DAY 37 Mon 19 July

I took advantage of the fact that I had woken up early today to head out and give Bunduq a craniosacral treatment. Not long after she moved the horses over here, silly Bunduq ran into a metal pole and now he has a large dent in his skull. So I figured if any horse could make use of a good craniosacral treatment, it would be him. He seemed to enjoy it to, and I could see a lot of unwinding throughout his entire body.
Then it was back inside for a bit to finish the Amelia Peabody book I was reading (I wasn't as close to the end as I thought I was – it took a little longer than planned). By the time I headed outside, Maryanne was out taking a walk around the garden in the cool (ishness) of the morning. Once the dogs were all medicated and that was out of the way, Sabine turned up. Maryanne had had an e-mail from Susan asking if we could put off our ride that was scheduled for today until tomorrow or Wednesday – there go some of the plans I have for the day unfortunately. It is getting a little depressing – I only have about 6 full days left here, and so much I would still like to do and no way of doing it. I sent a txt to Morad asking if he was heading out at all if he could take me with him as I needed a break from the farm – I got a call right back saying he was heading out now, but it was to do some chores at the government office with his mum – hmm – not quite what I had in mind. So in the meantime, I just have to fill in time and try not to go too crazy! By the time 3pm rolled around, I just had to escape for a bit, so I threw on a cap, grabbed the really good camera (thanks Mum for loaning it to me), and headed out for a walk around the countryside to get some photos.
I think I must have been crazy to head out at that time of the day (in fact, I am pretty sure I heard some of the kids around call me crazy – lol. It was really good though (and heat wise, it could have been worse. I tried to walk along the side of the canal that provided me with some shade). One of the first things I saw as I was wandering along was one of the many dragonflies that live around the area – perfect opportunity for a photo – and I'm really pleased with how it came out – that camera has a good zoom! The children would often coming running over, asking to have their photos taken, so I got some good ones of children, and there were a lot of animals resting, while their owners also rested.
As I walked through one of the villages (though it is really more a collection of about 5 or so houses than a proper village, one woman came out her door and saw the camera and asked to have her photo taken – the goats had just climbed down the stairs, so they were also there for the shot. This lady was the first one to ask for baksheesh, but I didn't have any money with me, but she seemed happy enough to let me go without it – she did seem to enjoy her contact with a foreigner. She kept talking to me, even though I had absolutely no clue in what she was saying – lol.
There were some interesting people who asked to have their photos taken – I especially liked the old guy who was watering his gamoosa, and the children watching the sheep. They all wanted their photos taken and enjoyed looking at the pictures on the screen of the camera – that is one of the advantages to a digital camera. It was a long walk – over 6 kilometres in the hottest part of the day, but I am glad I did it – the pictures came out really nice, and I got a chance to see more of the countryside at my own pace, stopping to take clear pictures and getting to interact more with the 'locals'.
I got to take a wee bit of a break to recover and let the temperature go down a bit before I headed out for a ride in the desert on Wadi, with Waleed on Gameela. As we headed out into the desert there was a kid flying a kite from one of the buildings – Wadi was rather intrigued with it. We rode out down the race track (as one stretch of sand past the pyramids at Abu Sir has been labelled. As the sun began to set we headed up Japanese hill to get a great view out over the pyramids (all four sets). Unfortunately due to the decreasing light, and the movement of Wadi (who had been enjoying his run), the photos didn't come out that well. As we were walking back along the road to the farm, we were joined by Achmed – he had of all things, a balloon – boy did that freak out poor Wadi – don't think he has ever seen a balloon before.
I think I deserved a good rest after today – lol!

Photography loop:
Distance - 6.33km
Time - 1:56:20
Average speed - 3.3kmph
Max speed 9.0kmph



Desert ride 9:
Distance - 7.81km
Time - 0:59:49
Average speed - 7.8kmph
Max speed - 38.7kmph

