NorthCape
- SouthCape: 051121
NorthCape
to Cape Town
What is the best? The best thing? Or the best you can experience?
Is it North Cape with sunshine all the time in the summer and eternal
darkness in the winter? Or is it Nelson Mandela’s South Africa,
beating my own back yard by miles? One-eighth of a Lapp thinks about
such things for hours, days even, when boredom sets in. Black or white,
bird or fish? We have to find out and define geographical differences
in a practical demonstration. It must be on a motorcycle, so it has
be by travelling all the way from North Cape to South Cape on a bike.
After some confusion I finally settled for the BMW HP2. I will start
December 22 at 7:00 in North Cape and will then ride south through
Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania,
Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania,
Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Some
time late February I plan to park in Cape Agulas, which is as far
south as you can come. As I stand there, I will say to myself: You
ride till you get there! Then I’ll load the bike on a ship and
go home.
My trip starts in North Cape and in Egypt Lukas and Ian Lundin will
join me. Lukas has, like me, done the Dakar race a couple of times
and Ian has tried his hand at the Mexican Baja 1000.
If you look at a globe, it is quite a distance, even forbiddingly
long, but my father used to say, most of the time is taken up brooding
in anticipation. Hope he is right… But what has happened to
me after five years of racing in the desert? Before that I was happy
with my frame of references around Fjällbonäs. All I needed
was there: A woman to love, fishing, hunting, snowmobiles and lots
of self-sufficiency. Then the racing came and travels around the world
and I realised that the world doesn’t end south of Stockholm.
A new experience and the self-sufficiency disappeared. Now, the winters
are longer and colder than they used to be und already in November
I start dreaming about the heat in Africa as a cure against the permafrost
reaching up into the potatoes in the basement. Don’t misunderstand
me! I like all seasons, but the winter is too long up here at the
Polar Circle. This trip will do away with nine weeks of winter for
me and I will love every minute of it, because the trip is the goal.
/PG
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High
Performance Riding
www.pgdakar.com |
Per-Gunnar
Lundmark
Fjällbonäs 15
933 91 Arvidsjaur |
Per-Gunnar
Lundmark
Eva.PG.Lundmark@swipnet.se
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Updated
2005-11-19 |
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