Moose Returns to Ai Ais! ~In The Year,2021

[Mortymoose]

Well it was about time, I had just threatened and insulted the local Health Inspector on the phone, A Man whom I actually have a good relationship with. Yesterday my enlarged prostate had awoken me from my nightly slumber around 04H00, "Moose! Moose, do ya feel the love bud? Do Ya Feel it!", I imagined the prostate mumbling away to me in the darkness..

Needless to say my mood was volatile the rest of the day, in fact I was downright miserable munching a plastic vegan supper last night.....

Three more deaths of people that we knew having just been announced to me, despair setting in, when me phone went "Bing!"

"Moose , you up to a weekend bunda bash to Ai Ais on Friday", a mate enquired, before adding, "We pop into Boplaas en route, quick Friday beer by the river, then up the Gamkap canyon, second beer, then ice cold beer on tap at Ai Ais....!"

" We can watch the healthy vegan clunts coming out of their five day canyon hikes whilst sipping cold one's", he retorted...

So....... That's it city slickers, Tomorrow I am joining three other bakkies in convoy and heading East, stars and canyons, the desert and freedom once again!



Shall send pics,

 

[Pineapple Smurf]

Stay safe man, safe journey

 

[Sir Bob]

" We can watch the healthy vegan clunts coming out of their five day canyon hikes whilst sipping cold one's", he retorted...

I have a mate who is doing the hike currently, He is definitely not a healthy vegan so keep your cold beer safe.
Enjoy the cold one's

 

[Sir Bob]

Did you see them at the end of the hike?

 

[RonSwanson]

Shall send pics,

Looking forward to that!

 

[Mortymoose]

Did you see them at the end of the hike?

Was he a Belgian? Coz I met a Belgium and two elder people in two Overlanders and invited them to my town, said they are going river rafting first and will make a turn here in the week....

 

[Pegasus]

How is the hotel at Ai ais these days?

I left 2 days early last time I was there because the service was so bad and the conditions not great.

It was really nice back in 2010.

 

[Mortymoose]

Back in the Office of Doom after spending a stunning weekend at Ai Ais!

Initially Friday saw me stressed to the hilt, I had planned everything to the T, open the business, hand over to my partner, shoot on home
pack the chariot, collect the boy and his mates from school and meet up with the other three chariots around 13H45.

Now my usual mode of transport The Fortuner has been retired to the garage and The English HO bought me a nice second
hand Toyota Hilux double cab 4x4, 2019 model. "There you are, this is better for Bundu bashing through the desert..", she
said as she handed me the keys.

As I started packing, my diver diving intense neighbour appeared, "Hey Moose! How's the new ride,", he enquired. So we opened the
bonnet, then he dived under the back to inspect the spare wheel...."Moose! Why is this wheel on here upside down? This spare is
flat ..." , he shouted at me from the darkness under the car.

Cut to the chase went to my other mate who runs the local tyre shop, lowered the tyre and found out the reason for the upside down tyre.



"Those bastards..... I will not ruin this weekend, Those clunts are going to hear from me on Monday, I swear to feck......", I lost the plot as I sent the English HO a voice message. "Calm down! they are dealing with it....", she responded.

Anyhow, my mate sorted the spare tyre and the Toyota dealership called and apologised before generating a work order at my mate's garage...... I was impressed.....

Anyhow, in less that two hours time, we stopped at my happy place, Bo Plaas and opened the first cold one's...




A Quick toot and then we carried on towards the East. The track up the Gamkab was quite faint, not many tourists had been this way of late and at times the track faded into the dry salt gravels.



After about 15 minutes in, we found the large overhang and stopped for a piss and a few more ice cold beers....

 

[Mortymoose]

This was my fourth time in the Gamkab, the previous three times I had driven it by myself, this time felt like a rally with the dust and boulders. As with previous times, I was always intrigued by the geology in this stark place.



Locals claim that this route to Ai Ais is a shortcut, I have never found this to be the case, as the off roading slows the journey down. We put this to the test on the return trip, with one vehicle driving the 10 km down to the Orange whilst the other three went on the normal 20km trip. We got to the checkpoint first.



The sun was starting to head West rapidly and this Moose was craving the ice cold draught on tap that would be awaiting him at Ai Ais. Little did he know that they were about to be delayed.

As they exited the Canyon onto the dirt road, the lead vehicle shuddered to a stop. Our first puncture. The second vehicle continued onto Ai Ais to setup camp.



Needless to say, Ol' Moose saw this as an opportunity to consume more ale and tease the Afrikaaners about the kak tyres on their cars. Even the Spar tyre was found to be flat. I offered my compressor to the laughing companions.

There is something to be said about urinating in a barren desert, the heat, the dust, a cold beer and the flow of water....



It was now a short drive to Ai Ais from here and I got to have my first ice cold draught whilst my Afrikaans mates were harassing the reception staff for screwing up their chalet bookings. Needless to say I was laughing coz us Scottish/ English folk were gonna be tenting like real campers..... And gawd this beer tasted ever so good.

Being the sociable type it was less than an hour before I was exchanging pleasantries with parched tourist vegan types exciting the canyon....