DAY 36 Sun 18 July

I got through all my morning chores and was sitting over at the house keeping Maryanne company while working on the diary and the blog, when Maryanne noticed that the boys had Bunduq all saddled up. Not long after that they came over to ask me if I wanted to go for a ride, and Maryanne suggested that I head out for a ride on Dory. I don't know if I have ever ridden her before – possibly once, but I couldn't guarantee it.
So I headed out on Dory – she spent a reasonable amount of time jig jogging, especially if Americano was ahead of her (Waleed was riding Americano, Essam on Bunduq, Mohamed on Diva and Little Mohamed on Farhan). In fact, I was rather amused with her by the end of the ride – I think she is the only horse I have ridden who looks forward to heading out and wants to run run run, but when you turn her for home, she doesn't want it to end, and she just plods along. I managed to get some video footage while out riding today – not sure how it will come out, but it shows a little bit of the local villages. The cute donkeys grazing, the salesmen on their donkey carts. Two of the little girls who I have seen in the village before were sitting out on the edge of the canal, and one of them was playing with a very well loved teddy bear. It had certainly seen better days. And a little further along, there was a toy rabbit tied up in a tree. One place for it I guess, but very random.
Then when we reached the point of the road where we cross over, there was a broken down tuk tuk. They had tied a tow rope to a motorbike, which was going to tow it along – wish I had seen how that went. Also there we bumped into Tatouch who was driving home, so waved and said hi to him.
Back at the farm once the horses had been unsaddled, I headed back over to the main house, and while we were sitting there, Mohamed came in and pointed out the hawk sitting on the fence in the garden. I got a picture of it out the window, and then went outside to see if I could get closer and get a better picture. There were actually two of them, one sitting up on the roof of the house and divebombing the other, and then the one on the fence – it was amazing to watch them playing so close to habitation. And I got a reasonably good photo too – wish I had taken the camera with the better zoom, but I thought it was over at the guest house (it wasn't – blonde moment on my part).
The afternoon was spent relaxing, as it was too hot to do much, and we had a brief visit from Morad in the later part of the afternoon. At 6pm Maryanne had clients turning up to go out for a ride through the countryside – it was cooler than the previous day fortunately, and there was a lovely strong breeze blowing through. The path over the field that had been underwater last time we tried it was rock solid once again, though the end where we had initially tried that day to pass was still full of deep hoofprints. At one stage, there was a young girl dancing on the roof of a building. Just when you think that you have seen everything there is to see over here, you see something like that – it is for that reason that I take a camera out with me every time I head out – I may not be able to catch things like that all the time, but I do get some of them! The problem is that every ride, you see so many things that you would like to tell people about, it is hard to remember them all. Nicole had a good ride, and when we got back, she was already looking forward to being able to go again, before she heads back to Italy on Saturday.
After the ride had finished, I took over the last of Janie's potato salad to share with Maryanne, and Janie herself turned up for a chat not long after we had finished it. Soon after Janie left, I headed back over to the guest house to collapse for the night.

Countryside ride 20:
Distance - 4.36km
Time - 0:50:17
Average speed - 5.2kmph
Max speed - 13.1kmph

Countryside ride 21:
Distance - 6.20km
Time - 1:24:03
Average speed - 4.4kmph
Max speed - 13.5kmph

DAY 35 Sat 17 July

I somehow managed to sleep through my alarm this morning. It had been a rough night, much to hot. I had ended up heading out into the living room to sleep on the couch to hopefully make use of the airconditioning – it helped to a limited extent. All this meant I was somewhat late heading over to the house to find out whether Maryanne needed me to help with her clients today or if I could head out for a ride with Pal. Unfortunately my presence is needed here on the farm. So I had to medicate dogs and get into the farm t-shirt and then wait for the families to arrive... and wait and wait...
Unfortunately today turned out to be one of those stinking hot days, which made it rather miserable showing the two girls all the horses, and then walking round with Bunduq keeping an eye on one of the girls, making sure Bunduq didn't take off with her – he was a good boy though. I was happy when the girls changed over horses, and the grooms took over looking after the youngest girl on Dory. After a nice lunch, they all went over to have a look at the goats, donkeys and the gamoosa. All though the young girl had been told that if the temperature made it over 35 degrees after lunch, she wouldn't be able to ride the horses because it would be too hot for them, she kept trying. After she realised we wouldn't let her ride a horse, she then asked about riding a donkey, and when the answer to that was also a 'no', she wanted to ride the bull (aka the waterbuffalo). She was certainly persistent. The girls then took some brushes and went to brush the horses, and I had to follow quickly after the youngest girl, as she headed straight towards the paddock with the young horses, trying to make sure they didn't squash her in their youthful exhuberance, or that she didn't do something stupid. After she finally left the paddock, I headed back to the house – I needed a break from the heat and a nice glass of a cold beverage (I settled for water). Not long after that they headed off home, and I was able to relax for a bit in the guest house.
As the evening started to cool off, Mona and I headed out for a ride in the countryside (we decided the desert may be rather to hot). We were joined by Achmed's older brother Mahmud on Farhan. I decided to take out Shaboura and give her a schooling ride, but she was very well behaved, and Mona was on Gameela (who had fun plodding along, but it nearly drove poor Mona crazy). There wasn't that much of a chance for having a chat to Mona as we were riding, because Shaboura walks really fast, and Gameela was very very slow. It was my last chance to go for a ride with Mona, as she is heading over to France tomorrow.
As we rode through one of the villages, in a large fenced area, there were a whole group of children playing soccer – how they could do it in that heat I have no idea at all! Then there was the whole family out delivering gas bottles on their donkey cart - I think family life in Egypt is beter than in the western world. They have more of a family bond in that they work and play together more than westerners do now days. And the nice thing about Egypt is that parents aren't afraid to let their children head out and run around without parental supervision. Kids have a chance to be kids and have fun and learn from their mistakes. The down side is that they are often working very young, at least out in the countryside.
When we got back, Mona and I organised a nice fresh chicken salad for dinner, and after she left, I headed over to the guesthouse to collapse for the night.

