South Africa's biggest hemp farm

Cloud Shadowshot, dr Jay Jamaloodeen and Krithi Thaver inspect elephant grass that will be replaced by hemp in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. 

 CANNABIS is rapidly becoming big business in South Africa, with some estimating the underground markets for recreational and medicinal cannabis to be worth well over a billion rand annually, while industrial hemp plants have not even taken root yet.

I spoke to fellow activists in these budding industries to hear where SA’s canna-business is at and where it can go.

Heinrich Gerwel at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University, last year

Don't be a nip n' tucker

Volvo South frica recently hosted pupils at its trucking plant in Durban to teach them to notice trucks and make space for the driver. 

THE South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) said fewer Saffers are going on holiday this year and among those who do plan to travel, most are going to Durbs by the sea.

This means a lot more holiday drivers on SA’s busiest highway — the N3 — and a lot more stress for the professional drivers who use this corridor each day.

Year after year, these truckers and taxi drivers have one plea to the holiday drivers — be part of the flow, not the start of the stop.

But as holiday drivers continue to rush to their destinations, nipping into non-existent gaps in front of

New electric vintage cars

This 1970 DB6 MkII Volante is the first vintage to get a battery pack in place of the engine.

Sensitive fans of a V8's fuel-guzzling burble may find the following news may disturbing — Volkswagen and Aston Martin are going electric.
Aston Martin Lagonda announced a plan to future-proof increasingly valuable collectible cars with a “reversible” EV powertrain conversion, while VW is making its last generation of internal combustion engines.
Bloomberg quoted Michael Jost, strategy chief for Volkswagen group, who said at an industry conference in Wolfsburg, Germany that VW’s engineers “are working on the last platform for

No easy rides on 2018 Roof

No easy rides in the 2018 Roof, warns route inspector.

 THE iconic Motul Roof of Africa started Thursday December 6 and finished on Saturday December 8. After a recce of the 2018 route, cross-country specialist Kenny Gilbert said Gold Class riders who found the 2017 route “too easy” will not have similar complaints for the 51st edition.
“This is how the Roof used to be, and should be! Everything is ridable, but you’re going to sweat from start to finish,” said Gilbert on Tuesday.
The majority of this year’s route will consist of virgin trails in and around Ramabanta — an area of