WeeStrom
Pack Dog
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2009
- Messages
- 244
- Reaction score
- 14
- Location
- Port Elizabeth
- Bike
- Suzuki DL 650 V-Strom
A Friday night in the countryside is special. It has been a long ride and now the full moon painting the grassy dunes of Maputuland in silver, and the North-easter has taken the sting out of the day's heat. You can hear merry sounds from the villages and the abundant nightlife around the edges of Lake 3 of the Kosi Lakes. The only problem with this picture was that I was admiring it from beneath my bike, where I had been lying pinned down for the last 20 minutes or so.
Do a search for Bhanga Nek, and this post is what you'll get. That's it. Nothing else. No ohter RR, nada. For good reason.
But I had to go find out the hard way, of course. I've been to Moz, how hard can it be? And it has been raining cats and dogs with a cyclone to boot, the tracks must be hard as a racetrack!
Now these tracks form an absolute maze to someone who is new to the area, and does not know to keep left at the tree with the greenish leaf, and then rigth at the bent twig - you get what I'm saying. So after 9 hours in the saddle, I arrive at the Sand Maze at 10pm, the final obstacle before I can claim my weekend in paradise. The tracks are deep but I manage to keep my line and make good progress. I stop and check for cell phone signal so that I can confirm a few turns with reception, but no signal. After a few more wrong turns, I stop again, this time there is signal so I called Charl at reception an he advised turn around and return to such and such a spot and continue as before.
Now try and turn a fully loaded bike around in deep sand tracks. You somehow get it through 90 degrees, but the remaining 90 degrees just won't come, and somewhere in the process I lost footing and toppled with the bike landing neatly on my left foot. Thank goodness for proper riding boots. My first attempt at lifting the bike very nearly proved sufficient, but each subsequent attempt proved less and less effective, untill my arm was cramping and the bike was not not even moving when I pushed.
I used the horn to bleat out an SOS signal while I was catching my breath, but Morse has obviously not yet been translated into isiZulu. My next brainwave was to try and dig out my foot from below the bike, and I made quite a hole as far as I could reach, but the boot just would not give. By now I could feel the engine heat starting to roast the ball of my foot, and the matter took on a new level of urgency. I got on the phone with Charl again (not really reception, they are based in St Lucia and do the bookings) and he organised a friend Kenny from Manguzi (the nearest town, about 15 or 20km away) to come and give a hand.
While the friend was on his way, I managed to unclip enough of my boot's latches and slip my foot out. By the time he got there I had the bike back up, still facing the wrong way, but now it would not start. We tried to push-start the bike, but in such soft sand you might as well go home. So we tried to pull-start it with his 4x4 Condor, but the Wee just made a very nice plough and promptly planted me. We eventually found a side track with some grass and less sand and got the bike going. With the starting problem, I did not stand a chance of making it to Bhanga, so we returned to Manguzi and I spent the night at Kenny's place, right in the 'hood' of Manguzi.
Kenny kindly dropped me off at Bhanga Nek on Saturday morning so that I can get my fix of fly fishing for the weekend. I returned this morning with one of the locals who works in Manguzi, push-started the bike and rode it non-stop back home (had to fill the tank with the spare key to keep the engine running).
A couple of pics from the trip:
You don't expect this around the next bush!
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/18022011765.jpg">
Coming over a rise, I was greeted by the expanse of the Jozini Dam just as the moon came up.
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/18022011766.jpg">
Kenny's possie in Manguzi
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/19022011768.jpg">
A very sizable kingfish shot by one of the spear-fishermen in the camp at Bhanga Nek
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/19022011774.jpg">
The reason for this trip, kingfish on fly. Next time I'll catch your daddy.
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/20022011777.jpg">
Do a search for Bhanga Nek, and this post is what you'll get. That's it. Nothing else. No ohter RR, nada. For good reason.
But I had to go find out the hard way, of course. I've been to Moz, how hard can it be? And it has been raining cats and dogs with a cyclone to boot, the tracks must be hard as a racetrack!
Now these tracks form an absolute maze to someone who is new to the area, and does not know to keep left at the tree with the greenish leaf, and then rigth at the bent twig - you get what I'm saying. So after 9 hours in the saddle, I arrive at the Sand Maze at 10pm, the final obstacle before I can claim my weekend in paradise. The tracks are deep but I manage to keep my line and make good progress. I stop and check for cell phone signal so that I can confirm a few turns with reception, but no signal. After a few more wrong turns, I stop again, this time there is signal so I called Charl at reception an he advised turn around and return to such and such a spot and continue as before.
Now try and turn a fully loaded bike around in deep sand tracks. You somehow get it through 90 degrees, but the remaining 90 degrees just won't come, and somewhere in the process I lost footing and toppled with the bike landing neatly on my left foot. Thank goodness for proper riding boots. My first attempt at lifting the bike very nearly proved sufficient, but each subsequent attempt proved less and less effective, untill my arm was cramping and the bike was not not even moving when I pushed.
I used the horn to bleat out an SOS signal while I was catching my breath, but Morse has obviously not yet been translated into isiZulu. My next brainwave was to try and dig out my foot from below the bike, and I made quite a hole as far as I could reach, but the boot just would not give. By now I could feel the engine heat starting to roast the ball of my foot, and the matter took on a new level of urgency. I got on the phone with Charl again (not really reception, they are based in St Lucia and do the bookings) and he organised a friend Kenny from Manguzi (the nearest town, about 15 or 20km away) to come and give a hand.
While the friend was on his way, I managed to unclip enough of my boot's latches and slip my foot out. By the time he got there I had the bike back up, still facing the wrong way, but now it would not start. We tried to push-start the bike, but in such soft sand you might as well go home. So we tried to pull-start it with his 4x4 Condor, but the Wee just made a very nice plough and promptly planted me. We eventually found a side track with some grass and less sand and got the bike going. With the starting problem, I did not stand a chance of making it to Bhanga, so we returned to Manguzi and I spent the night at Kenny's place, right in the 'hood' of Manguzi.
Kenny kindly dropped me off at Bhanga Nek on Saturday morning so that I can get my fix of fly fishing for the weekend. I returned this morning with one of the locals who works in Manguzi, push-started the bike and rode it non-stop back home (had to fill the tank with the spare key to keep the engine running).
A couple of pics from the trip:
You don't expect this around the next bush!
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/18022011765.jpg">
Coming over a rise, I was greeted by the expanse of the Jozini Dam just as the moon came up.
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/18022011766.jpg">
Kenny's possie in Manguzi
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/19022011768.jpg">
A very sizable kingfish shot by one of the spear-fishermen in the camp at Bhanga Nek
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/19022011774.jpg">
The reason for this trip, kingfish on fly. Next time I'll catch your daddy.
<img src="https://usera.ImageCave.com/aircraftworx/Bhanga_Feb2011/20022011777.jpg">
