Zithulele to Bulungula – Mountainbiking on the Wildcoast

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Gareth

This last weekend I got invited out to the Wildcoast for a bit of mountain-biking. A friend had just got himself a bike and was looking to put it through its paces. Another friend who works at a hospital out by Zithulele suggested we do a ride from the hospital out to a backpackers by Bulungula. A relatively short route (15-20km), but certainly challenging.It ended up with 5 of us starting off from Zithulele on Saturday morning at about 10h30. We weren’t in any particular hurry and ended up riding for about 3 hours, including some backtracking, lots of discussions about which route to take and general breaks to take in the stunning scenery and recover from the never ending onslaught of hills.About half the route we ended up doing was on dirt roads of some form, and a lot of the rest was on single track cattle paths which added about of a technical aspect to the ride. The rolling hills mean you get a good dose of killer uphills and flying downhills. One of the most surprising things for me was how many people live out there. Each time you reach the crest of a hill you’re greeted with another view of green fields spotted with houses all over the place.The backpackers can be reached by car, a vehicle with decent ground clearance is probably recommended, but a Citi-Golf and a Ford Bantam were both evident in the parking lot when we arrived. There’s also a shuttle that runs the route (apparently all the way from Mthatha) a couple times a week.The Bulungula Lodge is situated a stone’s throw from the see and Bulungula River mouth. The facilities are rather rustic, but adequate. We shared 4 bedded huts (R140pp), but other options are available. 3 meals are available a day, of which we sampled all starting with some massive toasted sandwiches for lunch when we arrived. Supper was a delicious wors-stew with gnush and stew, and a dessert of Malva Pudding and ice cream was available. A self-service bar including snacks was also located next to the kitchen. Sunday morning we enjoyed a good breakfast of bacon and eggs with beans, toast and tomato.Showers are heated with paraffin ‘rockets’ which provide some warm water for about 7min and enviro-toilets are also provided. The huts have electric lights, but no sockets. There are a few plugs in the communal area, and also a laptop that can be used if you want to use the internet, wi-fi is not available. Cellphone reception is also limited, but can be found out on the beach or in certain areas if required.The backpackers is run mainly by the local community of which there are often people hanging around the area. Not really a problem but a bit odd at times. Crime does not seem to be a problem, doors were only closed (not locked) to keep the goats etc. out. And valuables were often left unattended.Only annoying issue was when trying to checkout (along with 10 other people) took quite a while as each person’s bill has to be manually tallied and added to their accounting system (excel spreadsheet). And only once all had been completed could we go to another room to pay with a debit/credit card. This facility is handy, but inconvenient in this context. Cash is obviously also accepted. There are also a host of activities in which you can take part, but due to our limited time opted against.The Sunday morning we headed back to the Zithulele, choosing one or two paths differently but ultimately doing a very similar route to the one we took to get there. Riding a bit faster but being killed again by the reoccurring hills.

: View of Bulungula Lodge from the beach

The area is absolutely stunning and it was a great experience being able to just hop on a bike and head out into the wilderness picking a route as we pleased. The backpackers was enjoyable, albeit nothing amazing. Other people from the hospital had also hiked to the backpackers all the way along the coast.

Great company, good weather, some tasty food and beautiful scenery made it an all together memorable weekend.

Dropbox and Syncing all your photos to your Galaxy S4

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Gareth

A few months ago I got my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S4. As part of the setup procedure it asks for your login details for Dropbox, this was great, I actively use Dropbox, had the app on my previous phone and regularly access files from my cellphone. As it was set-up on my previous phone to only download files when I request/access them, I expected the same to happen with this setup.

http://www.talkandroid.com

The next day I checked my gallery, and saw hundreds and hundreds of photos that Dropbox had decided I wanted to have on my phone. Fortunately I was on Wi-Fi, otherwise that 1.5Gb could have hurt my phone bill at the end of the month. This wasn’t a major problem, as I assumed I’d missed something in my settings which told it to sync photos, so I went in search of the correct settings. And I couldn’t find them anywhere.

I compared the settings exactly to that on my previous Android phone and there was no difference. After searching for a quite a while on the internet, I eventually came across a forum post that explained my problem. The setting I was looking for wasn’t in Dropbox, it was in my phones ‘Accounts’ options, and not under the Dropbox account, but under the general ‘Cloud’ options.

If you look at the bottom you’ll see a ‘Contents sync (with Dropbox) menu, here you can disable the syncing of pictures, videos and documents. Disabling this option then removed all my photos from my gallery and prevented the further unwanted syncing of files from Dropbox to my phone.

So to get there:

Settings > Accounts tab > Cloud > Contents sync

When do you require a PDP / PrDP licence?

