As Dirk nearly fell off his chair at this joke, and to the tune of Deep Purple's SMOKE ON THE WATER, I looked around me in delight. It was about midnight, the stars were shining something fierce on the snow fields all around us, and the lights of Tiffindell Ski Lodge up the slope looked like the UFO from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Team Kisch (not quite on) Mavis Bank had made it to the ‘top' of the mountain to set up the (normally 21km) checkpoint and seconding station for the annual Rhodes Trail Run. After hauling about a ton of useful but boring stuff (like tents, sleeping bags, grub and goodies for the runners) and the real essentials (whisky, OB's, vodka etc) up the mountain, we settled down for a freezing but, as it turned out, very entertaining night. Julia, (who is {almost} entirely to blame for us being up there in the first place), Kevin, Robyn, Nombulelo and Donne (who are still blaming us for their frostbite), Pieter van Vuuren, whom I had (unknowingly to him,) dragged along for his sheer strength, size, tent & whisky, Dirk from Knysna (who is still blaming us for his belly strain from laughing too much but who has the best vehicle around,) Juan (whose indefatigable good humor outweighs everything else), Mel ( his more significant other), myself (who can't help but get everybody into scrapes) and Piet's son, Josh, and my son Jake, who are 9 and 10 respectively, made up the initial team. Jerry and Nikki joined us in the morning.

A mountain full of snow and a treacherous road down to the Rhodes village would make any socio-anthropologist swoon with delight, and it was not long before the very first candidate for the Darwin Awards made his appearance. At about 7-ish, as our chicken sosaties were sizzling alongside our ‘boeries', and the stars were coming out, a bakkie of indeterminate origin and vintage careened off the road scattering snow before it, and screeched to a halt in our midst. The driver, who with two other okes in the front seat smelt like the Old Brown Sherry Distillery, volunteered that they were runners from Secunda due to tackle the race early in the morning and really desperate for a bottle of OB's. "Ek gee jou R50, nee... R100, nee... R200 vir a bottle OB's" the driver said, smashed out of his mind! Feeling a tad uncomfortable at the thought of contributing to a horrendous accident down the scariest road in the world, I mutely declined, but one of our number, more in tune with Darwin's theories than I was, handed over a bottle of the stuff with a cheery "good luck" Red lights disappeared into the distance to the tune of Kinky Friedman's "I'm proud to be an a**hole from El Paso..."

As the night got colder and our little party more raucous, the second candidate for the Darwin Awards showed up. Every now and again, a vehicle had made its way past us, either from the Rhodes pub on its way to Tiffindel or from Tiffindell's pub back down to Rhodes. (Normal people do not attempt that road at night, drunk or sober!) At around 1:30-ish, an unidentifiable vehicly object (UVO) came roaring up the road from the direction of Rhodes. We all assumed it was another wacko from the Hotel pub on his to way to Tiffindel for some or other drunken lark. But no, instead of roaring past like all his predecessors with his thoughts firmly fixed on the shapely blonde ski instructor he met earlier, this driver, almost as an afterthought, swung his vehicle onto the road to Mavis Bank. Dear readers, Dirk, with his Prado, diff-lock and all kinds of fancy off-road goodies could not get further than 50 meters on that road. The mighty Raubenheimer dynasty, with spades an' all an all, in broad daylight, could not get 50 meters up that road.

So, after a few (very) half hearted yells from our side, we settled down in anticipation of the show. Sure enough, after watching the car's headlights paint a few delightful figures of eight on the opposite bank of snow, the sound of the strained engine quit. Within a second or two, voices laden with the most colourful invective we had ever heard floated across to us and then faded. Peace reigned again for about five minutes, and we were just congratulating ourselves for not getting involved, when the same vehicle came careening back down that bit of impassable road, and onto the main track.

Verily, the gods sometimes smile on drunken twits!

The evening wound its merry way through every joke and vodka, lime and hot water (no kidding!) until finally, faced with the undeniable fact that we needed to be up and about the next day to cater for the 300-odd runners ( I mean, after all, that's what we were there for) and the fact that the vodka was finished, we chucked some snow on the fire, and retired. The real truth is, we had to go to bed : apart from the lack of vodka, the jokes had become so atrocious that we laughed like drains over the idea of retailing packets of non-smokes. The question of "where does a non-smoker go to give up?" had us rolling in the snow. You get the picture!

