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Huis Talje

His email informed that Set Free (www.active4jesus.co.za) were to host a Nappy Run to raise much needed resources for Huis Talje, a home for abused and abandoned children in Warmbaths, north of Pretoria. 

Set Free is a chapter of the CMA. “He” is Chris Jooste, the leader of the Chapter. Their website announces, “We are bikers who do outreach to prisons, Boys Town and children’s homes. We are there to reach out to he needy, to spread the Good News of our Lord Jesus and to do something that has eternal value. If you share the same passion, join us in what we do.” 

I must confess that I cringe at the sound of born-again Christian rhetoric. It is too “in your face”, too public if you like. I prefer my faith quiet, personal. But I’m not devoid of sensitivity. And I’m learning that a little humility goes a long way. So once I get past the rhetoric, I have a capacity for guilt; guilt because, while I am scornful of the rhetoric, here are bunch of bikers dong some selfless good, regardless of the words packed around their intentions and actions.  

So I emailed him back. “Chris,” I wrote, “if you read Rhydar’s Rider’s Rag it is clear that I am no innocent and that I live in the world in every sense that can be expressed…you will find that I do not wear my faith on my sleeve. You will find me secular in my behaviour and speech…you will find that I can fit profanity and compassion in the same sentence…when I encounter a group of people who desire to improve the lot of those less advantaged – like you lot are doing – I take notice and pay respect.” 

Then I asked if I could visit. “You are a biker. You and a group of bikers are doing something selfless and extraordinary…therein lies a good story.” 

“Great stuff!” was his reply. “I like it.” 

Good works, it seems, are not without controversy. Chris joined the CMA two years back, and was instrumental in founding the Harties chapter, their goal to reach out to prisons, children’s homes and homes for the aged. “There was some serious criticism from other CMA members,” Chris informed, “along the lines of  ‘prisoners and children are not bikers; CMA is there for bikers only’. So I resigned. In January this year I was asked to start a CMA chapter to do prison ministry. I agreed, on condition we called it something else. And so ‘Set Free’ was launched in May. We have eight members and a few prospects.” 

Huis Talje (www.talje.info-web.co.za) was founded in 1990 by Joan Griessel in response to the plight of one child, Lucas Ntele, an abandoned victim of savage parental abuse. Lucas was stabbed 21 times by his father and also had his genitals cut off! Huis Talje was born for the specific purpose to care for children like Lucus. (Lucas lived at Huis Talje for eight years. He passed away in 2006.) Kids in their care suffer from birth defects, are victims of foetal alcohol syndrome, or suffer mental and physical disabilities as a consequence assault/abuse. 

Huis Tale kids

“Last year,” wrote Chris, “Chris Briel, a biker and businessman, asked me to assist in organising a Nappy Run to Huis Talje. Another biker group that had promised to organise the event had failed to do so. We had seven days to pull it together, but still managed to raise R 17 000 and about 1 000 nappies! The second Nappy Run to Talje was held on 9 June 2007. More than 100 bikes and cars, and about 200 bikers, pitched. We raised well in excess of R 25 000 in cash. Builder’s Warehouse (Gardens Branch) donated R 90 000 worth of building materials. Dead Men Riding arrived with a bakkie and trailer load of nappies and blankets. Thousands of nappies were donated. Make no mistake. We are talking about hardcore bikers here, but folk with hearts of gold and a passion to make a difference.” 

A great turnout - 1000's of nappies!

I figured I had to pay Huis Talje and the organisers of the Nappy Run a visit; a damned fine excuse for a bike ride if ever there is one. And, thanks to the two Chris’, I was welcome – as was Lady Friend. 

I don’t know the dictionary definition for “confluence”, but, for me, it has to do with the harmonious coming together of things that do not naturally fit in the same space.  

The prospect of writing up Huis Talje and the Nappy Run was attractive. I had a few clients in Johannesburg that I needed to see. Lady Friend’s son was off for three days on a school expedition. And Lady Friend works with me.  

We owned three days to do with what we wished. 

I have a notion that Lady Friend will feature prominently in future editions of The Rag for we are an Item. She was widowed two years back, and I’m about 8 months into a divorce. We’re much the same age, only she’s real tidy while I’m certainly a little worse for wear. I’ve known her a long time. Earlier this year we discovered our friendship and mutual respect had a hell of a lot more to it than that, a discovery we have explored literally with the abandon of teenaged lovers. “New Love”, as Chasey calls it, in mid-life? Awesome!

