A biker is born - Monte Christo ride father & son

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Bliknêrs

Race Dog
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
3,914
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Location
Swellendam
Bike
Honda XR650L
This is a RR about a short trip to the father and son/daughter ride organised by Gwild. There were many firsts and it's a trip I will always remember and hopefully my 9yr old son will think back fondly on the time we spent together in the years to come.

As always I was late with the packing. Thursday evening I took both the panniers off and dumped one in my room and gave one to Aidan with instructions to put his stuff in there. Then we sat down and made a list which was on the table in the lounge for reference - it read 4 x underpants, 4 x T-shirts, toothbrush & sunblock (in mom's handwriting), kettie & survival knife (in Aidans handwriting) and beer & hand granades (in my handwriting).

Also on the list, but towards the bottom were several nice to have items like a tent, stretchers and sleeping bags. Off course the nice to haves will only get packed if time and space allows.

Friday night I started packing in earnest. It wasn't a long trip so whatever I forgot wouldn't be to serious. My pannier filled up quickly as I threw stuff in. In the garage I paid special attention the tool situation by strapping the Suzuki supplied toolkit into it's spot under the seat. If I knew then what I knew later I would have paid more attention to the contents of that tool kit. A breakdown in 40 degrees heat in the middle of the Karoo with your child next to you can be a wake up call.

After that I makde sure my puncture repair kit was still complete. It missed some of the compressed air canisters and a certain redhead quietly disappeared when I started looking for it. I also couldn't find my Richtersveld tea kettle. But thats not important I will have my leatherman with me and as everyone knows I can remove an appendix under a tree with my Leatherman if necessary.

While packing:
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This is the redhead starting to miss his shadow:
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So Saturday morning came. I had a fitful sleep as my daughter demanded we swapped places somewhere in the middle of the night and she slept with Mom while I tried to sleep as best I could under her pink duvet with fluffy toys all around me and a pink mozzie net trying to strangle me.

So needless to say I overslept and only woke up with a fright to see it's already five o'clock.

I quickly chucked some more clothes in my pannier, had some breakfast, read the newspaper, mowed the lawn and cleaned the pool. By then it was time to wake up my riding partner but as I walked into the house he was already up and dressed and sitting in front of the TV. I wanted to leave at 7 but at the last minute decided I need to put the top box on i.s.o. the soft tail pack. More space and better for my pillion to lean against. This later proved a wise decision as he kept on falling asleep on the back of the bike, they were so tired.

Now, putting that thing on is not something you just go and do 10 minutes before your trip. You have to take some stuff off the bike first (the luggage rack hides the nuts of the fitting plate). It wasn't long before I was sweating and swearing, and it made us late.

According to Google maps we had 329 kilos to cover. I didn't share this information with my pillion - he just knew he was in for the longest ride of his 9 year old life!

We left home around 7:30, and off course the tar road between Swellendam and Ashton is still closed so we started our trip on the gravel. Not ideal when you're late but we got to Bonnievale and rode straight through to Robertson. I was planning on stopping at the Farm Stall on the Worcester side of Robertson for a Coke but it was closed. And I could see we were running late. So we stopped at a truck stop for a quick butt break and made it to the Wimpy which was actually a Steers only a couple of minutes late.

I found ROVrat's bike and went looking for him but only found a little girl with helmets so asked where her dad is (in Afrikaans) but she just looked a bit shy and frightened so we picked a table next to them and waited. Riaan came over and introduced himself. We joined them at their table. He spoke English to his daughter so she didn't understand what I was on about earlier!

After breakfast we walked out and it was HOT. In the 30 minutes or so we spent inside the temperature must have jumped at least 5 degrees. Putting jackets, helmets and gloves on made it even worse. I asked ROVRat if we were going through Bains Kloof as I had visions of taking my boots off and putting my feet in an ice cold mountain stream. As it were, we weren't going through Bains Kloof but there was a stream close by where we stopped. I didn't take my boots off though but we wetted our bandannas to keep ourselves cool as it was going to get even warmer!

The river stop:
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We then rode through Wolseley towards Tulbagh. Then through the short mountain pass and right after that we turned right onto the Gouda/Porterville road. Having grown up in Riebeeck West I'm familiar with Gouda, Hermon etc and every time I ride past Gouda I have to grin when I see the "Gouda North" and "Gouda South" signs either side of the R44. Off course the R44 signs give me another reason to grin because the other part of it runs between Gordons Bay and Rooi Els (etc, etc) and how they're connected I could never quite figure out! I used to ride the R44 (Gordons Bay - Rooiels) often when I stayed in Gordons Bay & Strand on a TLR, R1 and later a GSX-R750. Had some wonderful times there, some close encounters and lost a friend and his daughter on one disastrous Sunday morning.

More tomorrow!
 
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