Loosing my mountain biking virginity

In December I finally had the chance of doing something I've been wanting to do for a very long time... twice! Mountain biking in Kruger is regarded as their most dangerous activity on offer, as you move quickly and quietly through the bush, on hippo trails no less! A certain level of fitness is required, but the difficulty of the activity seems to also be adjusted according to the rangers' perception of your fitness... as well as their own experience and fitness of course.

 

The first mtb trail was conducted from Olifant rest camp, maybe the most stunning of the main camps. The views from the restaurant as well as the room were magnificent. Watching elephants slowly making their way down to the river in the relative cool of the morning for example, while having breakfast, is something which I'll never forget. 

 

At a quarter to four(!), in the middle of the night that is, we met up with a couple from Australia and our two rangers. We were going to drive a few km before starting off on the bicycles and on our way we saw a spotted hyena running south on the tar road... the only hyena on this trip unfortunately.

After an almost non-existing safety briefing we headed off on a gravel road marked with “No entry”, parallel to the Olifant river. The pace was slow and the trail smooth and easy, the two rangers went in front and the rest of us followed in two lines. Our aim was to follow the road for a while and then take one of the hippo paths down to the river; solid plan, right?

One of the rangers had gotten a bit ahead of the group, maybe about 30 metres or so. Suddenly he started screaming and threw his bike to the ground, and so did the other ranger, incoherent at first, but after a while a clear “Get back, get back!”. It took a second or two to realize exactly what was happening and from what direction the danger was approaching... In the corner of my right eye I saw the startled hippo and as quick as possible let my bicycle fall to the ground and hid behind bush-sized mopane tree on the left-hand side of the road. A second later I think we'd all moved to relative safety and the rangers had their rifles at the ready.

I must say though, if this had been a grumpy mother with young instead of a sleepy rather startled creature, serious damage would have been caused long before those rifles would have been anywhere near doing any good... We had seen a lot of hippo tracks as we had slowly pedalled along, nonetheless both us and the rangers got quite a freight... but probably not more so than the poor hippo, who quickly ran a bit further away, before returning to the safety of his beloved Olifant.

...at least the six of us had something to talk about as we settled on the banks a couple of km further up the river to enjoy this morning's first breakfast and the bit more peaceful hippos in the water.

 

/A