It’s been a frantic three weeks. I travelled to Kariba with Buck from Bad Rabbit Studio to work on the promotional video (which should be live in early August). It was a great weekend camping in the Charara Safari area, with lion, elephant, buffalo and various plains game species in and around the campsite. Exploring the Zambezi Valley on a motorbike never gets old and its a real privilege to have access to such wild and rugged parts of Zimbabwe – particularly an area I know intimately and grew up exploring. From a filming perspective, I think we got some great shots and enough to make an emotive summary of the journey to date and some insight into my background and where I grew up and got into biking.
The downside of the trip was taking a spill at speed – despite feeling a little dazed and bruised, I dusted myself off, didn’t think much of it and got back on the bike. On my return to Harare, I went down with tick bite fever (Lymes Disease for those of you from abroad – however, the symptoms persisted longer than expected and with the tick bite treated, subsequent follow-ups revealed lingering effects from a severe concussion, whiplash and damage to my shoulder. I have been in intensive physio the past week and can happily report I am on the mend with good rest – and expect to be back into full training in the second week of August. A frustrating hurdle but part of the journey and I am do not see this being a set back to my preparation as long as I stay injury-free.
The next few weeks…
As I am off the bike, I am working on trying to raise funds and sponsorship for my Dakar entry – we have had some really exciting partnerships come together and are looking forward to a few more. I know the situation is very challenging in Zimbabwe, but I remain hopeful that I can raise the funds and create a positive story in amongst the chaos and uncertainty. I am committed and will make that starting line whatever it takes. Its a nervous time for participants as we wait for our final confirmation from the ASO including our race number and specific entry details – all going well this will be out in the next 2/3 weeks. Watch this space. I head away to the coast in South Africa for a week of downtime with my family – a good opportunity to reset and recover fully before coming back and getting into the swing of things again.
