Festive cheer and Gravel travel 2010
- Thread starter EATMYKTM.
- Start date
EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
Let's just say this party went on until the early hours of the New year. Job done! :3some:
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,605
- Reaction score
- 174
- Location
- I would rather be in Great Brak...
- Bike
- Honda CRF-1000L Africa Twin
Lekker jol to the Cape indeed 8)
EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
DAY 17
After recovering from a very ‘Wild’ West Party we left Napier on the 2nd and immediately hit the dirt through Klipdale and further north to the N2. Turns out we should have travelled towards Protem which would have intersected the N2 about 20km’s from Swellendam but we took a wrong turn and had to do 50km’s on that awful tar highway.
The dirt was fantastic though and with the rain falling, the red dirt became really tacky which encouraged some spirited riding and caused us to not worry too much about getting wet. Big smiles and gravel travel.
Puttering through Swellendam we admired this grand old town and then pushed off towards Tradouws pass. We had some riding to do today if we wanted to stick to our route and still get into Die Hel.
Suurbraak has to be one of my favourite little towns, not because of it’s beauty or trendyness, but just because every time I go through it, I get a lump in my throat. The towns folk just seem so friendly, always keen to offer a wave and a smile, making me really fond of this place. We wanted to stop but time was just not on our side.
Up Tradouws pass we climbed, with Pen enjoying the views and the both of us revelling in this incredible ribbon of tarmac. The engineering feat that some of these passes demand is just awe inspiring.
Penny really loved Barrydale so she was not too bummed when we had to come back after Ronnie’s *** shop, for a tank full of fuel. It just shows how mileage just fly’s by when the scenery is beautiful and the road is twisty.
We were meant to take the Brandrivier road after Ronnie’s, which is about 7km’s back towards Barrydale but as I glanced down at my speedo, I was shocked to notice that we had done 178km’s since we left Napier. It felt like 90! Oh well, we had to travel the 14km’s into Barrydale as our next stretch to Calitzdorp was over 120km’s, all on the dirt with no big towns.
Turning towards Brandrivier and back onto the dirt, we noticed a massive white cloud creeping over the Langeberg range to our right. I’m sure it was a cold front so we increased the speed to 140 and tried to out run it as it looked like it was bringing a huge storm with it.
These roads were fantastic, with varying surface ranging from hard pack with a middle mannejie to a broken up, water eroded crust, that just shimmied as around a bit but didn’t actually necessitate us backing off the throttle. Oh, and the low level concrete ‘sloots’ were brilliant fun, allowing us once in a while to get some pretty good air upon exiting them.
The Rooiberg pass after Van Wyksdorp was an absolute revelation to me. I knew we were expecting a pass but what this pass offered was truly spectacular. It went on for what seemed like hours with terrain ranging from gradual ascents to rocky switchbacks with anti erosion humps built in. Those are always fun as if you hit them right they just float you into the air and deposit you softly (sometimes) on the other side.
Unfortunately for you Guys, I was going quite quickly so Pen didn’t feel too confident taking photos while we skidded and roosted our way up the loose surface. If you haven’t done this pass, look it up and have a go, it’s bloody great fun and on the day that we did it, totally deserted, so maybe ride with a buddy.
Dropping down the other side into Calitzdorp, we had a 4pm lunch and then rode right out the other side onto the dirt again, past a beautiful little dam on the Kruisrivier road towards Maatjiesrivier and the Swartberg pass. God’s own country this, with the most gorgeous landscape and little farm houses that just made me want to count my savings and move away from JHB.
The rain started falling again and the dirt changed to tar just to make things even worse, but a least we were able to bomb along at a higher average speed as I was getting worried about the light and weather on the pass and into Die Hel. I had never done Die Hel, so I didn’t know what to expect or how long it would take to get there.
Blasting up the Swartberg pass, we made great time even though a couple of km’s before the top we rode into the thick wet clouds. My dark visor was up as I could not see through all the water drops, but that had the undesirable effect of doing the same thing to my glasses.
Taking them off on the fly and handing them to Penny for safe keeping did not fill her with confidence as she didn’t know how much I could see. I reassured her that I could see the sky and I knew it looked different to the rocks, so I would try stay on the ‘road ‘looking thing between the stuff that looked like rocks and the ‘grey’ stuff that looked like sky. This didn’t help one bit!
The cloud was so thick that we missed the sign that said “Die Top” and had to turn around to get a picture. We rolled quite slowly down the Prince Albert side of the pass looking for the sign to Die Hel and the Gamkaskloof. Cars passing the other way must have thought that we were nuts, riding a bike in these conditions, but they didn’t know how much fun we were having, did they?