Lady Friend had never been on a bike, although she’s been great in her support of my efforts to get The Rag off the ground – and has shared my involvement in Highway Riders MC. It’s time, I told her, for her to ride with me. Her only response was to giggle a wave of apprehension. But she was game. Like I said, awesome. And does she look great in her leathers and brand new matt black helmet! Her initiation to bike cruising was to be a round trip ride of 1 400 km over three days in the dead of winter through KZN, the Free State and Gauteng! 

We left Durban around nine on Monday morning. The first stop was Cato Ridge for breakfast and for an assessment of her first 20 minutes on a bike. She was as nervous was can be, but hanging in there. 

It was a fine, sunny, winters’ morning. 

We stopped again in Pietermaritzburg, partly so that I could make further assessment, partly so I could make a purchase that was essential to the trip and which I had forgotten to pack.  

Estcourt reeled in at around midday. I was taking it real easy, making an effort to keep the needle below 140. When we stopped for fuel at Midway, Lady Friend was relaxed, starting to feel the ride. 

Estcourt to Harrismith was crap. It was all road works and wind; the kind of wind that requires the rider to lay the bike over by 20 degrees just to keep going in a straight line! A smoke break at the bottom of Van Reenen’s Pass was essential, if only to ease the tension in the forearms and shoulders from hanging on and to check on Lady Friend’s welfare. 

Wind break at the bottom of Van Reenen's Pass

Talk about an initiation for Lady Friend! The ride up Van Reenen’s required extreme effort just to keep the bike in one lane. Through the pass, the wind was sometimes in my face, sometimes up my backside (or more accurately, Lady Friend’s) but mostly it was a vicious cross-wind. 

The weather, a novice pillion and lousy road conditions made the going slow and hard. We stopped at the Ultra City just north of Harrismith around two in the afternoon. Warmbaths was still 400 km distant. I’ve ridden much further and harder in a day, but never with a novice pillion and always at the cost of feeling totally stuffed at the end of it. No matter how riding-fit you are (and I claim that accolade), anything over eight hours in the saddle in a day is tiring work. We’d now been in the saddle of about as long as it normally takes for a Durban/Johannesburg run. I was pretty sure Lady Friend had had enough. I knew I had. It was not pleasant riding. So I suggested an overnight stop in Warden.  

Warden is without doubt the arse-end of the world. It has no value to anyone other than the farmers and farm labourers who shop there, the reps from out-of-town service providers who help the farmers spend their money – and a host of Chinamen who peddle their dubious wares to near indigent labourers. 

For me, though, it is a rather special place, for it was where Rhydar’s Rider’s Rag was born. It was in Warden that I observed the derelict donkey cart parked alongside a brand new 4x4 that prompted me to pen “All Roads Lead to Parys”, my very first biker story – and which was published in the first official edition of The Rag.  

I wanted to show Lady Friend where it all started. She has, after all, read that article. 

There are exactly two places to overnight in Warden, if you exclude the truck stop. One is a B&B. The other is the Warden Lodge, which has the only pub in Warden if you exclude the taverns. A bit of social drinking – especially as the temperature had dropped to about 5 degrees by three in the afternoon – around an inevitable fire place seemed about right, so The Lodge was the logical option. 

The Pub - Warden Lodge

I phoned the Chris’ to say we’ll see them tomorrow. Lady Friend called all the clients we were scheduled to visit and told them the same. Then it was a hot bath, a hot meal and a hot bed…hot because the dual control electric blanket offered two options even on the lowest setting; sweat sauna-style or kick off the blankets and freeze. 

Tuesday morning was cold and we were up early and suffering from dehydration thanks to the iffy electric blanket. After finally figuring out how to tune the TV in our otherwise well-appointed, recently refurbished room (although why a Vrystad hotel decorates a bathroom entirely with cold absorbing Italian tile beats me), I found the news. A sympathy strike with striking public sector employees was called for Wednesday, which meant all sorts of grief for my security business - and that we’d better be back in Durban for Wednesday as all hell was likely to break loose. We had to head back. Warmbaths and Huis Talje would have to wait. 

At least we had the day in hand to tour a bit and Oliviershoek Pass is always a nice ride. The temperature was hovering around zero as I coaxed the old Gixxer into life, her motor coughing like a 60-a-day-smoker before settling own to her distinct, rattling purr. Straddling her, I felt like the Michelin Man; full leathers over layers of clothing – and two pairs of gloves. Twenty k’s out of Warden back towards Harrismith and my hands started seizing. Only I had to keep working them so that there was enough circulation to feel the controls. Are you familiar with the absolute agony of congealing blood forced through constricted veins? By the time we entered a dip and the temperature plummeted another five degrees, I was breathing hard, screaming my pain inside my helmet. For the first time in my life I prayed to own a modern sissie tourer with heated grips, heated seats and heated every-bloody-thing! My sluggish thoughts battled to decide between going flat out to find a warm place in Harrismith to thaw as soon as possible, or to slow down to make the ride maybe a degree or two warmer. Deliberation was pointless. It took about 10 minutes for an instruction from my brain to find expression in my hands. 

