Sorry I haven't posted earlier but that's how it goes.......
I really enjoyed the trip. We rode out to Ceres to meet Mr and Mrs Trokkie. What a friendly, hospitable and generous couple. They kindly let us use the stone cottage on the mountainside above their farm. Trokkie led us up the tweespoor in the dark. That was great! The old DR's light is pretty useless so I tried to stick with Trokkie on his 950 so I'd have a hint of where the road went. Not so easy!
Meat and drink followed and then the Friday night sleep of the truly tired. The next morning we could appreciate our accommodation and surroundings. Wow!
Then we headed down to the farmhouse for an enormous breakfast. The poor Trokkie family have to live in this 193-year-old house. I mean, couldn't they get something a bit more modern?
I don't know if the following text from Franzen's book will be legible - let's try.
The rest of the crew joined us and we blasted off up the R355, past the mysteries of the rolled Corsa and the burnt bakkie.
The Plaas Basaar was just getting into full swing when we arrived. The auction was fun. The sheep were being sold off in lots of 11 at a time. It would have been hard to bring 11 young sheep back on the DR so I stayed out of the bidding.
After lunch and more auctioning we filled up and headed back down a beautiful remote road to the east of and roughly parallel to the R355. Here AntonW's bike went into a sulk.
We had to put it on the bakkie. Byron assumed the position.
The breakdown was an excellent thing because we became acquainted with Boere's cooler-box and this was truly welcome. Thank you Boere, thank you.
The rest of the trip back to Ceres was uneventful except for running out of fuel just outside town. Here Boere topped up my tank. I was very grateful to him at the time and he naturally didn't tell me that it was AntonW's fuel he was giving away so generously. Ha ha! I owe you Anton, and a proper thank you can be said here.
Andy660 had to fix his own puncture and not someone else's this time.
Then a flat out blast back to Cape Town in the gathering gloom through clouds of springtime insects which fouled the goggles and completely besplattered the bike and my kit.
Thanks to Trokkie, Mrs Trokkie, Eselbank, Boere and Andy660 for organisation, backup and logistics and to the rest of the riders for a fantastic trip. Best wishes to the good people of Sonop farm and the neighbouring community. It takes a special kind of person to thrive in such a harsh place.
