Tourism Community Development Trust - South Africa

Due to circumstances beyond our control we have been asked by the Mount Nelson Hotel to postpone our fundraiser dinner which will now be held on Saturday the 3 September.

We will automatically rebook all reservations for tables which were booked for the 26th August and rebook your table for the 3 September. Please let me know if anyone cannot make it and we will try to resell your table or you can let me know if you have friends or family who will still attend the dinner – dance. The Mount Nelson Hotel has generously offered to sponsor this event for the second year and we appreciate their support and understand that the postponement of the fundraiser was unavoidable.

We have Rene Tanguy booked as our DJ so it is going to be a great evening and we have already received some wonderful prizes for the auction and raffle draw so lots of good prizes up for grabs.

We still have tables available and would really appreciate your support. Funds raised on the evening will be used to buy a Wendy house for a crèche in Philippi, replacing their shack which is in a very bad state of disrepair. So join us for a great evening of good food, great entertainment, wonderful venue and all for a very worthy cause.

Tickets cost R295.00 per person and include a 3 course meal, coffee, wine and entertainment.
Date : Saturday 03 September 2011.
Venue : The Ballroom, Mount Nelson Hotel.
Time : 18:30hrs for 19:00hrs.

We look forward to a fantastic fundraiser and thank everyone for their support of this event.

Dragging the bike, cursing, crossing rivers and many ks of rocky spurs ending with a mountain-goat type scramble up a near vertical face to emerge close to the start of the Hugenots Tunnel on the N1.From there it’s a hop&skip to the top, down through the Hawekwas forest and onto the finish at Diemersfontein where friends and family waited for us.

And what a finish, definitely not an anti-climax. Champagne, the traditional pizza, and of course receiving the much treasured finishers blanket, a victorian english style 100% woolen blanket much treasured in the Sotho culture and traditionally given to young men upon completion of their initiation rites.

Our hosts at Diemersfontein also treated us royally: luxury accommodation, 5* meals and a very festive event to wrap up a long and hard day and journey to get there. Wine maker Brett Rightford, Pinotage supremo, also rode this year.

While it must have sounded like one non-stop punishing ordeal, and at times we did wonder if we will ever see the other side again, it’s the beautiful places and people, the cameraderie, and most of all, stunning mountain biking on trails very few people have the privilege of riding that we will remember. It’s been a very personal journey for each one of us, one that will live with us and enrich the rest our lives.

Thank you all for your messages of support and encouragement, our families for their sacrifices, David and Meryl for making it happen and the magnificent riding machines that carried us all the way.

Many thanks to our hosts at the support stations along the way, who fed us, washed clothes and put up with our weird hours and needs.

Deon, Di & Ricky (aka. DDR)
Cape Town 8 July 2011