Countryside ride 19:
Distance - 4.53km
Time - 0:59:48
Average speed - 4.5kmph
Max speed - 12.0kmph

DAY 34 Fri 16 July

Good night sleep last night – I had better make the most of it before heading back home and to the horrible shift work. When I got up I came across to the main house to feed dogs and birds and get Maryanne her tea – she can get into the kitchen now, but can't carry anything out with the walker – needs a tray on the front of it – lol.
Later in the morning (probably later than was sensible), I headed out for a ride with the grooms. I was riding Wadi, Hassan was on Nazeer, Mohamed on Negmadin and Waleed on Lilly. We went out via the road again (and today I actually remembered to start the GPS running before getting out to the desert). Once in the desert we turned right, and headed up past the Sun Temple, and then galloped back towards the edge of the desert and along to the Saqqara Country Club. Three of us made it that far, and once we pulled up the horses we realised that Hassan was nowhere to be seen. So we turned and raced back. Poor Nazeer had fallen for some reason, and they had both come a cropper. Hassan had lost some of the skin off his face, and Nazeer had sand all around his nose and mouth. But other than that they were both fine, and we continued on up the wadi, and under large power lines towards the sand quarry and the dump, before walking back towards Abu Sir, past the rest areas for the camels. At one stage there were palm branches lying up one of the wadis – they would make good little jumps – lol.
I took the camera out and managed to get some high speed video as we headed back towards Abu Sir (as the cameras get better, especially with the stability control, so to do the videos you can take while racing through the desert – lol). We were on our way back to the gate back into the countryside, when a horse and rider came galloping down a hill and up near us, followed by three other guys also hooning it, and one calmer ride trotting along behind. We caught up with them again as they rode through the mango grove that we used to use to get into the desert when I first started staying with Maryanne. They had continued along through the desert, while we had headed along through the village after leaving the desert.
It was a good ride, and the boys enjoyed looking at the photos and video that I had taken.
The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing (and I must admit snoozing), and getting blogs and diary up to date.
Now I am waiting for Pal and his wife to turn up. They are taking me to Janie's for a bbq which will be nice. In fact it was very nice, if somewhat hot. Pal informed me that the temperature had made it over 40 degrees, and I think the humidity is up too. The food was wonderful, especially Janie's lovely potato salad and the lovely middle eastern salads. And for once I wasn't mosquito fodder – I'd remembered to put on some of Sabine's insect repellent before I left (just as effective as store bought repellent but smells a heck of a lot nicer!).
A breeze did start to pick up in the evening, but not much of one unfortunately. Dessert was a lovely rich caramel cake, though the last of it was finished up by Zainab's French Mastiff, Hanouma.
I got dropped back at the farm by Pal, and collapsed into bed.
Desert ride 8:
Distance - 7.83km
Time - 1:04:12
Average speed - 7.3kmph
Max speed - 50.5kmph

