LeonDude
Bachelor Dog
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2007
- Messages
- 10,495
- Reaction score
- 534
- Location
- Gauteng - Centurion
- Bike
- Suzuki DR650
The open road is calling and the bikes are roaring,
The mist is thick and the rain might be pouring.
But today is the day when we start on our ride,
To ride through this country, far and wide.
After many months of planning, sitting with the maps open in front of me and picking routes to do, I finally got a route worked out. So this is the route we are going to do.
But this story is not about that route. This is the story of what actaully transpired.
We leave home an hour late, and immediately run into thick mist next to OR tambo airport. Once we leave the highway to Bapsfontein and then to Bronkhorstspruit things get only worse, and in Bronkies we decide to have coffee for an hour and see if the mist will let up.
(You might notice I did a bit of creative paint working on the maps. This is because of a strange quark in mapsource, please forgive that)
This trip was several months in the making, and we are riding with a great feeling of excitement.
We do mostly tar until we are well out of Gauteng, and as soon as we get to the gravel we hit thick thick mud. Some way in the mud gets so serious that I decide I will first walk the obstacle and find my way through. With Cave Girl handling the camera I take my bike through, and its tough going.
With my bike through it’s Cave Girls’ turn to take hers through. I admire the way she did it, especially the part where pointed to her bike and said “Now bring mine through”.
Her bike is much heavier than mine and I’ve already churned up the mud good, so halfway into the mud I feel myself slipping towards a pool of water with what is obviously a lot of thick mud at the bottom. Cave Girl has no option but to abandon the photo session and help me keep the bike upright as I take it through, so only two pics of me bringing her bike through.
Somewhere along the line I hit the first bad failure of the trip, I discover my Jicko stove is not working. The first time we want to make coffee it’s pissing fuel out of the regulator valve. I swear at Michnus for a few minutes until I feel better. Sorry Michnus, if your ears were burning it’s my fault, my apologies. Next time I’ll remember to take the spare o rings with me so I can do the repairs on the road.
[edit] (Just to clear things up, the problem with the Jicko was a mistake on my part, not the stoves’. After we got home I did the maintenance on the stove like I should have – it takes five to ten minutes – and the stove was good as new again. The Jicko is a great piece of kit!)
Bridge over the Olifants Rivier, which we were to cross over and over again during this trip.
The road is muddy but fun, and then we reach Chunies Poort. I’ve only ever heard of this poort and I planned our route through here especially because I wanted to see it. This, it will turn out half an hour later, was a catastrophic mistake.
Well we all make mistakes, don’t we? Here is what I, in all of my ignorance, did.
I know that Moria, the place where the ZCC church has their annual pilgrimage to, is in Polokwane. It’s always on the news, right, the ZCC is going to Moria at Polokwane. Ok now here is where things go badly wrong. It turns out that the actual place where they go to, the actual grounds, are at a place called Zion City, on a path that just happens to be, you guessed it, the one that I had planned for the day.
It also just happens that it is now Easter, and the time of the great ZCC pilgrimage.
I would still like to know what went through Cave Girls’ mind when she realized that my little mistake was going to cause us to lane split through five kilometers of double lane Putco busses.
I simply cannot put the experience to paper. It took us probably an hour and a half to do those few kilometers, and I was thoroughly exhausted after the time. How Cave Girl must have felt is anybodies guess, but she’s tough as nails, and said not a bad word to me about the whole affair.
By then it was late, getting dark and the mist and rain had once again closed in, and we now had to do Magoebas Kloof. This was a shame, as I had planned to do some riding in the kloof to see this place that I have heard so much about. Instead it was a bad experience to say the least. In the dark I could not find the campsite where we were supposed to camp for the night, and we ended up in Tzaneen.
Cold, wet and hungry, we decided to stick camping where the sun doesn’t shine and found ourselves a lodge to stay at, where we promptly drank all the black labels in the bar.
