Some more photos taken in March '08 :)

Greetings and salutations my faithful readers... Nothing special has happened since last time, but I've uploaded some pictures from my latest motorcycle ride in the Boland of Western Cape. These are just a few, see the rest on http://rasterburn.org/~sgt/albums/South_Africa-March-2008/album1.html




There was a big fire in this area this summer, but as you can see it's starting to become green again.

My new address

It's been ages since I last updated this blog, and I apologize for that. To all my millions of readers out there, I promise you that this blog shall once again be updated uh, now and then! ;-) Since january (well actually early december), I've been residing at the following address (in case anyone wants to send me mail, hinthint):

1 Tortelduif straat
Onderpapegaaiberg
7600 Stellenbosch

I'm sure you're wondering how this new place looks like so here are some pictures.

First one of what you would see before you can enter the house... a 2 meter fence with an electric gate (typical south africa):



This is the house itself:


An outhouse where you can sit and relax..:


Another angle of the house:


This is a view of the Tortelduif (turteldue in Norwegian) street:


My current 4-wheeled ride parked outside in the shade. This is a Mercedes-Benz we nicknamed the Galactica, because it's huge like a big battleship. There's also a story behind the car. Some guy crashed into this car in Cape Town, but while his car had a huge dent and windows were smashed, there wasn't a single dent on this Mercedes. Definitely a solid german machine!

Just some more riding

Western Cape has probably the best motorcycle roads in the entire country, and fortunately it's all very close to Stellenbosch.

This sunday had beautiful weather, nice temperature and little traffic so we figured that a sunday ride would be in order (also called a "breakfast run" among riders).

I went out riding with Rudi (a friend I know from my motorcycle dealership) and some others. We went through Helshoogte (long sweeps), Franschhoek pass (tight bends and kneesliding, although watch out for the baboons!).







This one BP petrol station we stopped at had so many surveillance cameras that it was ridiculous. The ones in this photo are just a few of them, I think there's at least 30 cameras there. Too much money? ;-)





Here's Rudi with his 2007 ZX6R:




I rode that bike from Franschhoek back to Stellenbosch. It's quite a powerful bike (599cc fuel-injected inline-4 producing 131 horsepower...) The brakes have an incredible bite and only two fingers are necessary. Suspension is very stiff but very effective.

My only objection is that it feels less comfortable than the previous models of ZX6R and also the lack of torque. I'm not sure how long you can be on this bike before your wrists and back starts to ache. Nonetheless, it's a true sportsbike with great potential. Rudi's friend Tinny (left in first pic) rides an older ZX7R, it's heavier but I think that'd be a more suitable bike for me since I'm quite tall.

Building a pan flute

I woke up one morning and thought building a pan flute would be a neat thing. I have no idea why! It just made sense at the time. ;-) So I went to the hardware store (called Oranjeblanjeblou) and bought 2 meters of PVC pipe. I also bought some other stuff like sanding paper, a little saw, some rubber things for a plug, some wood and some super glue and black paint.

I found that the mathematical equation to calculate the length of the tube is:

TL = (S/F) / 4

Where TL is Tube Length, S is speed of sound (344m/sec), F is desired frequency.

I decided to make 13 pipes so I could have the western musical scale of A, A#, B, C, C#, D and so on. The frequency of A (actually A4) is 440Hz, and the frequency of C# is 554Hz, and so on.

To calculate the length I needed for C#, I would then do:

(34400/554) / 4 = 15.52 cm

Since I had some rubber things that I used to plug up the pipe, I found that I have to add their height (about 0.6cm) despite them not being hollow. I didn't know this at first so I spent quite some time sawing it down properly after realizing my mistake.

I also spray-painted it black, with the exception of the piece of wood I put on the back (not visible in the pictures).

The sound is good but it's very loud.. Maybe I should build a smaller one next time, and maybe one out of bamboo!

So.. there you go, a pan flute made out of materials costing less than 60NOK !

De La Rey lyrics

"De La Rey" is a popular song written and performed by Bok van Blerk, I've read the lyrics and I've translated it to English as an exercise. This song has been playing at all the nightclubs and bars here in Stellenbosch since I arrived in January, although often in a remixed version. The song is about the Boer war general De La Rey and the fight against the British army, who outnumbered the Boers by far. In this war the british set up concentration camps with horrible conditions, resulting in thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths.

Video


LYRICS (my English translation is in paranthesis)

Op 'n berg in die nag (on a mountain in the night)
lê ons in die donker en wag (we lie in the darkness and wait)
in die modder en bloed lê ek koud, (I lay in mud and blood, cold)
streepsak en reën kleef teen my (backpacks(?) and rain sticks to me)

en my huis en my plaas tot kole verbrand sodat hulle ons kan vang (and my house and my place are burned to coals so that they can catch us)
maar daai vlamme en vuur brand nou diep, diep binne my (but the flames and fire burn deep, deep inside of me)

De La Rey, De La Rey sal jy die Boere kom lei? (De La Rey, can you come lead the boers)
De La Rey, De La Rey
Generaal, generaal soos een man, sal ons om jou val. (General like a man, shall we fall with you)
Generaal De La Rey.

