Geriatrix
Race Dog
I shall write a short report about the holiday that Hubert ( my wife's Yamaha XT250 ) and Pi ( my KTM 690 EnduroR ) went on.
We were based at the Natal Spa near the town of Paulpietersburg in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, a place where I have wanted to go since I was a child in Newcastle.
The whole time was spent on roads that are suitable for new riders, but the scenery was worthy of the attention of experienced riders too. All the minor roads were in very good condition but some may be slippery when wet.
A few general remarks about the time that we were away.
Teresa and I were tired after a year of work and saving lives and things like that. The plan was to go to Klein Pella on the Orange River and then points westwards as the wind and heat took us. Klein Pella was fully booked so we went eastwards instead.
The road there was on the hole good. They did warn us about the pot holes so somebody was doing his work.
The hotel was very good, but rather expensive. There is a self-catering section and a yummy camp site ( pictures will follow if I can get them to load onto Wild Dogs, the same for GPS tracks ).
The weather was hot and dry excepting for the afternoon and evening of 31/12/2012 when the rain came down in buckets.
We had water with us and it was essential. We also had tools and survival gear with us but all of that stayed in the bags. I did not use nearly enough sun blocker.
We have Pentax cameras and Teresa has a small Sony, and I have a small Nikon for use on the bikes. Both the small cameras are water and dust proof. They are not as versatile as the Pentaxes, but much easier to carry and use on bikes. I apologize about the quality of some of the pictures, but I do not aim too well when riding one handed on dirt.
I planned day trips on my computer on Garmin Basecamp and transferred waypoints to my Oregon 300 unit. This worked well but I could not read the GPS screen in sunlight whilst riding. We tried to stay off tar roads, and go on secondary dirt roads and forestry tracks but reality meant that we did do quite a lot of tar. There were no notices prohibiting entry to the Mondi plantations, but there were showing speed limits and disclaiming liability for injury or damage. We took that as an invitation. We went on only a couple of forestry tracks and they, too, were in excellent shape.
Most vehicles that we met were driven by rather polite people, who greeted us as they went. A few were driven by maniacs. The locals were almost to a man ( woman and child ) very friendly and they would wave as we went by. A couple did not return greetings, but none were aggressive.
We were based at the Natal Spa near the town of Paulpietersburg in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, a place where I have wanted to go since I was a child in Newcastle.
The whole time was spent on roads that are suitable for new riders, but the scenery was worthy of the attention of experienced riders too. All the minor roads were in very good condition but some may be slippery when wet.
A few general remarks about the time that we were away.
Teresa and I were tired after a year of work and saving lives and things like that. The plan was to go to Klein Pella on the Orange River and then points westwards as the wind and heat took us. Klein Pella was fully booked so we went eastwards instead.
The road there was on the hole good. They did warn us about the pot holes so somebody was doing his work.
The hotel was very good, but rather expensive. There is a self-catering section and a yummy camp site ( pictures will follow if I can get them to load onto Wild Dogs, the same for GPS tracks ).
The weather was hot and dry excepting for the afternoon and evening of 31/12/2012 when the rain came down in buckets.
We had water with us and it was essential. We also had tools and survival gear with us but all of that stayed in the bags. I did not use nearly enough sun blocker.
We have Pentax cameras and Teresa has a small Sony, and I have a small Nikon for use on the bikes. Both the small cameras are water and dust proof. They are not as versatile as the Pentaxes, but much easier to carry and use on bikes. I apologize about the quality of some of the pictures, but I do not aim too well when riding one handed on dirt.
I planned day trips on my computer on Garmin Basecamp and transferred waypoints to my Oregon 300 unit. This worked well but I could not read the GPS screen in sunlight whilst riding. We tried to stay off tar roads, and go on secondary dirt roads and forestry tracks but reality meant that we did do quite a lot of tar. There were no notices prohibiting entry to the Mondi plantations, but there were showing speed limits and disclaiming liability for injury or damage. We took that as an invitation. We went on only a couple of forestry tracks and they, too, were in excellent shape.
Most vehicles that we met were driven by rather polite people, who greeted us as they went. A few were driven by maniacs. The locals were almost to a man ( woman and child ) very friendly and they would wave as we went by. A couple did not return greetings, but none were aggressive.
