lets try the other path. Lets try slow and steady to avoid wheelspin. Nope did not work. Roll back, into second gear , 4L, and with a lank runup, the lux huffs and puffs and over she goes... with a pat on the dashboard, I say, 'well done my girl'. How does one normally approach a hill like this. It's sand, but not dune like sand. It's more firm , but unlike dune sand, very unvenen making for great articulation as you come down, but makes going up a nightmare. Slow and steady with the 2.2 petrol is just not an option, although a dude with a 2.7 lux managed to do it with ease. And hitting it at speed also not and option unless you want you head knocked back down into your shoulders ???? How to go up there then. had there not been two options I prob would not have made it.

Fishing to this point was poor, so this was just a scouting mission now as the fish were obviously not there. Got to the houses at the lighthouse midway between De dam and the jag. Decided to fish the long strech of surf there. Nothing to loose. There was a nice channel showing. Inspectors rockup, and chat a while. report of odd fish caught on surf de dam yesterday but not any real showing. Then they drive along the long stretch of surf towards buffelsjag :evil: - lekka if you government official hey.

Then the boys decided to head to buffelsjag. Jeesh this dirt road even worst. Got there and security let us pass thru. No need to pay, OK bonus we thought. Alas, when we came to the camp we saw the reason. Attached some pics of the devastation the sand did to the place. Jeesh i was last there in about 2003 with a tazzie comp. It now looks like one of them ghost towns in Namibia. Took a pic of the house the tazzie sat for a group photo - image005. jeesh the curtains still in there., but the whole house filled with sand. How the heck does one just let sand engulf a house like that, with 24hr security present. Then later all was reveled to me. Apparently Eskom is going to be building a power station closeby. I think they asked government to let the jag go to ruin so they can simply take it over no fuss, and at no cost.
Bakkie peformed well on the sand though. sand was fairly hard as well.

[2.8 d/cab SFA]

awsome