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Gareth

I was recently in a discussion with friends over when one actually needs a PDP licence? One of them is a missionary who often transports people around in one of the church’s Quantums. Investigating the situation it all comes down to how you want to define certain things. The following is the simplest breakdown to determine if you need one or not:

Click for full size
modified from: foresightpublications.co.za

The biggest thing to decide is on the concept of paying customers. Certain websites state it as “a motor vehicle used for the conveyance of persons for reward” and others as “other vehicle carrying paying passengers”. These are two very different topics. In my friend’s case, the passengers aren’t paying, but she may be receiving remuneration for her work at the church and such as is required to drive the mini-bus as part of her duties, thus she would fall in this category.

If we look at the regulation itself:

National Road Traffic Act, 1996 – National Road Traffic Regulations, 1999 – Chapter V: Fitenss of Drivers – Part IV: Professional Driving Permit – 115: Certain drivers of certain vehicles to hold professional driving permit

1) Subject to the provisions of subregulation (2), a professional driving permit shall be held by the driver of –

… e) a motor vehicle used for the conveyance of persons for reward …

Thus if she is being remunerated for her work she would probably require one. It also explains why on sports tours at university we didn’t require one, as we were not being paid for driving.

Other things to note:

The currently used Professional Driving Permit (PrDP) is the continuation of the old Public Driving Permit (PDP) which was used pre 1998 and excluded certain provisions which are now included under the PrDP.
Price will vary with time.
A D (dangerous goods) licence includes a G (goods) licence.
One can hold both a P (people) and G, or P and D PrDP licence at the same time.
The minimum age for a PrDP licence is 18 for a G licence, 21 for a P licence, and 25 for a D licence.
If it’s a goods vehicle under 3.5 tons, it does not require a PrDP.
If it’s a vehicle of any size used to carry passengers for reward, or has 12 or more seats, a PrDP is required.
Almost all vehicles over 3.5 tons will require a PrDP, either for carrying passengers or as a goods vehicle. This is irrelevant of whether you are transporting goods or passengers at the time or not.
A vehicle over 3.5 tons, but is not a goods vehicle, does not require a PrDP. I’ve seen several people make mention of the Ford F250 and how traffic officer’s have demanded a PrDP. According to the law it is not required unless it can be defined as a goods vehicle. It does however require a C1 (old code 10) or higher licence.

This opens another discussion on the definition of goods vehicle. The RTA defines goods as

any movable property

and a goods vehicle as

a motor vehicle, other than a motorcycle, motor tricycle, motor quadrucycle, motorcar, minibus or bus, designed or adapted for the conveyance of goods on a public road and includes a truck-tractor, adaptor dolly, converter dolly and breakdown vehicle

Which is very vague, so people who get fines for their F250 should probably just right a nice letter trying to explain how their vehicle is a private vehicle and should not fall under the definition of a goods vehicle.

To get a PrDP you must also not have been convicted of certain crimes within the space of 5 years (NRTA):

if the applicant has, within a period of five years prior to the date of the application, been convicted of or has paid an admission of guilt on –
i)   driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a drug having a narcotic effect;
ii)   driving a motor vehicle while the concentration of alcohol in his or her blood exceeded a statutory limitation;
iii)   reckless driving; or
iv)   in the case of an application for a category “P” and “D” permit, an offence of which violence was an element;

With regards to foreign/international/overseas driver’s licences, the exact law is unclear and interpreted differently. My interpretation of the NRTA (specific section) matches Fleetwatch here. If you wish to drive a vehicle that requires a PrDP, you either need a South African licence with a PrDP, or you need a licence from a prescribed country with their equivalent of the PrDP (for example Zimbabwe’s Defensive Driving Licence). If you have a licence from any other country you are not permitted to drive such a vehicle.

This is however countered by the AA in this response of their’s in which they essentially state that if you are allowed to drive a PrDP vehicle in your country, you can drive it in SA.

Please note, I am in no way an expert with regards to traffic laws or any related topic, I am merely laying out the information as I’ve found it, all comments below are also given with a view from the facts I know, always enquire at your local traffic department when uncertain.

My adventure Geocaching in Hogsback, in the rain

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Gareth

As part of an elaborate engagement plan for a friend, I ended up in Hogsback a few weeks ago. Myself and a friend were armed with an iPhone, a Galaxy phone and Garmin GPS as well as a set of clues to go hide in 5 Geocaches in the area. It was both of ours first experience in the hobby.

While I’ve tried to not mention any clues which might help to locate the caches we found, I apologise if the intended effort fails.

The plan was to take a set of clues to place in five different already established geocaches. The couple in question would visit Hogsback the following weekend and find all the clues we had hidden, the clues would build up towards the proposal. It wasn’t the best weekend ever to go hiking around outside, but we had a set mission to accomplish.

9 o’clock on Saturday morning we found ourselves driving on a dirt road out of Hogsback towards our first cache at Wolfridge Falls. It was chilly, it was raining and trees were hanging over the road most of the way, and we were having a little trouble with our GPS devices. We found the falls and keeping the hint in mind hunted around for about 20min without any luck. We then thought we had the wrong location and spent the next three quarter’s of an hour walking down the road and up random paths looking for a suitable location.

