Dirt Ryders
Review by Samantha Whittal (see Sky Dining and Disneyland Europe, also wrriten by Samantha)
Hidden away in the middle of nowhere, you will find Dirt Ryder’s. We landed up here for one of my best friends' birthdays, she was looking for something a little different to do. Of course we always jump at the chance to do something fun and a little different. Yes, for those of you wondering, it would seem it’s the girls in this group that do come up with these things to do, clearly we’re not always girly girls!
We had given go-karting a try a couple of years earlier at the Kyalami race track and had really enjoyed it, so this sounded like something that might be just as much fun. Dirt Ryder’s offers a couple of activities to do, so we figured we’d make a day of it and sign up for most of what they had on offer.
It's best to get there early as it can get rather busy, but otherwise just relax and take the day as it comes, they are not too focused on schedules and time here, so bring your patience!
We started out with doing a little bit of archery. Archery is a bit on the tricky side even when you have hand eye coordination, so when doing it here remember that it’s just a game, having said that, I will mention that the girls totally beat the boys on this particular day, and yes we know the arrows were bent, the equipment is not competition quality and the wind was in the wrong direction and all the other reason they gave …. We still got more points.
I am never going to be a professional archer of this I am sure, what I also know is that there are days when I am so blessed and so lucky its unbelievable, of all my arrows I only managed to hit the target once, it was on my very first shot and it was a dead centre bulls eye! We were all shocked … however that was my one and only hit and thankfully it got me enough points to still beat the boys!
We stopped for a drinks break and to watch what was currently happening on the track, it was our turn next for the activity we had actually come to try out, Dirt track go karting. It is messy, it is dirty, it is dangerous and it is Fun, fun, fun! Especially for all the little speed demons in our group! You know who I’m talking about!
We all got dressed in our best and dustiest dirt track gear, pulled on our helmets and straightened our ridiculous goggle and lined our karts up … then we were off.
It takes a little while to get use to the track and the kart handling but once you get it down, you can really zip around and even lap people. It is out in the open on a very uneven dirt track. On a note the karts are inclined to break down at the most unforeseen time, but this just adds to the fun! We had decided to break our session into two parts, which in hindsight was the best thing to do, we got to enjoy the fun twice!
After our first session of go karts we were off to go do some paintball target shooting. It’s amazing to see just how differently men and women approach certain things, this was so evident in the paintball, we were each given a 100 paintballs and we set out to a part of the course where you have to shoot at different targets. The guys took some time, aimed and thought about the shots, so precise and systematic, the girls on the other hand just let off a spray of paintballs at anything that looked like it could be hit! I don’t think we’d be doing too well on an actual paintball course anytime soon.
On our way back to our second session of dirt karts, we passed the trampolines and who can resist, so we didn’t.
Then back into our helmets and back on the track. The second time was even more fun than the first, you know what to expect and you’ve learnt from the first round, so you can go faster and push harder. It was over way too quickly!
They have a little restaurant there, so we had a nice late lunch, the food was very good. A round or two of pool was played and then it was home time. This we will do again, its good fun and you can really have a good laugh but be warned, it’s just as the name says … DIRT ryders! Emphasis on the DIRT, You are going to get dirty!
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