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| Day 59, 2011/06/29 |
We up at 5am to make sure we can avoid too much riding in thereat lf the day. After a huge breakfast, we hit thread at 630 am. The road north is stunning.it looks like it has just been finished, and in addition, there is almost no traffic. Wow, what a pleasant change from Nairobi!
It is however not far into the days riding that things start to go wrong. After a brief stop just outside Archers Post, aim unable to get going. There is a horrible noise coming from my engine. I decide to remove the gain guard cover to the front sprocket, only to discover my worst fear. The sprocket nut had come loose, but not that, in the process, the sprocket and damaged the teeth on my shaft to the point where it would require a new one. My first thought was that my trip was now over. There was no way I could continue with the bike in this state. However, David proposed a brilliant idea, he said, why not just weld the sprocket onto the shaft. And when I am finally back in Jhb, they can then worry about replacing the shaft. Locals arrived from the neighboring town, and it was not long and we managed to find a welding machine. The welder and his machine lived and worked as the maintenance guy in a school. After asking permission from the principal, a really nice guy called Simon, it was off to weld that sprocket. The guy didnothave any complete welding rods so, a half decent attempt was made, and I was able to get going again. All for that early start! But anyway, we were back on the road and that was the important thing. After several stops, to make sure that the welding was infect holding, we arrived at the end of the tar. The next 100 km, we were told, would be really horrible dirt. How bad can it be? Well really bad. The corrugations were hectic and is that was not bad enough, there were stones and patches of soft sand to contend with. We decided to travel one behind the other with a delay enough to make sure that we did not eat each others dust, and an interval of 10 km was agreed upon. We would thus stop after every 10 km and make sure the other s fine before proceeding. At the first stop, all went according to plan however, at the second, David just never arrived. I was eventually forced to back track and eventually found him parked under a tree. He was shaking his head. A quick loom at the side of his bike revealed the problem. The heavy duty shock he had had fitted before leaving Jhb could not take the harsh conditions of the road, and hade blown! What now. David said that, his bike was almost totally unridable without a shock and that his only alternative was to head back to Isiolo and then Nairobi. I also looked at my front sprocket and found the poor welding job was also Nootka looking to kosher! So we decided to head back to Isiolo. There is something so kak about heading backwards rather than forwards, especially if you need to backtrack! And the ride back gave us loads of time to think about where to from here.
On arrival back at Gaddism Hotel, It was not long before I was referee to another welder. This guy was in the neighboring property, and was busy building a school for handicapped kids. At lest this guy had a brand new welder and loads of welding rods. In addition, he had a mask which, the previous guy did not. 15 min later, and i had a permanent sprocket-shaft! The welding looked so solid, that i think the motor will break before it does.
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