 

[Mortymoose]

After a few good draughts, out group split, The Afrikaaners headed for the chalets as they were with Boere Wifes that do not like camping, whilst us English speakers headed on down to the campsite.

There had been massive flooding here recently and a lot of the infrastructure had been destroyed, most of the lawns were gone , braai's cracked, lights knocked over, Tree's on their side and the Namibia Wildlife & Resorts company with no dosh to repair. All things considered, the staff did well and got the important basics, like the draught machine operational..... The indoor and outdoor pools were also repaired and looked pretty excellent.




The "Rich" boere invited us humble campers up to the chalets for beer and bratwurst braai. The evening became a wee bit vague for ol'Moose around this time, with auld habits returning, but the flames were high, the weather excellent and with music and laughter cascading onto the canyon walls.....



I do recall calling out to all the weary hikers on their way to the chalets if they were the strippers and for some odd reason they were not amused....

 

[Mortymoose]

I awoke from my slumber on the back of my bakkie and either I was still pissed or I had become immune to hangovers since having my Astrazeneca jab. I could hear someone tinkering around by the fire and was relieved to see my mate had already started to brew the morning coffee on the ignited flames.

We sat there in the early morning light watching the rising sun slowly crawl down the Western wall of the canyon, commenting about two camping vehicles that must have arrived in the dead of the August night, for a brief moment "Sweet Caroline" flickered through my head.....

The coffee was most excellent as the kids started to emerge from tents one by one.....

My mate got to work on his trademarked Chakalaka Monster breakfast, a perfect way to solve hangovers and start the camping day.



A hot young girl emerged from one of the midnight tents, she stretched, twisted and then saw the two large frames, coffee in hands surveying her, before blushing and hurrying into her nearby tent.....



It was around 07h50 when the Rich Boere drove all 300 meters from their chalets to the restaurant to have their complimentary larney buffet breakfast....... coz Tannie's don't walk far at campsites.

Off course Moose waited until they were dining to walk into the restaurant shouting at them, "So This is how The feckin Rich Folk eat whilst us plebs share a fried egg down there......", the foreign tourists looked at me in the strangest of ways.....

An hour later I saw one of the boere mates tying braai drums to his bakkie, "Pietie, waat gaan jy maak met die braai dromme, jy kan noe fokkin goed steel nie, hull weet waar jy bly!" , I stated with a bastarised English accent.



"Moenie Worrie nie Oom Moose, Ons doen n bring and braai by die swembad,", answered Pietie before adding, "Ons het vir die managers kla gevra"

Ironically I had seen the lad and his dad a mere twenty minutes early behind the bar repairing the draught machine for the restaurant as they were bitching about too much foam the afternoon before and both lads are very technical people.

"Oom ons gaan die ribs by die swembad braai, How laat wil julle begin?", he asked.....

I was a wee bit nervous as these two had already had their first draughts and it was not even 11H00 yet.

 

[Mortymoose]

I think it was around eleven when I sauntered on over to the large heated pool to join the rest of the mob who had already managed to park their vibrating bakkie right next to the swimming pool and had the fires already on the go. Music was not too loud and added quite nicely to the atmosphere.



I could see from this corner of the pool how the grass had been battling to return to normality after the raging flood waters of the might Fish had torn through AI Ais. Sad to see but I had witnessed this scene live when I was a first time camper here about three decades ago....



The ribs were coming along quite nicely, the fatty smell wafting around the swimming pool much to the amusement of the tourist types who were walking past and watching the meaty drunken feast unfold before their very eyes. I was waiting for the management to reprimand us for commandeering their pool for a wee braai and as I predicted they arrived heading straight for us....



"Hey! You cannot.......", the sentence never finished as we shoved two cold beers into their clasped hands..... and that was the end of that.

A few beers later we were all best of mates and the afternoon continued....

In all honesty the rest of the day became a blur, But I do recall wondering how short people took a piss at what must be the tallest urinals in the Southern Hemisphere. I am a tall chap at 1.96m and I needed to stand on tip toe to use these pisspots, In my drunken state I was quite amused...



The rest of the weekend is vague history, I do recall another braai at the chalet, a few toots at the bar with two diamond divers from Luderitz and being told the next morning I was rather rude around 01H00 for telling other campers next to us to "Shut the Feck Up!'

Before leaving I greeted all the staff, handed over a few leftover items and headed home to the West!

Little did I know that it would not be long before I would be returning!

 

[Mortymoose]

Yahoooooo!

"You shall be returning to Ai Ais Moose!", she stated as she entered my office....

Turns out that next weekend is a four day weekend up here North of the Frontier and two other father's on my Camping group could not make last weekend's camp, so I get to do it all over again.

In addition to this, two couples in Overlanders followed us back to our town, seem's whilst we were under the influence at the pool spitting on our lambs we invited these Nomads to our wee town, I promised them a tour and free lunch and I delivered. My other two mates had promised them chopper rides and a tour through the forbidden Sperrgebeidt, needles to say the latter did not transpire...

So let's see who I bash into next weekend,