DAY 33 Thur 15 July

Today is the day that Maryanne is due to have her staples out – woohoo! She will be so happy to be able to head out of the house at last! When I woke up, Cris was already here to visit Nayzak, and I headed across to the house to get things sorted with the dogs. After Cris left, I went over to Morad's to check on his horses. They were all okay – waiting for breakfast I think – his groom was in the middle of getting them fresh water.
I had just got back and was going to get some breakfast when I got a call from Maryanne as the grooms were wondering which horse I wanted to ride – I decided to go for a ride on Shaboura. They weren't too sure about that because of how she had reacted that day I went out with Sabine, but Maryanne explained to them that that day she had not wanted to leave her friends and head out with Elvis who she didn't like.
We actually went out into the desert – woohoo, I love the desert. Shibs just wanted to run – little tart – she got a fair bit of running as well, but she is no where near as fit as Dooby and Negmadin who we went out with (Waleed on Dooby and Hassan on Negmadin). In fact they kicked her butt in the race – she slowed down to a canter when they were more than happy continuing at a gallop. It was a nice fast ride, but I couldn't take many photos as my good camera had the battery on charging, and for some reason the Olympus just wanted to reformat the memory card (I couldn't remember if I had transferred all the pictures over to the laptop). So the only photos I could take were on my phone. I'll get that sorted before tomorrow – I think we will be going out in the desert again tomorrow as well, but heading in the opposite direction. We picked up Achmed again while riding through Saber's garden (I don't think I can handle another day with a young Egyptian boy – especially not after the boys roughhousing yesterday, and then Morad and his mates playing like boys last night).
I showed Waleed and Hassam the GPS from the ride today – they were very interested to see that – I'll have to take out a better camera tomorrow as well.
I was so happy to hop in a shower once we got back, though I had just got my hair all lathered up with shampoo when the water stopped running. But fortunately after a little bit the water started running – woohoo.
Now I am back over at the house – we have bee waiting for the doctor to get here, and he is here at last as is Sabine – the staples are about to come out!
I'm impressed with the doctor – not only has he done a lovely job on her knees, but he was interested in Sabine's homeopathic remedies for helping out some of his patients. Unfortunately for Maryanne however, he has her on house arrest for another two days :(
After the doctor left, I got a massage from Sabine (she is amazing – unfortunately it is a little too far to come for an appointment, so I will have to get as many in as possible before I fly home.
I then came over to the house for a very late lunch (or early dinner depending on which way you like to look at it) before ringing Morad to see how he was. The upshot of that phone call was hungry, sad and tired. Cespio had finally passed away early in the morning and he had been sitting up with him all the time. So I raided Maryanne's fridge for food and my fridge for beer and went around for a visit. We sat watching really terrible low budget movies for a while, before I decided it was time to head home and let him sleep. At least today I had headed out the back gate after borrowing a key off the grooms – it is certainly the best way to get to and from Morad's. As I was walking down beside the smaller pens, Buffy came running out to greet me – she isn't that happy when I desert her, poor girl, and her, Finn and Bella crashed in the guest house with me.

Desert ride 7:
Distance - 7.76km
Time - 0:56:23
Average speed - 8.3kmph
Max speed - 49.5kmph

