Owning a Bike and a Yacht
To the Nomad’s Motorcycle Club – Cape Town
by Benedicte Riis
Owning a bike and a yacht is very much the same, I guess. As a child you look and dream, then later it becomes a passion and then you buy one and find out it’s a lot of work! Somehow you always have to make it into pieces and if you can, gather it again. Lots of sufferings and disappointment must be chewed up before real adventures can begin. But then at least you’ve got it all - beautiful trips, nature, friendship, teamwork, experiencing the world through your passion - and always short of money!
I was somewhere at the stage of making my yacht into pieces, suffering not being a South African knowing my way around shops and professionals, when The Nomad’s one Sunday morning rolled into Gordon’s Bay Old Harbour to have their breakfast at “my” yacht club. From the internal conversation I could hear that the strong South Easter also could be a problem for bikers – the wind had obviously been scary at some of the curves along the Nomad’s very well organized Sunday Morning trip.
Having breakfast together with you guys was a good feeling. You stick together in another way than I am used to, even you have very different backgrounds – and makes of bikes! You seem like a mixture of old and new friends, men and women, generations together. I just sat there listening to conversation and planning of next Sunday Breakfast trip, Dinner Dance and Buffalo Rally. I knew Alex, John and Liz, and came to know Kevin, Graham and Sandra that day – Sandra who later became “Captain Sandra”! And we got very drunk!
Attending the Dinner Dance together with Lana and other members from the yacht club was also a new and very good experience for me. So easy you Nomad’s open up your circles and let new people in – polite and gentle. I wish my friends in the Scandinavian clubs and Societies back home - who speak so much about sharing ideas and joining forces - could see how nicely your prize giving, competitions, speeches and later the dancing floor was opened and shared with everybody, new and old friends.
There is a lot of potential in your Sunday morning trips – like the one to Tulbagh and Wellington. You must somehow publish or sell these trips to other bikers in the world. I know pretty many tourists here in Gordon’s Bay, who would give their right arm for a trip like that in the mountains on a good bike. They are so bored with the traditional tourist trips and just beginning to ask for much more specific adventures. “The Nomad’s Sunday Morning Trips in The Western Cape” I can see the front page – a bestseller!
So now after Alex’s beautiful handwork on the yacht and Sandra’s high qualified skippers course, I must return to Denmark for the summer. But The Nomad’s have worked their way to a big soft spot in my heart, and I will keep on thinking about you guys and the club. What about a Sunday Morning Trip down through Europe? I must say, I do not fancy the German highways (Auto-strada), but I know all the good villages with local beers and breweries! And July/August is just the season for all the village festivals – you could bike and party the whole way down through Germany, France and Italy! Think about it as a plan for European Summer 2007.
Thank you for sharing your club adventures with a Danish Viking. I am looking forward to see you all again in October with new exciting trips in sight. If anybody should need a home, a car, a good advice or just a hug in Denmark, feel free to knock on my door:
Benedicte Riis
Silkehalevej 6
8400 Ebeltoft
DANMARK
phone +45 86346502
or find me at work in Tante Andantes Houses Aalborg, Ebeltoft, Fredericia, Flensburg phone +45 70200303 e-mail tanteandante@postkasse.com
PS. I would like to become a “country member “ if that is possible…please tell me what and how to do?
