Firstly apologies to all my Blogwatchers for not confirming my safe return before now! As you will now gather I am in one piece, slightly battered and bruised but still smiling.

I hope you have all visited the Enduro Africa group on Snapfish at:-

enduroafrica2008rideone.snapfish.co.uk/snapfishuk

which contains my photographs and those of many other participants in the Ride for Life.



I also hope that you took the opportunity to visit my Blog which as promised I updated on a daily basis (actually this was only possible with the help of my wife Keiko). I took photos and emailed them together with a daily update which she then posted for me. Thanks babe!

I made much of the fact that the Gold Team was the only group to have completed the entire ride in tact without losing anyone through illness or injury. It turns out that we had three casualties all of whom managed to continue in silence despite being in pain or suffering. Firstly, we had Andrew who you might recall from my Blog crashed on the penultimate day and had to wait for a tow to catch up with us. After three days at home he was sent to the doctor by his wife and was told he had three broken ribs and a punctured lung. And we just thought he was a miserable git! Stevie had a crash on day two and his arm was in a shocking state but he rode on. When he got home it turned out he had broken his elbow and has since had it pinned. And Nathan – he suffered dehydration on the last night but still rode into Port Edward on the following day.

I stubbed my big toe and that really hurt…………




Anyway, enough of my tails of woe. It was an amazing event which in total has raised over £300,000 for the various charities (and over a million in the three years it has been run). I reached my target and some and I am now in the process of collecting the final pledges so that I can split the total raised between Enduro Africa (for Sentebale, UNICEF and Nelson Mandela’s Fund for Children), Riders for Health and the NUMAST Welfare Funds.

Your support has been very much appreciated and my heartfelt thanks go to everyone who has helped. We have made a difference and that’s what counts.