The day has ended and sleep lies creeping,
To dream of roads both straight and sweeping,
Of tar and of gravel and adventures grand,
As we travel along in this beautiful land.
The mist is thick and the rain might be pouring.
But today is the day when we start on our ride,
To ride through this country, far and wide.
After many months of planning, sitting with the maps open in front of me and picking routes to do, I finally got a route worked out. So this is the route we are going to do.
But this story is not about that route. This is the story of what actaully transpired.
We leave home an hour late, and immediately run into thick mist next to OR tambo airport. Once we leave the highway to Bapsfontein and then to Bronkhorstspruit things get only worse, and in Bronkies we decide to have coffee for an hour and see if the mist will let up.
(You might notice I did a bit of creative paint working on the maps. This is because of a strange quark in mapsource, please forgive that)
This trip was several months in the making, and we are riding with a great feeling of excitement.
We do mostly tar until we are well out of Gauteng, and as soon as we get to the gravel we hit thick thick mud. Some way in the mud gets so serious that I decide I will first walk the obstacle and find my way through. With Cave Girl handling the camera I take my bike through, and its tough going.
With my bike through it’s Cave Girls’ turn to take hers through. I admire the way she did it, especially the part where pointed to her bike and said “Now bring mine through”.
Her bike is much heavier than mine and I’ve already churned up the mud good, so halfway into the mud I feel myself slipping towards a pool of water with what is obviously a lot of thick mud at the bottom. Cave Girl has no option but to abandon the photo session and help me keep the bike upright as I take it through, so only two pics of me bringing her bike through.
Somewhere along the line I hit the first bad failure of the trip, I discover my Jicko stove is not working. The first time we want to make coffee it’s pissing fuel out of the regulator valve. I swear at Michnus for a few minutes until I feel better. Sorry Michnus, if your ears were burning it’s my fault, my apologies. Next time I’ll remember to take the spare o rings with me so I can do the repairs on the road.
[edit] (Just to clear things up, the problem with the Jicko was a mistake on my part, not the stoves’. After we got home I did the maintenance on the stove like I should have – it takes five to ten minutes – and the stove was good as new again. The Jicko is a great piece of kit!)
Bridge over the Olifants Rivier, which we were to cross over and over again during this trip.
The road is muddy but fun, and then we reach Chunies Poort. I’ve only ever heard of this poort and I planned our route through here especially because I wanted to see it. This, it will turn out half an hour later, was a catastrophic mistake.
Well we all make mistakes, don’t we? Here is what I, in all of my ignorance, did.
I know that Moria, the place where the ZCC church has their annual pilgrimage to, is in Polokwane. It’s always on the news, right, the ZCC is going to Moria at Polokwane. Ok now here is where things go badly wrong. It turns out that the actual place where they go to, the actual grounds, are at a place called Zion City, on a path that just happens to be, you guessed it, the one that I had planned for the day.
It also just happens that it is now Easter, and the time of the great ZCC pilgrimage.
I would still like to know what went through Cave Girls’ mind when she realized that my little mistake was going to cause us to lane split through five kilometers of double lane Putco busses.
I simply cannot put the experience to paper. It took us probably an hour and a half to do those few kilometers, and I was thoroughly exhausted after the time. How Cave Girl must have felt is anybodies guess, but she’s tough as nails, and said not a bad word to me about the whole affair.
By then it was late, getting dark and the mist and rain had once again closed in, and we now had to do Magoebas Kloof. This was a shame, as I had planned to do some riding in the kloof to see this place that I have heard so much about. Instead it was a bad experience to say the least. In the dark I could not find the campsite where we were supposed to camp for the night, and we ended up in Tzaneen.
Cold, wet and hungry, we decided to stick camping where the sun doesn’t shine and found ourselves a lodge to stay at, where we promptly drank all the black labels in the bar.
The day has ended and sleep lies creeping,
To dream of roads both straight and sweeping,
Of tar and of gravel and adventures grand,
As we travel along in this beautiful land.
eepwall:
