TdA Stage 93. Beach Fire.

146km. Elands Bay to Yzerfontein.

It is our last night camping together and we wanted to do something special.

Scott has been talking for some time about celebrating the completion of this journey by gloriously lighting a tent on fire with a bow and flaming arrow. This is what happens to people after four months on the road.

Tonight was Scott's lucky night.

NoHomo had rolled in to camp earlier with a bow and arrow on his back. I'm not exactly sure why he had it; I've stopped asking questions. But, I do know that his reason for having it was unrelated to Scott's plans. NoHomo agreed to let us use it, but only if we found some other arrows. I guess that he realized that a flaming arrow gets used only once. Paul grabbed some twigs from a nearby bush and began carving.

Meanwhile, Bastiaan's tent had finally reached its limit; broken poles and a damaged vestibule rendered the thing unsuitable for living. Long since fed up with that canvas mess, Bastiaan was quick to volunteer his tent for the task. He pitched it and then carried it on his back as we walked from our camp down to the beach. He looked like a parade float with the rather large tent, flopping up and down with each step on his two metre frame.

Kendra donated some paraffin to help with the burn. I donated my Barbie to help with...I'm not really certain what. Scott took a practice shot with the rather somewhat bowed arrow that Paul had carved for him. We were all set.

FWOOOOOSH! A direct hit!

Now, Bastiaan's tent lacked a lot of important qualities; structural integrity, ease of construction, weather proofness. Flame resistance, on the other hand, was not lacking. Thankfully, the paraffin compensated for this. We watched in awe as the structure slowly burned, breaking up into a hundred of tiny flames, rather than turning into the raging bonfire that some of us had dreamed about.