The sign at the entrance to the Gamkaskloof say ‘Travelling time 2 hours’, so I knew that when we started the 37km trek (which turned out to be about 48km’s) down to the bottom at 17h40 that we would have enough light to make the descent. What I didn’t anticipate was just how corrugated and stony the first 10 km’s were going to be.
The rain and poor visibility didn’t help as I was too scared to make my life easier with some more speed, so we just made the best we could and crashed along, expecting that over every rise would be that famous drop off that we have all seen the pictures of in magazines.
That only came about 43km’s later after numerous water splashes, some which were rather deep and rocky I might add. The views were spectacular and the rainbow after the rain, a real treat. When we did see the Gamkaskloof in all it’s awesomeness we were both silent for just a little while as we just took it all in.
The pass into the Kloof was not as technical as I had expected or hoped for but it did raise the pulse rate once or twice. A couple of the more vulnerable areas have been cemented to prevent erosion and this did put Penny the vertigo sufferer slightly at ease. A couple of skips and skids later we were in Die Hel itself at 18h40 and marvelled in what had turned out to be a beautifully sunny evening.
We checked in, enquired about dinner which turned out to be 3 small packets of Willard’s crisps and a slab of Cadbury’s chocolate as we apparently had to reserve dinner, bought a bottle of red wine and rumbled to our ‘Luxury Caravan’. When Pen booked the caravan’s she was told that the price had gone up from R80 to R100 because they were recently upgraded.
Well their upgrading and ours are possibly on a different level. Non the less, we had an absolute ball sitting outside, listening to the wildlife, chatting and getting slightly hammered on a cheap bottle of red! The simple things in life, hey?
Calling it a night we crawled into bed at 20h45 and slept like champs. That is until Penny woke up to the sounds of what we were told was a Cerval cat growling outside our caravan. She then woke me saying that she had to pee and there was no way that she was walking the 70 odd meters to the loo by herself, especially when there are animals outside with, quote, “‘orrible fangs that’ll rip your throat out!”
Find the Petzl, walk to the loo, which as it turns out I needed too and struggle to get back to sleep. Well Penny did, I didn’t.
Enjoy the Photos of one of the best days on tour.
1-5 Napier to Ronnies.
After recovering from a very ‘Wild’ West Party we left Napier on the 2nd and immediately hit the dirt through Klipdale and further north to the N2. Turns out we should have travelled towards Protem which would have intersected the N2 about 20km’s from Swellendam but we took a wrong turn and had to do 50km’s on that awful tar highway.
The dirt was fantastic though and with the rain falling, the red dirt became really tacky which encouraged some spirited riding and caused us to not worry too much about getting wet. Big smiles and gravel travel.
Puttering through Swellendam we admired this grand old town and then pushed off towards Tradouws pass. We had some riding to do today if we wanted to stick to our route and still get into Die Hel.
Suurbraak has to be one of my favourite little towns, not because of it’s beauty or trendyness, but just because every time I go through it, I get a lump in my throat. The towns folk just seem so friendly, always keen to offer a wave and a smile, making me really fond of this place. We wanted to stop but time was just not on our side.
Up Tradouws pass we climbed, with Pen enjoying the views and the both of us revelling in this incredible ribbon of tarmac. The engineering feat that some of these passes demand is just awe inspiring.
Penny really loved Barrydale so she was not too bummed when we had to come back after Ronnie’s *** shop, for a tank full of fuel. It just shows how mileage just fly’s by when the scenery is beautiful and the road is twisty.
We were meant to take the Brandrivier road after Ronnie’s, which is about 7km’s back towards Barrydale but as I glanced down at my speedo, I was shocked to notice that we had done 178km’s since we left Napier. It felt like 90! Oh well, we had to travel the 14km’s into Barrydale as our next stretch to Calitzdorp was over 120km’s, all on the dirt with no big towns.
Turning towards Brandrivier and back onto the dirt, we noticed a massive white cloud creeping over the Langeberg range to our right. I’m sure it was a cold front so we increased the speed to 140 and tried to out run it as it looked like it was bringing a huge storm with it.
These roads were fantastic, with varying surface ranging from hard pack with a middle mannejie to a broken up, water eroded crust, that just shimmied as around a bit but didn’t actually necessitate us backing off the throttle. Oh, and the low level concrete ‘sloots’ were brilliant fun, allowing us once in a while to get some pretty good air upon exiting them.
The Rooiberg pass after Van Wyksdorp was an absolute revelation to me. I knew we were expecting a pass but what this pass offered was truly spectacular. It went on for what seemed like hours with terrain ranging from gradual ascents to rocky switchbacks with anti erosion humps built in. Those are always fun as if you hit them right they just float you into the air and deposit you softly (sometimes) on the other side.
Unfortunately for you Guys, I was going quite quickly so Pen didn’t feel too confident taking photos while we skidded and roosted our way up the loose surface. If you haven’t done this pass, look it up and have a go, it’s bloody great fun and on the day that we did it, totally deserted, so maybe ride with a buddy.
Dropping down the other side into Calitzdorp, we had a 4pm lunch and then rode right out the other side onto the dirt again, past a beautiful little dam on the Kruisrivier road towards Maatjiesrivier and the Swartberg pass. God’s own country this, with the most gorgeous landscape and little farm houses that just made me want to count my savings and move away from JHB.
The rain started falling again and the dirt changed to tar just to make things even worse, but a least we were able to bomb along at a higher average speed as I was getting worried about the light and weather on the pass and into Die Hel. I had never done Die Hel, so I didn’t know what to expect or how long it would take to get there.
Blasting up the Swartberg pass, we made great time even though a couple of km’s before the top we rode into the thick wet clouds. My dark visor was up as I could not see through all the water drops, but that had the undesirable effect of doing the same thing to my glasses.
Taking them off on the fly and handing them to Penny for safe keeping did not fill her with confidence as she didn’t know how much I could see. I reassured her that I could see the sky and I knew it looked different to the rocks, so I would try stay on the ‘road ‘looking thing between the stuff that looked like rocks and the ‘grey’ stuff that looked like sky. This didn’t help one bit!
The cloud was so thick that we missed the sign that said “Die Top” and had to turn around to get a picture. We rolled quite slowly down the Prince Albert side of the pass looking for the sign to Die Hel and the Gamkaskloof. Cars passing the other way must have thought that we were nuts, riding a bike in these conditions, but they didn’t know how much fun we were having, did they?
The sign at the entrance to the Gamkaskloof say ‘Travelling time 2 hours’, so I knew that when we started the 37km trek (which turned out to be about 48km’s) down to the bottom at 17h40 that we would have enough light to make the descent. What I didn’t anticipate was just how corrugated and stony the first 10 km’s were going to be.
The rain and poor visibility didn’t help as I was too scared to make my life easier with some more speed, so we just made the best we could and crashed along, expecting that over every rise would be that famous drop off that we have all seen the pictures of in magazines.
That only came about 43km’s later after numerous water splashes, some which were rather deep and rocky I might add. The views were spectacular and the rainbow after the rain, a real treat. When we did see the Gamkaskloof in all it’s awesomeness we were both silent for just a little while as we just took it all in.
The pass into the Kloof was not as technical as I had expected or hoped for but it did raise the pulse rate once or twice. A couple of the more vulnerable areas have been cemented to prevent erosion and this did put Penny the vertigo sufferer slightly at ease. A couple of skips and skids later we were in Die Hel itself at 18h40 and marvelled in what had turned out to be a beautifully sunny evening.
We checked in, enquired about dinner which turned out to be 3 small packets of Willard’s crisps and a slab of Cadbury’s chocolate as we apparently had to reserve dinner, bought a bottle of red wine and rumbled to our ‘Luxury Caravan’. When Pen booked the caravan’s she was told that the price had gone up from R80 to R100 because they were recently upgraded.
Well their upgrading and ours are possibly on a different level. Non the less, we had an absolute ball sitting outside, listening to the wildlife, chatting and getting slightly hammered on a cheap bottle of red! The simple things in life, hey?
Calling it a night we crawled into bed at 20h45 and slept like champs. That is until Penny woke up to the sounds of what we were told was a Cerval cat growling outside our caravan. She then woke me saying that she had to pee and there was no way that she was walking the 70 odd meters to the loo by herself, especially when there are animals outside with, quote, “‘orrible fangs that’ll rip your throat out!”
Find the Petzl, walk to the loo, which as it turns out I needed too and struggle to get back to sleep. Well Penny did, I didn’t.
Enjoy the Photos of one of the best days on tour.
1-5 Napier to Ronnies.
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EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
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Puppy
Aaaah, that was the best day of riding. It was so beautiful and wow, that view down the Gamkaskloof took my breath away - so much so, I needed wine! ;D
Vatso!
Pack Dog
nice rr! I enjoy every moment
EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
Thanks Vatso
I'm enjoying writing it as the memories are all flooding back to me... Good times!
I'm enjoying writing it as the memories are all flooding back to me... Good times!
steady eddy
Pack Dog
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2010
- Messages
- 169
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- brackenfell
- Bike
- Honda XRV 750 Africa Twin
Nice read and good photees thks :thumleft:
A2J
Pack Dog
Very nice RR
AND nice pics. feels like i was there with you. ;D
AND nice pics. feels like i was there with you. ;D
