|
|
||
|
NEWS > MAD CIRCLE | ||
|
|||
 |
|
|
Mad Circle RoadTrip
Yeesh, where to start??? Well, we very nearly had to cancel at the last minute due to record snowfalls across the Drakensberg. This caused all the major routes into and out of KwaZulu Natal to Gauteng, to be closed. We were phoning weather bureaus and radio stations to find out the latest news. We ended up leaving Durban as planned, early on Saturday morning. Well, maybe not as early as originally planned... it was darn cold! We had everyone picked up and in the cab by 7am. We had heard the night before that the roads should be clear and opened that day as machine equipment was used overnight to grade the roads clear of the snow dumps. We all kept thinking, why don't we own snowboards. Or gloves? It was all good up until Ladysmith... Then we saw it... road closed! Yep, Van Reenens pass was inaccessible. Not a problem, we were diverted onto an alternative route. This added maybe 45 minutes to the trip, so it was cool. Boy was it cool!! Wesley, Rory, and Brandon had never seen snow before
in their life so this was an exciting time for them. We could see it in
the distance on the mountains. The scenery was awesome. As we started hitting the mountain pass, we hit it! Yeah, woo! Snow all over the slopes. It was so cool. We stopped and went ballistic with a snowball fight. It lasted maybe 5 minutes before we realised just how darn cold ice in your hands can get... arrrghhh frostbite, haha. A few kilometres on, things started getting a little scary. Our faces dropped. The snow was getting a leetle dense indeed. There wasn't a single thing on the landscape that wasn't covered in the stuff. Only the road broke the wall of white. Things got intensely misty, we could only see maybe 20 metres in front us... slow going. Did this for maybe 15 minutes, then just like that, we were out. Clear blue skies, and the open road. Man, this was incredible. What an experience. Stopped at Standerton for some chow (boy did we get some looks!? - but hey we saw some skateboaders!). The rest of the way was much the same. In fighting over the CD Player, going between Strife, Clash, One King Down, Linkin Park (urgh), Blink 182, By a Thread... and the obligatory Earth Crisis. In JHB, we hooked up with our good buddy, the Give and Take Records man, Neil. He led us on to where we would be resting our heads that night. Roy's house!! Whata cool spot. Shout outs to Roy and his family for putting us up. Onward to the gig.... the trip back was obviously much the same, just in reverse order...har. Van Reenens pass was opened up so the drive went a whole lot quicker. We knew we would be seeing more snow in the Harrismith area, so after the great show the night before we were once again excited to have some fun with the cold stuff... Sure enough, at Windy Corner there was loads of the stuff! This is where we made the punk snowman, and teamed up against each other in yet another snow ball fight. Flip this was funny. Here we are in South Africa, having snow ball fights. yeesh. Thanks to Give and Take Records we had picked up a copy of the brand new Grade CD, Headfirst Straight to Hell. It's an new direction for the band for sure, not as heavy as the last release, but louder and faster, and a whole more screaming! For the entire journey through Natal we had a Grade fest! We had Under the Radar going (what a classic album!), and the Embarassing Beginning...(get this if you don't have it!) Besides being nearly taken out by a 4000 ton truck, we got back to Durban safe and sound. Can't wait to do the whole lot again. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
crossingpoint Email: crossingpoint@punk.co.za PO Box 30453, Mayville, 4058, South Africa InfoLine: 088 1270 569 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
