By Bicycle to Beira (Reminiscences of a 14-year-old)
When I was 12, in 1964, I walked from Durban to Lourenco Marques with my elder brother and my father. It took us two weeks to complete the 372 miles, sleeping mostly on the side of the road, often walking from before dawn until after sundown. Two years later we tackled something more adventurous: a 1200 mile ride from Durban to Beira in Mocambique, riding those old, black, gearless, unkillable Phillips bikes.
Part of this journey took us through the wilds of the Gorongosa Game Reserve in Mocambique, where we encountered tsetse flies, lions making their way past our sleeping forms in the bush, the famous Red Adair attempting to put out a massive oil/gas fire in the wilds and Portugese truck drivers stuck to their axles in mud. Both these trips with my father helped mould my spirit of adventure and led to my embarking on many trips of my own as an adult, some of them with my son.
This e-Book is the story of our ride based on my memories and a diary kept by my father on the trip.
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