John Bouwknegt gave me the blessing to post his blog entry, which can be found and followed by other Dakar rally fans on motorcycle forum Adventure Rider. It turned out that John know Annie from the Australasian Safari rally where he finished just one place ahead of her, saying that she gave him some of the best tips on how to prepare his bike!
Hi everyone,
I received a phone call from Garry Connell an hour ago. He has made it to BA without any problems - apart from some difficulties on the first "special navigation stage" - from the airport to the hotel. Apparently the local GPS mapping system requires a degree to set up ... and Garry left his degree at home!
The story so far is he and Gazza (Gary Whittle) left from Perth at around 11:30pm AWST and arrived in Sydney at 6am AEST. They then waited 2 hours for Ritchie (the mechanic) to fly in before then departing on the 12 hour flight to BA. (Have you figured yet that I don't like trying to spell Buenos Aires).
On arrival in BA they bumped into Annie Seel at the airport so shared a lift to pick up the rental Hilux utes. The hotel has a secure area at the rear with locked gates and 24hr security on it with plenty of space for preparing the utes and working on the bikes. Garry has picked up his HusaBerg from Valerie, the ASO contact person in BA, uncrated it and got it running. He has now started the run-in process with the 15km ride from the warehouse to the hotel! The locals have been very helpful everywhere they've been so far.
At the hotel they met up with Rob Pollard and his wife Alana for a bite to eat and some drinks. They are having breakfast together this morning (tonight AWST). Rob can get his bike on Monday morning from the location the ASO ship is berthed, about 90kms north of BA. They have arranged, through Valerie, for a truck to pick up the three crates and deliver them to the warehouse that Garry's bike was in. They can then uncrate everything, load the utes and ride the bikes back to the hotel.
Kevin Elms, Rob's mechanic, arrives tonight (tomorrow morning AWST) while Magnus ,Annie's mechanic, arrives in the next day or two.
It was raining when they arrived in BA, and it had apparently been raining for a few days, but it is now fine and it seems is supposed to stay that way from now on.
I think that's everything I gleaned from the brief conversation. I will be getting contact details for both Garry and Alana although I am happy enough to pass messages on, reducing the disruption to their busy times.
Cheers
John B
I received a phone call from Garry Connell an hour ago. He has made it to BA without any problems - apart from some difficulties on the first "special navigation stage" - from the airport to the hotel. Apparently the local GPS mapping system requires a degree to set up ... and Garry left his degree at home!
The story so far is he and Gazza (Gary Whittle) left from Perth at around 11:30pm AWST and arrived in Sydney at 6am AEST. They then waited 2 hours for Ritchie (the mechanic) to fly in before then departing on the 12 hour flight to BA. (Have you figured yet that I don't like trying to spell Buenos Aires).
On arrival in BA they bumped into Annie Seel at the airport so shared a lift to pick up the rental Hilux utes. The hotel has a secure area at the rear with locked gates and 24hr security on it with plenty of space for preparing the utes and working on the bikes. Garry has picked up his HusaBerg from Valerie, the ASO contact person in BA, uncrated it and got it running. He has now started the run-in process with the 15km ride from the warehouse to the hotel! The locals have been very helpful everywhere they've been so far.
At the hotel they met up with Rob Pollard and his wife Alana for a bite to eat and some drinks. They are having breakfast together this morning (tonight AWST). Rob can get his bike on Monday morning from the location the ASO ship is berthed, about 90kms north of BA. They have arranged, through Valerie, for a truck to pick up the three crates and deliver them to the warehouse that Garry's bike was in. They can then uncrate everything, load the utes and ride the bikes back to the hotel.
Kevin Elms, Rob's mechanic, arrives tonight (tomorrow morning AWST) while Magnus ,Annie's mechanic, arrives in the next day or two.
It was raining when they arrived in BA, and it had apparently been raining for a few days, but it is now fine and it seems is supposed to stay that way from now on.
I think that's everything I gleaned from the brief conversation. I will be getting contact details for both Garry and Alana although I am happy enough to pass messages on, reducing the disruption to their busy times.
Cheers
John B
Rob Pollard with wife Alana
Photo: Annie Seel
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