9 Peaks Wednesday 23 April 2014
Wednesday 23rd April 2014
We had an early scrumptious
breakfast and then made our way to the Inchanga LandRover 4x4 Experience. Lots of
chatter and excitement building up as we drove up valleys to the LandRover
entrance. We arrived to a warm welcome from some really friendly and
professional staff that made us all feel at home immediately. Things got a lot livelier
once a very tired “Team Blue” of Rene, Kobus and cameraman Shaun and support
crew Zee arrived from Johannesburg. Lots of amazing coffee, beautiful views
from the balcony of the huge log cabin, overlooking the valley, watching as the
mist slowly lifted off the valley to reveal the awesome 4x4 tracks and trails
that we were about to challenge.
We had our briefing and were then
introduced to the two Discovery 4 LandRovers that we were to use on the course.
Jordan was very excited as he was about to become the youngest person ever to
drive the course. It does help that he
is nearly 6ft and take a size 12 shoe so he was bigger and taller than the men
on the course! None the less his expression on his face when he was told that
he would also have a turn driving was priceless! All eight of us had turns on the
course and what we learnt today would come in very handy as we made our way
across South Africa on our quest to climb the highest point in each of the 9
provinces over the next 7 days. The instructors, ground support staff and
office staff are all very professional, knowledgeable and really just a great
bunch of guys. We had lots of laughs and
had many very entertaining moments. I
had to wonder what the boys and instructors would have thought if they had been
in the actual Landie with the ladies – talk about girls behaving badly – we had
permanent running commentaries of what we though the instructors were saying to
us (or would like to say to us ) we had each of their body language and
gestures down to a fine art and cringed and giggled as the instructors made
their way in the pouring rain to explain to us what the next step would be. The
go-pro footage was hysterical and gave some insight as to what goes on in the
female physic when on the Inchange 4x4 course!!
We then finished up and soon
hooters and excited gasps as the 2 sponsored pink LandRovers from LandRover PMB
and the 2 sponsored pink Peugeots arrived. They looked magnificent and they
were most certainly going to turn heads as we made our way across the country. On
closer inspection of each vehicle we discovered something really special. Each
vehicle had been branded on the windscreen in pink writing of course and a pink
bow across the bonnet. LandRover 1was branded “the Pink Ladies” the 2nd
LandRover “G” on the road” and 1st Peugeot was branded “the Slaves”
and the 2nd Peugeot was branded the “techno nerds”. Everyone
absolutely loved this very special and personal touch and we really appreciated
all the special touches from a hard working bunch of people!! We spent a couple
of hours packing and posing for photographs and taking interviews. A press
conference and 9 peaks launch followed by a light scrumptious lunch, lots of
coffee for Kobus and we were then off with butterflies bouncing and great
expectations of what lay ahead.
We made our way towards
Witsieshoek Mountain Lodge and our first mountain – Namahadi, highest point in
the Free State at 3275m. We were to start our climb at 02h00. We left Durban a little latter than expected
and hit really bad weather. It was raining heavily with visibility poor due to
heavy mist. We finally arrived late into the night at Witsieshoek with
spectacular thunder and lightning, that light up the night sky teasing us with silhouettes
of the magnificent and huge mountain range that encased the lodge. Lightening
had struck the lodge plummeting some of the lodge into complete darkness, no
power and rendering all communications down to zero. With the continued electrical storm over the mountains
it was decided that it would be wiser to start once the storm had abated. After
an amazing dinner and each of us issued our meal packs for tomorrow we all made
our way back to our rooms. It was
difficult to pack in the dark and find our luggage. The nerves had set in as we
started to feel somewhat panicked as to what we had packed and could not find.
Finally well after midnight we climbed into our beds for a short sleep.
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