DAY 32 Wed 14 July

I feel more like I am earning my keep over here this time, giving the dogs their medication every morning (and having to hold on to Demon while he had his medicine dropped in his eye). It was a rather slow start to the morning, and I relaxed a bit until Waleed came round to ask what horse I wanted to ride – I decided to not ride a horse this time, but to get them to saddle up Amira the mule.
We went for a nice ride around the countryside, with the requisite boom boxes on wheels going past, people sitting outside their homes doing normal household things, or just relaxing in the shade of the many trees lining the canal. We rode past Hassan, who was sitting inside one of the houses. I also got to go for a reasonable length trot on Amira – mules have a tendency to be gaited, so it was very smooth – it isn't exactly a trot that you could do a normal rising trot to. The problem that I seem to be having is that I'm so used to the gait of a normal horse, that a gaited horse makes my muscles move in funny ways, and I can end up with a sore back afterwards (it is supposed to be better for the back, but it doesn't seem to work that way for me. Came across another Egyptian traffic jam today – a flock of sheep blocking one side of the canal. A ute was trying to get past, and the young girl who was herding the sheep was having a hard time getting them out of the way. She eventually got them far enough out of the way that the ute could manoeuver around, which left plenty of room for us to get by. There was a guy in the village with one of the three wheeled push bikes – these are set up rather weirdly in that they have the single wheel at the back, and the two wheels at the front, with a cart on the front, and the back of the cart has the handlebars of the bike. This guy was selling clothes and ship ships (aka jandals, aka thongs etc).
At one stage there was a horse heading down the other side of the canal – colour wise, it was totally unsuitable for Egypt – it was a pinto bay, with large white markings on its face (in fact about ¾ of its head was white – terrible for sunburn!
After riding through the village, and along the side of the canal, there was another herd of sheep and goats, this time looked after by an even younger boy, who was sitting in the shade of a tree playing with a lovely little puppy.
On the last stretch towards home, we ran into the ship ship salesman again, trying to ride his bike over a very rough section of the trail.
Riding through Saber's garden, we were accosted by Achmed, who took the reins and led Amira out of the garden for me (we were doing fine without him, but he was enjoying himself, so who is to argue). And walking through the village just before Maryanne's there was another salesman – this gentleman I believe was a locksmith, at least he seemed to be by the keys and stuff in his travelling bag.
Back at the house, Pal and his wife were just finishing visiting Maryanne, and after they had left, and I had had a couple of mangoes for lunch, Achmed took me into the garden to get some more mangoes. Him and his friends had great fun playing with my cameras, and they actually took some really good photos of each other.
Eventually the day got too warm, and I had to head back (and I had had enough of young boys roughhousing). As we were walking back, the boys caught a young heron of some sort – it was looking pretty stressed out, but I rescued it from the boys and took it back to Maryanne's to see if after a bit of peace and quiet in her bird house it might recover enough to be released. We settled it into a quiet corner with some food and some water, but I was a bit concerned that it might not pull through – it didn't seem to be recovering too well.
Maryanne also had some baby pigeons in there – just starting to get their adult feathers come through – they were rather awkward looking lol. And large.
Sabine turned up that afternoon and we spent some time talking to her before she went out to treat Stella and Nayzak. I used the quiet afternoon to work on getting my blog up to date (I got up to yesterday, so I'm almost there).
Later in the evening I got a call from Morad to say that he was home, but he couldn't come around because Cespio was on his last legs. I offered to head round to his place instead, so I tossed a few beers into my beer cooler bag (came free with the Stella I bought :D) and headed the long way around via the road – don't know if I would like to do that too often though – there are not many street lights around, and Egyptian drivers are more likely to use their headlights to let other people know that they are there than to actually use their headlights to light the way. But I made it safely (and I made sure I was walking close to the trees so that if necessary I could get out of the way in a hurry). Poor Cespio was down on the ground, and couldn't get up. Most people were talking about medication for the horse, I took medication for the owner in the form of some beers. Morad wanted to sit with him until it was resolved one way or another. He had old grooms that he had trained up coming over to help as well. We turned Cespio onto his other side once and just kept him company. At one stage they tried to get him up and standing and I was roped into helping, but he just didn't have the strength to do it. After the last attempt to get him standing, Morad rang one of the vets over here, and was told that it would probably take about another 2 hours for poor Cespio to pass away. He didn't appear to be in any pain fortunately, and I hope he passed quietly. Unfortunately there is not easy access to the blue juice over here – only one vet has it and he is currently not in town. Morad sent me off home just after midnight, and asked if I would mind checking up on his horses the next morning, as he would no doubt be out for the count after staying up with Cespio till the end. Poor Morad, poor Cespio. Cespio had had a hard life, but had had a good life with Morad.
I was just about to walk up to the gate, when the grooms came riding up on Hassan's motorbike – Hassan, Mohamed and Waleed all on there – Waleed was obviously the groom who had to stay the night, and as I went into the guest house, he was heading out to check on all the horses.