Wolfridge Falls

After getting our GPS functioning again we realised we were originally in the correct place, headed back there and spent another 20min scrambling around looking for the cache. Still no luck. Because this was more than just a personal goal, we caved and gave team iPajero a call. Now with a slightly better idea of where to find the clue; we saw where it most likely was. And thus were able to hide the first clue. It took much longer than we had expected and we decided to hurry on to the find the next cache in the hopes they wouldn’t all take that long to find.

Wolfridge Falls cache

Next on the list was Kettlespout falls, a drive back to town and out along another road got us to the parking area to start the hike. A fairly short hike up to the falls, gave us time to turn the GPS on and locate the given GPS coordinates. A short search quickly yielded the cache, in which we logged our finding of it (using the day’s pseudonym, “Cold & Wet”) and planted the second clue.

Kettlespout cache

With the quick find giving us a boost of morale we hopped back in the car and headed towards 39 steps. Another short walk and a 10min search yielded our third cache of the day. Alas we had left the clue we were supposed to leave in the cache back in our car so had to walk there and back again to place it in the cache.

39steps cache

With the rain refusing to relent, we decided to get all the cache’s done before we dried out and got some lunch. Next on our list was the cache at the Chapel on the Hill. Not actually part of the challenge we were setting up, we went to scout out the location as a fall-back in case something went wrong on the day, or we weren’t able to hide all the clues.

kettlie (Large)

A lovely little chapel surrounded by trees, we had a good look around the area (keeping the hint in mind), searching for possible locations of the geocache. After 10min we found where we thought the cache should be, after half an hour of searching we conceded defeat and gave our friends at iPajero another call. He tried to explain where the clue was relative to the marker we had located, and we immediately realised we were in the wrong place as his description didn’t match what we saw. We then found the actual location of the cache. While our first location still tied up with the hitn provided, it was just unlucky that we found it first and the correct one only later. This was also our first introduction to the nano-cache. We opened it up, but decided not to log the find, mainly due to our unsteady and wet hands at the time.

Much smaller than we expected

With our enthusiasm taking another slight beating we figured we had to find the other two clues before lunch otherwise we’d probably never get to them. Next on our list was Urst100. I had mapped all the geocaches on a map to figure out an optimal manner to search for them. It wasn’t till we headed towards Urst100, that I read the clue, and saw the GPS coordinates given were for a potential parking place, and not the position of the cache itself. A quick recalculation had us heading out on the same road as the Wolfridge Falls, stopping earlier to hike down to the Madonna and Child Falls.

Urst100 cache

Having decoded the hint, we searched for about 10min before locating the cache and hiding our second last clue. From there we cut across towards our last cache of the day, the Hogsback Big Tree. A bit of trail running through the forest got us to the tree a bit earlier, giving us plenty time to search for the final cache.

Madonna & Child Falls

We knew going in that this was going to be a difficult cache to find; many people had previously been unable to locate this cache. Once we got there it took us about 10min to locate the clump of trees in which the cache is located. The hint helps in this regard. Half an hour of searching proved to be fruitless, and it getting later in the day, and our stomachs beginning to tire of the milk bottles and wine gums we had earlier fed them, we decided to place a third call to the helpful team iPajero.

He was able to explain the general location of the cache, but not it’s exact location. Another 20min of searching resulted in another phone call. Another half an hour of searching and we decided to call it a day. We instead chose to hide the final clue in a location that it could be believed to be as part of the cache.

39 Steps

With that we beat a quick retreat to the car and our late lunch. While our first two attempts at securing a meal failed, the third led us to the Butterfly’s Bistro near Hogsback’s info centre. With a fairly wide selection of food and good service we both ended up opting for a delicious steak with vegetables and chips with a glass of gluwein to get us back to room temperature. This further aided by the wood-fire and being granted permission to remove our wet shoes and socks.

Overall it was a long day, sometimes it was great, some times we weren’t the happiest people, but it was a fun experience and is a great story to tell. It wasn’t really the geocaching experience I had expected, but from a challenge perspective was great. We set out from East London at 07h00 and arrive back 12 hours later, having got some good excersize, finding five of the six caches we had set out to locate and hiding the required five clues. Although the weather was lousy, it added to the experience :)

I was delighted to hear the following weekend that our efforts were not for nought, and the proposal all went off without a hitch, and occurred under blue skies to double. My thanks also go to team iPajero for their help in locating the caches, without whose help I don’t know what would have happened.

It was odd to note, that after looking for a while, when you saw a place for hiding a cache, you just had a feeling of knowing it was the correct place. You search for a while, digging around, and then you just see this one random arrangement of rocks, and know that’s where the cache is hidden. Also that although the coordinates were useful for mapping these caches’ locations; for five of the six we found, a GPS device wasn’t actually necessary. Kettlespout required the coordinates, the rest were all located by specific features.

My Geocaching account is Fiddlings.