When we made the stop at the Caltex 10 k's before Harrismith I could not tell if the tears rolling down my freeze-dried face were from the cold wind or my weeping from both pain and relief from finding shelter. Lady Friend, in spite of being shielded by my considerable bulk, and with her thickly gloved hands stuffed in my lammie’s pockets the whole way, had not fared any better. Lids and gloves finally removed with leaden fingers, the top two-thirds of all eight of her fingers had developed a nasty blue-gray tinge that I’d last seen on a frost-bitten mountaineer on a lengthy winter’s Berg hike 20 years ago before I fell 40m down a cliff and gave that sport up as a bad idea! 

Eina! 

We ordered coffee just to have something warm to wrap our frozen hands around, lids, leathers, gloves and scarves scattered around us like the show room floor of a bike accessory shop in Germiston. An elderly couple at an adjacent table asked “Are you the bikers?” nodding at the gasping Gixxer parked outside. Lady Friend gagged me just fast enough that they did not hear my response; “No, we’re a pair of Indomitable Fucking Snowmen freshly descended from the mountains to steal your Farmer’s Breakfast…”

An hour later we figured it was warm enough to hit the road. It was, but only just – and to prolong the wait to ride at speed on the freeway we cruised through Harrismith for a look-see.  

Harrismith is pretty!

I think I know every square metre of freeway between Durban and Johannesburg, but I have never been in Harrismith. It is an extraordinarily well-maintained town with some incredibly beautiful old buildings all nestled in a picturesque setting of surrounding mountains.

Top of Olifants Hoek Pass; the 
Sterkfontein Dam in the background

Oliviershoek Pass is always a great ride. I last rode it in April 2006. Lady Friend never has, and was suitably impressed by the expanse of the Sterkfontein Dam stretched dark-blue at the base of the towering Drakensburg mountain range.  

Scenes from the Catfish & Caterpillar

As always, a stop at the Catfish and Caterpillar Cookhouse is mandatory – and they were kind enough to open the pub at 11.00am on a Tuesday morning so I could get one or two in as antifreeze.

The driveway to the Catfish is gravel – and on a blind, tightish, sweeping bend. Leaving, I checked both ways and started pulling away. Suddenly there was a great big bloody truck that I would easily have beat without a pillion, although it would have meant getting the bike all sideways off the gravel. With an inexperienced pillion it would have been a dicey thing, so I hit the front brakes hard. Of course, they locked the front wheel, and with the handle-bars turned and a wobbly pillion, we hit the deck. I wedged my right foot under the bike to save as much of Lady Friend’s hide as possible, sheared off the aluminum magneto cover and sprained my ankle. I would have had a smoke break too while laying under the bike if fuel wasn’t pissing out of the fuel cap, just to show Lay...uh...Lady Friend that ditching a bike is all in a days’ work for the adventure tourer, except for the fact that my ankle hurt like hell and I felt like a real toss! Consoling myself with “even experienced bikers get it wrong now and again” did not make me feel any better. So instead, I bellowed at her to get up and help me lift the bike. Then I remembered to ask her is she was okay. The woman must love me because she did not shout back and was genuinely more concerned whether I was injured than over my bad manners. I assured her I was fine although, I said, "my foot hurts a bit.” A bit? Drop 250kg on your ankle and then use that same ankle to lift 250kg just enough to provide clearance for your pillion’s leg and you will know that “a bit” means screaming bloody agony. 

There! Lady Friend had had her first tumble on a bike. The initiation thing was progressing in leaps and bounds! 

After that lot I figured the sane thing was to get home so I could salve my dented ego. Lady Friend felt relaxed up back, notwithstanding being ditched, so I tickled the throttle a bit. And then I really threw the old Gixxer around through that wonderful curvy section between Mooi River and Pietermaritzburg. 

A numb-bum stop a Pietermaritzburg earned me a proper tongue lashing from a visibility shaken Lady Friend. “How can those thin little tyres keep us on the road?" she quipped. I had to promise to slow down. 

Approaching the Shongweni turnoff on the M13 stretch to Durban I was holding a steady 120 in the right hand lane to avoid the vehicles maintaining a legal 100 in the left lane. Suddenly there was this almighty explosion on my right! I stiffened like someone just jabbed a stun-gun in my kidneys, as the biker that had just buzzed me at about 280 on an R1 disappeared into the distance. Hate and envy rolled over me in one fucked-up emotion! 

Lady Friend was still giggling when I rolled into our driveway.