OK, the story.
This whole thing started when Kees, William and me decided to take the adventurous route to the BIKE BURN earlier this year. We left Hermanus at around 7h00 to Cederberg Oasis for breakfast with Gerrit and Chantal :drif: . From there we did the lekker piece of road through Eselbank to Wuppertalh :ricky: Then over the pass behind Wuppertalh to the Bidouw valley, turned right and travelled along the Bidouw river to the Doringrivier crossing. This is where the real fun started! :biggrin:There is a coupla gates from the turn off in the Bidouw valley and as it happend I got the last one, I waited for the guys to pass through, closed the gate and continued. After about a kilo, around a corner to the left, the river crossing was suddenly in front of me, Kees and Wiliam were standing at the waters edge and William flamboyantly wafed me through into the river. Now I need to explain, earlier, at the turn off to the river crossing we took a smoke break and while we were standing around, one of the local farmers came past, we asked him what the level of the Doringrivier was and he explain that it was about 300mm deep! No problem to cross the river
I kept going straight into the river
BIG mistake :'( after about 10m into the river I was up to my seat in the river! ??? Fortunatly the motor stalled and did not get any water into the engin while still running. Stuck in the middle of river I tried to push the bike through on my own, but the sand and rocks made it very difficult, eventually Kees took pity on me and helped me through!Kees took a piece of driftwood lying around and a strap from his bike, took off all his riding gear, with only his scants on he came to my rescue! He then tied the strap to the front of my bike and while using the piece of driftwood as a handle, pulled the bike. I held the bike upright and pushed, with some effort we got the bike through the river. On this side of the river the Old SAS Willehond was lying upside down, so we turned it over and Kees pushed it back to the other side where William was waiting. I started to strip Swerwer(DR650) to try and find out what damage if any the water had done.
In the mean time Kees had gotten the ferry to the other side and they loaded Williams bike (KTM 990) onto it. After tying it properly they pushed the ferry with the bike on it into the river. They managed to progress without incident for a coupla meters but then the ferry started listing, about turn was hastely executed and they managed to reach dry ground before William's bike toppled into the water, Willehond had some serious leaks and was useless!
Now what?!
I was on one side of the river and they on the other! So they took a couple of sips from their hip flasks to contemplate the situasion, then Kees came up with a bright idee. He started digging in his luggage and came up with some condoms (wonder what he was planning for the trip! :lol8
, he pulled the condoms over Williams bike exausts, tied the strap and driftwood to the bike, offloaded the luggage and again got the bike through the river and it started with the first try! They did the same with Kees's bike (KTM 950) and it started after a couple tries! Then they went back to fetch their luggage.
In the meantime I had discovered that my bike's airfilter box was full of water, I removed the airfilter, dried it out the best I could and left it in the sun on a warm rock and wiped the box dry , then I tried to drain the carb, thinking that if the airfilter is full of water there must be water in the carb as well but I could not get the screw loose and I was affraid of stripping it, fortunately William had a plan and he loosened it without stripping, so drained the carb of water. We then decided to take a long chance and I tried the happy button, nothing! The engin was full of water! :eek7:
While Kees was sitting on a rock in the shade with a lekker cold one in hand and giving unwanted advice and enjoying my predicament thoroughly :snorting:, William and me started stripping my bike to get to the spark plugs. I fitted this big 35lt Safari tank and a fearing a while ago, which is fantastic on long trips in the Tankwa but a bloody pain when you want to get to the spark plugs, you have to strip everything off to get to them. That done, we removed the spark plugs and let the starter turn the motor, a lot of water came out of the cylinder. When we thought it was dry enough, screwd the spark plugs back, fitted the tank loosly and connected it to the carb. I tried the starter again, now water was shooting out of the exhaust! Off came the tank again! Now we made the bike stand up on its back wheel (at least Kees got off his but and helped us with that), with the water out of the tail pipe we removed the spark plugs, got rid of the water in the cylinder, screwd the spark plugs back, refitted the tank and connected to the carb wich we had drained again. I tried the starter and after a few tries it started! :blob9:
Great! At least now we knew that we (or propably me!) won't be stuck next to the river for the evening!
I started reassembling Swerwer, eventually we packed and we left the river at just before darkness. The first strech was a lekker adventurous piece of road, but we all made in one piece in half darkness! Then we missed the first turn off at the farmhouse and ended up exploring quite a substancial piece of the Tankwa in darkness. We made it to Stonehenge at around 9h30 and pitched our tents in darkness. We had a fantastick evening with a lot of old friends and slept like babies untill 9h00 the next morning, missed out on the day's organized routes, but we were happy, we decided that we had enought adventure for one weekend!
I organised some oil for Swerwer and replaced the oil that had water in it, took the bike for 10km ride and replaced it again.
While we were sitting around having some cold one's we decided that the drums on the Willehond seriously needed replacing and we decided to make it our mission! :thumleft:
Later the day we watched the guys chasing each other down the runway in a cloud of dust and rocks! :lol8: That evening was great, lots of laughs with old and new friends and wonderful food and drinks, a good night's rest. Up early the Sunday morning and after a lekka brekkie we hit the back roads to Touwsrivier, past Anysberg, down the Ou Berg Pass to Montaque, a quick beer at Stormsvlei and tar back to Onrustrivier for home.
Great Weekend! :thumleft:
Monday we started to plan how and when are we going to replace the drums on SAS Willehond, so after a lot of beers and speculation we decided to fit plastick 200 lit drums and Karoo Donkie volanteered 4 drums and Tottetos volanteered to take them with his bakkie.
My 50th birthday was looming so I suggested that we make a weekend of it, I phoned Sweetie Pie and booked most of Oasis for the weekend of 18th July.
With dooming weather forecasts the whole week for the weekend, that drenching Friday morning in Hermanus, Kees, Kokkie and myself joined family and friends, us on our bikes, them in cages for a lekker adventure! Between Worcester and Wolsley it sometimes felt as if we were riding along a river! From Ceres it started clearing some. :ricky:
About 10km from Oasis I realised that Kokkie was not behind me any more, so I turned around and found him standing next to his trusty steed looking very disgrunteld. His 7 year old KLR just died under him, Kokkie just could not understand it, he never even had a punture with the bike. After a while, digging around the the bike Alan arrived with the Landrover, so we decided best option is to tow Kokkie to Oasis, then sort out the problem when we got there.
Alan got a towing strap from the Landy and hitched the strap to his Landy and we wounded the other end around the KLR's right footpeg and Kokkie put his foot on it to keep it in place. Off we went, all went well for a couple of kilo's until a sharp and steep turn. The turn being left, the strap started interfering with the bike's front wheel and then he had to cope with the whiplash effect as well. Kokkie lifted his foot to release the strap, but the strap got caught onto the footpeg, Kokkie went down! To add insult to injury he and the bike were now being dragged behind the Landy, Allan couldn't see wat was happening behind him.
Just as Kokkie and the bike went over the edge of a lekker steep cliff, Alan noticed something wrong and stopped! Einaaa! Fortunately, there was a ledge about a meter and a half down and that is where they stopped. Kokkie and the bike were OK, just a few scratches and bruises to him and the bike, the biggest scratch propably his ego!
We pulled the bike back on the road and Kokkie very bravely, got back onto it and allowed me to hitch the bike to the landy again. The little stream before Oasis was in flood and as they crossed it, at some stage it looked as if Kokkie was going to overtake the landy, Allan had slown down in a attempt not to spray Kokkie to wet. They made it through without incident.