Oor die khakies wat lag (hear the british who laugh)
'n handjie van ons teen 'n hele groot mag (a handful of us against the whole great army)
en die kranse lê hier teen ons rug (and the cliffs are here against our backs)
hulle dink dis verby (they think it has passed)

Maar die hart van 'n Boer lê dieper en wyer, hulle gaan dit nog sien (but the heart of a boer is deeper and wider, they can still see it)
Op 'n perd kom hy aan, die Leeu van die Wes Transvaal (on a horse he comes, the lion from west-transvaal)

De La Rey, De La Rey sal jy die Boere kom lei? (de la rey, can you come lead the boers?)
De La Rey, De La Rey
Generaal, generaal soos een man, sal ons om jou val. (general as a man,shall we fall with you)
Generaal De La Rey.

Want my vrou en my kind lê in 'n kamp en vergaan (because my wife and my child are in a [concentration] camp, decaying)
en die khakies se murg loop oor 'n nasie wat weer op sal staan. (and the british's marrow runs over a nation which shall rise again)

De La Rey, De La Rey sal jy die Boere kom lei?
De La Rey, De La Rey
Generaal, generaal soos een man, sal ons om jou val (general like a man, shall we fall with you?)
Generaal De La Rey.

South Africans sure like their speed

While there's no denying that typical south africans like to go fast, sometimes the law catches up with them. Here are some excerpts from traffic related articles in South Africa, some are quite funny:


"Johannesburg - A traffic camera on the Olifantsfontein offramp on the N1 north caught a respected Schweizer Reneke farmer doing 140km/h in a 120km/h zone - on his tractor." (Perhaps it was a Lamborghini tractor?)


"In Alberton, a 38-year-old BMW driver was caught driving at 208km/h on the N12 near the Reading interchange. "Driving fast is my hobby. Don't think I'll ever drive slower," the BMW driver told police who later arrested him."


SA is full of government officials who believe having an urgent meeting qualifies for legalized speeding, as demonstrated by one JHB official doing more than twice the speed limit. He said, "Last week my flight from Johannesburg to Durban was delayed. But at the same time I had an appointment that had been planned for weeks. That to me constituted an emergency," he told the provincial legislature on Thursday."


"Johannesburg - A KwaZulu-Natal motorcyclist driver has been fined R102 000 by the Scottburgh Magistrate's Court after he was caught speeding, the SABC reported on Thursday.
Jan Hendrick was caught driving his motorbike at 295km/h." (that's 89000 norwegian kroners, quite a traffic ticket!!).


"Johannesburg - Nine men were arrested at the weekend for speeding. A 45-year-old man in a Ford Territory was doing 206km/h. He said he was going to play golf. It was 06:21."


"Johannesburg - A man caught driving at 234km/h in a 120km/h zone early on Sunday claimed not to have realised he was speeding, Ekurhuleni Metro police said. The 25-year-old in his BMW was one of five motorists pulled over in Germiston on the N3 freeway."


"Johannesburg - A 32-year-old man handed himself in to police on Monday after he was caught driving at 259km/h on the East Rand. The man, driving a BMW M3, was stopped by police on Linksfield Road in Edenvale on Sunday, but drove off before he could be arrested, said inspector Jimmy Maboko."


"Johannesburg - Metro police arrested five motorists on Sunday for speeding - including a Lamborghini driver doing 251km/h in Midrand."


"Johannesburg - The director-general of the department of social development, Vusimuzi Madonsela, thought he had the highway to himself as he sped along the N1 at 228km/h in his Mercedes-Benz on Saturday. But the Johannesburg Metro Police were lying in wait."


"Johannesburg - Six speeding motorists were arrested along the N1 past the N12 freeway on Sunday, Johannesburg metro police said. One man, driving a BMW, was "upset" at being caught as he had a laser-jamming device fitted to his car. He was travelling at 181 kilometres per hour."


Every excuse is stranger than the other.. "On Sunday seven motorists were arrested on the N2 highway near Linksfield. They were doing between 181 and 211 km/h in a 120 km/h zone. Mokheseng said the speeding motorists had several reasons for driving so fast. "One man said he was late for his flight, the other one said his mother was sick, a third man in a Ferrari said he had missed his flight and was trying to get to Cape Town on time". A 22-year-old man driving a Toyota Corolla at 193km/h told us he had the runs (diarrhoea) and that was why he was driving so fast."

Another motorcycle trip in the Western Cape

On saturday I went past gordon's bay and about 270 km into nowhere. I shot a few photographs along the way.

The roads in the western cape are fun.. lots of nice curves suitable for nice lean angles:


Gordon's Bay is a really nice place with beaches (including the famous one called Bikini Beach):


A lot of rich people seem to be living in Gordon's Bay, and houses like these are very common:


Such an odd place to park a bike...:


I look a bit tired in this picture... after many hours of riding :-)