Countryside ride 18:
Distance - 5.21km
Time - 1:04:26
Average speed - 4.8kmph
Max speed - 13.1kmph

DAY 31 Tue 13 July

Up and at em rather early today – to some extent – mainly in the house at least. The plan for the morning was to head out riding with Sabine in the desert. Went over to see Maryanne, and got all the dogs sorted with their medication, and after Sabine had headed over to Tatouch's to get Elvis ready, and the grooms had saddled up Shaboura (for me), Americano (for Hassan), and Diva (for Mohamed), we went to join her. As we got closer to the desert, Hassan said that Americano couldn't go into the desert, so they were going to head out to continue on a countryside ride, but Shaboura didn't want to leave them – she didn't like Elvis at all. It took some coaxing, and a few rears to get her headed in the right direction, with Diva and Americano leading her along (like a lamb to the slaughter – lol). When there was just a narrow path between the wall and the next stable, Sabine trotted on ahead, which succeeded in getting Shaboura moving, and allowed the grooms to continue on their way.
It was much easier to keep Shaboura at the speed I wanted, compared to Wadi, but she kept pulling ugly faces at Elvis (which is a shame because she is such a pretty mare). We were heading over towards the Bone Yard to have a bit more of a look around, but we started off by heading around at the base of the pyramids at Abu Sir, and followed the wall around. This was a mistake as there was no air movement down here, and we were greatful to head further out into the desert where there was more of a breeze (it was still very hot though). As we headed out further into the desert, we followed a wadi up at a nice canter, and this wadi started drifting back towards the pyramids at Abu Sir – we decided to let this be our guide, and that it would be a better idea to head out to the boneyard another day, preferably in the cool of the evening. We had another nice canter past the pyramids, at least until there was a line of white stones which stood out against the tan sand – Shaboura, being a rather manoeuverable young lady did a rather large shy away from these stones – I'm not sure how, but I managed to stay on – I didn't want that being my first proper fall over here in Egypt.
From this point on, I kept her at a slower pace (she wanted to run home), and she objected to this – even trying a stag leap – little miss. As we were walking back through the village, there were workmen concreting the outside of a building on rickety scaffolding - good photo op. We made it back home safely, and managed to leave Sabine at the gate to Saber's garden – only one delay on the way home and that was at a puddle in path – it stretched across the entire path, and she didn't want to get her feet wet – I keep telling her, if she keeps on like that, then Wadi will end up being my favourite of Maryanne's horses – she seemed totally unconcerned about that.
As I was walking through the village to home, I caught up with Saber's son, Achmed, and he followed us back home. There he started to teach me some words in Arabic, and chatted with the grooms – he even climbed up on Hassan's bike and pretended to drive it – his only just reached the pedals – certainly not the ground!
We went over and took him to say Hi to Maryanne, and I decided that he might like one of the little Kiwi's I bought over from NZ – he certainly did – had a great time making it make its kiwi noises. And he got down Maryanne's big Kiwi and had the two talking at the same time.
After a nice lunch of leftovers from yesterday, I went out and played marbles with Achmed – he won, but he did cheat I must say – especially seeing as how I had no idea about the rules – lol. He then had fun swinging on Maryanne's hammock, and we were joined by little Mohamed. They played with my phone, and with the marbles, and then we went for a ride on Daisy the donkey. It started off with me and Achmed on Daisy, with little Mohamed riding George, but then all three of us were on Daisy – poor girl. She rode under a tree, and while trying to keep the branches out of my face, my hand actually got tangled in the branches and I got pulled off the back of Daisy. Humphf – my first fall in Egypt is actually off the back of a donkey (and on the same day I commented that I hadn't fallen over here - jinx anyone?) that's just not cricket!! Actually,does a fall off a donkey even count? Lol.
I went into the house, closely followed by Achmed, and Sabine fixed up my hand and then we all sat down and ate lovely fresh cherries – we think that is the first time that Achmed has tried them – and he really enjoyed them – he even left the evidence on his face – the original Egyptian Vampire :)
He took lots of photos with my camera, even getting one of Magda at work in the kitchen, before Maryanne sent him home. While Sabine was out working with Nayzak and Stella, I came over to the guest house and began getting my photos, diary and blog up to date. This didn't last long as Achmed came visiting again. I managed to get some photos done, but he kept looking at photos on the computer and so I turned on a game for him. Eventually I headed over to the house to see if Maryanne needed anything, and she was nice enough to send him home for me, meaning that after getting her settled, I could head back to the guest house and finish off everything I needed to do. It was nice in the cool of the evening watching the donkeys play together, and then little Mohamed was like the pied piper, leading all the donkeys, goats and the gamoosa to their food.
After a busy day, it was nice to eventually collapse into bed once I had worked on getting the blog slightly more up to date, and the diary completed.


Desert ride 6:
Distance - 7.74km
Time - 1:25:48
Average speed - 5.4kmph
Max speed - 20.4kmph