Race day dawned bright and windy. After admiring the ‘sexy bums in their jean pants' of our gals from the warmth of my sleeping bag, I came to the cold realization that this was not a dream, and we had to be up and about. Fortunately, Jerry and Nikki, whose seconding station in the quarry just down the road had been combined with ours in light of the change in circumstances, arrived, and by stint of setting a good example, got us out of our cold, befuddled, OB'd and vodka'd state of non-mind. Quickly (well, to us, it was quick - to any objective bystander we must have looked like tortoises on valium), and with Julia wielding the lash, we set up tables and stocked the metaphorical cupboards with goodies for the runners - Pepsi, energy drink, soup, sandwiches, OB's, and a few choice phrases of local abuse.

In the meantime, it had dawned on Darrell (clerk of the course and chief OB's taster) that because of the relocation of our seconding station from Mavis Bank proper (at 21km) to our current spot some 8 km's further on due to the appalling conditions, there was no-one to take the time of the King and Queen of the Kloof. Heroically, and after packing some iron rations and survival gear (a half-jack of OB's), Kev and Dirk trekked off into the wilderness of snow to greet the first man and woman making it to the top.

We also set up checkpoint Charlie to ensure that each runner survived the 15 or so km's of unsupported and treacherous trail from Kloppershoek kloof, up the steep Mavis Bank, to our refreshment station. I was fortunate to have ‘waltzing Dave Wright' with me, a famous Comrade gold medalist but who proved, together with Robyn, quite genderist about whose pants he would delve into to locate runners ‘checkpoint' stickers.

It was wholly appropriate to have Dave there, I thought, as the first runners ‘waltzed' their way over the treacherous ground. Soon the trickle became, well not quite a flood, but a steady stream, and Julia, Donne, Nombu, Juan, Mel and Pieter contrived to keep the home fires burning, quite literally, and dished out the hot soup, Pepsi, sympathy, encouragement and gentle abuse that all long distance runners need to keep going. At our station these poor sods had already done 30-odd km's and I was reminded of the inexhaustible cheer and goodwill that runners consistently portray, even, as was the case on Saturday, after doing some extra 8 km's without support or sustenance. I was also reminded of the reason I used to run long distance - sharing many similarities with pounding one's head against a wall, it is soo good to stop!

The runners came through in small groups and large, singly and in pairs, mostly cheerful, some glum, and the novices either epiphanic or dead. The dead were a little difficult to ‘beverage' so we concentrated on those whose body temperatures were within normal Rhodes range i.e. just above freezing.

What would the Rhodes Trail Run be without drama? Our little drama consisted of almost losing a trailer at the concrete bit of the climb, but it paled against the drama of a broken ankle suffered by a runner, Marina van Deventer, just after summiting Mavis Bank. Our hearts went out to her and to the runners, Anton, Ross, and Lauren who sacrificed their race to literally pull her through her pain and disappointment before the medics earned their boodle and phlegmatically sleeped (that's schlepped, for those ignorami who don't understand Afrikaans!) her for about 3 km's over rocks and through snow.

Soon, too soon, the last runner had come through, and whilst I sat, bleary-eyed from too much sun, or OB's (hmmm? - don't tell Evie) reconciling the numbers whilst some of our team struck our camp and others ventured out with the medics to fetch Marina, I thought about how wonderful this Rhodes Trail Run is. I have been involved with the race, continually from its founding in 1988 to about 2000, and intermittently from 2001 until today. As the intermittent observer I have seen the village, which is inextricably bound up with the race, through time-lapsed photography, and its changes have been startling and perhaps even a little disturbing.

As one farmer casually observed - "we don't want another Clarens"

But as Pieter, chewing over this little gem outside the Hotel pub on Saturday night as the third contender for the Darwin Awards roared though the village lying on top of his roof-rack with arms wide, egging the driver on to "gee hom meer vet", astutely observed, "no chance of that here!"

It only falls on me to finish this little article with hearty congratulations to the Raubenheimer family, not least of all Evie, who seems to organize the race with incredible deftness and aplomb, with jus' a leetle DFE thrown in!

Team (not really) Mavis 2009