Well, we have done it!! The first major leg of the Hot Rock Global Challenge is over. Having just experienced an adventure that would fill many a life time with stories, it is hard to believe that we are only one third through of the trans global project. As I stupidly said in my last update, about having nothing to write home about and that my e-mails were in danger of fizzling out, well things have changed.

A month or two ago I was put in touch with guy called Paul Middleton. He lives in Lesotho but is only a 20min drive from the pleasant town known as Ladybrand. He expressed great enthusiasm for us to come down and join him to help bolt and develop a local crag. Changing plans and traveling to where the new climbing takes us is something that Hot Rock does well, so we jumped at the chance and joined Paul in the very quaint town of Ladybrand.
The climbing was on very compact featured sandstone varying from 10m to 25m in height. Having the whole area to ourselves was great and having only 5 existing routes there meant there was endless new routes for us to do. The type of climbing was not everybody's cup of tea, so the truck drove on 250km round to the northern tip of Lesotho to the Mt Everest area. Myself and 4 others stayed behind to carry on new routing and to document the whole area. The local tourist info bod was so pleased with what we were doing he gave us free accommodation and organized free flights for us to take aerial shots of the area. In total we put up 14 new routes varying from F5+ to F7b+. We were now left with the task of catching up the truck that was busy bungee jumping further south. This we would do by using our friends “NEW” land rover.

Ok things so far are not that interesting and perhaps the email has fizzled out, but wait...
19:00 17/09/02 somewhere on the N7 driving towards Cape town.
BANG!!! The explosion had startled me and as my side of the land rover was greatly lower then the other I assumed a tyre had blown. Sparks were being thrown up from the tyreless wheel cutting through the tarmac. The car began to turn, the rim caught and the vehicle flipped. This I remember clearly. The first complete roll I remember clearly, and slicing through a road sign I also remember well. Then all was quite, I was lying in the dirt. The crunching of metal had stopped and was now replaced by mine and the moans of a friend next to me. On the first roll the roof had been ripped from the car, and as it finished its second and final roll I had been thrown from the passenger seat over the drivers head smashing my collar bone on the top of the door flipping on further and landing in a heap on the floor. Having, for the second time this trip, to fight to get air back into my lungs. The broken bone was easy to find as a large lump stood out from where my right collar bone should be. As for the others; three came away with scratches and the girl I was lying next to had a broken arm. I had calmed down a lot, a car had been pulled over, and an ambulance called. It was at this point when my breathing began to rattle and I started to cough up blood. Having a sharp pain in my back I assumed I had punctured my right lung. But as it turned out it hemorrhaged due to the impact. To my delight it stopped bleeding 5 mins later. I phoned up Fi to inform her on the situation and to her and my surprise I was very calm with the whole situation. The ambulance arrived and took us to the local hospital. We contacted the insurance (arranged with the BMC) to warn them. The agents they use are incredible and within 4 hours of making the call an ambulance arranged by them had driven the 3.5 hours drive from Port Elizabeth to pick us up and take us to a better hospital. The hospital, doctors and insurance company continued to impress and 14 hours later I was waking up after an operation with 9.5 screws holding a plate down to the four pieces of my right collar bone.

All now is well and am feeling fine and I will be home on the same date as before.

Things are still sinking in and I find it hard to believe that we have just driven 35,000km down the length of Africa over the last 10 months.