SGB
Race Dog
We did this ride on the pans, I share our "tour guide" Clinton's story and pics: Unashamedly stolen from KwaNokeng Adventures:
Hi Guys!!
We just returned from another Kwa Nokeng Adventure to the Makgadikgadi pans.
Prior to the adventure, I kept a watchful eye on the weather forecasts, and by the look of things it seemed like we could be in for a wet Patti Pans adventure.
The Boere came riding at Kwa Nokeng with all the riders being Afrikaans and from the Freestate.
Rodney Adamstein joined us as a non riding guest and photographer, Rodney better known as “Crumpet” was the only Soutie on the trip.
We usually run these adventures from May – August trying to avoid the heat and rainy season at all costs. This however was a last minute booking and since we managed to get through the pans in June when the pans received 300mm’s of rain, we thought lets do it!!!
Below a few pics of the adventure, thanks Crumpet for all the photos!
We left Kwa Nokeng at 07h00 on Thursday and stopped over in Serowe for some coffee and rusks. Dunking my rusk into my coffee I kept one eye on my rusk not getting to soggy before pulling it out, the other eye was checking out a grey bank of clouds building up toward the North saying “How you doing, good luck with your trip to the pans this weekend!”
We got to Lethlakane around 12h00 and the clouds did not seem so dark anymore. There was a strong wind blowing with lots of shade compliments of the clouds for the next 160km’s to our bivouac and as any adventure rider will tell you clouds + wind = heaven. In the summer the clouds keep us cool and the wind blows the dust out the way so you can see where you are going.
The group represented Agent Orange quite strongly with two KTM 990’s adventure’s of which one was piloted by Stephan Boshoff of Country Trax fame in the Freestate, Stephan is an instructor and I knew I had a riding buddy for the weekend. The other 990 was ridden by Stephan’s brother Jan or “Bees” as known by his friends, a KTM990 Super Enduro ridden by Bennie, BMW GS 800 ridden by Jan, and of course our Medic Bertus on his XT 660 Yamaha.
Below the pics that tells the story of Kwa Nokeng’s last adventure to the Patti Pans for 2009!
Coffee in Serowe
While off loading the bikes in Lethlakane Gideo and Inge driving a 38 year old blue range Rover approached us and asked if they could tag along up to Kubu Island. I must say the Range Rover has seen better days but inside it had all the bells and whistles for camping. A lovely couple, once we got to Kubu I invited them to spend the night with us at our base camp, they accepted.
Gideo and Inge
The sand swallows it’s 1st victim
There were more fly’s than tourists at Kubu Island so we moved a kilometer away to have lunch, it was cloudy so shade was no problem
Trouble up ahead
Waiting for the back up vehicles to arrive, it’s “lekker” in the shade
Bivouac for the next two days
Shumie stayed over at Gweta Lodge the night before, Terry the owner of Gweta Lodge mentioned to Shumie that 16 Scandinavian Nurses will be staying at his place on Thursday and that they are doing some work in the area. Shumie mention this to the riders and we had some riders insisting on sleeping over at Gweta Lodge ASAP, reasons varied from “I have a bad back and need a good bed” to “I am scared of sleeping in my tent alone” the best one was “A naughty thorn hurt my finger and I need a medical help” No problem I said Bertus from Outdoor Medical is here to help, “I err uh no no only a Scandinavian nurse is allowed to help me, my medical aid says so” Ja right bud have a beer instead.
When I put my boots on at Lethlakane, I was to lazy to wear my extra long enduro socks, and decided just to wear my normal “short” socks that I had on. That night when I took my boots off a very long blister said hello to me. The top of my socks rubbed against the bottom part of my knee braces during the ride leaving this ugly blister. Bertus came with a syringe and extracted all the moisture out of the blister, after this Bertus extracted some black liquid from a bottle and injected it into the empty blister. The burning was unreal and I was convinced that Bertus injected me with pool acid, the last time I felt such pain was when Mary from high school gave me the “its not you, it’s me” speech!
Another rider had some chafing on his lower legs and Bertus gave him a plaster for each leg, he returned from the ambulance and we laughed so much we almost fell out of our chair’s, the pic below says it all Nemo on the left and Doree on the right!! Really Bertus give us some man plasters next time.
Shumie treated us to some awesome lamb chops and rice and we were off to bed, that night we had a few drops of rain but nothing too serious, it was a first for me to sleep on the pans with the sound of rain on my tent, awesome!
The next morning a visibly concerned Crumpet pointed to the Spotted Heyna tracks 5 meters behind his tent. “This was not here last night Bru!” “O” I said. “I took a wee right here at 2 this morning” Crumpet said. “Mmm maybe you should stop drinking at 7 tonight, it may help” I said.
“Crumpet”
Today was awesome with the clouds remaining and the long sand road to Gweta wet, giving us a good ride.
Chapmans
This photo was taken during lunch at Planet Baobab
We got back to the bivouac and were met with fierce winds and pending rain, some of the tents blew away and we opted to have our usual sundowner over the pans inside the tented kitchen
Luckily the wind died down at sunset and we even had a chance to take half a sunset pic or two, that night around 02h00 we had quite a bit of rain and some of us got up to put the rain covers on our tents, Shumie sleeping in a double tent ran around the pans armed with his underpants and headlamp trying to find his tents cover, he ended up finding it in the back of the Landcruiser.
Before leaving camp the last day we decided it a good idea if we got the base camp cruisers out from the pan edge onto main land. The one cruiser got stuck and we snatched it with the other cruiser, resulting in both of them getting stuck. Bertus drove down with his Landrover and he got stuck. Luckily Bennie came to the rescue with his Landcruiser and managed to recover the three vehicles from the pan edge.
The last day was great with the sun shining, we headed for Orapa around 10h00. A first for me was finding elephant dung on the pans 20km’s from the main land.
Bertus discover that the sub-frame on his XT broke in half. He repaired it with a “bomb” that is used to inflate bike tyres. The bomb being a small round metal cylinder fitted snuggly inside the broken frame. The plan worked and he made the last 150km’s back to Lethlakane.
Please note that for next year we have opened up this adventure to families that would like to make group bookings and do the adventure with their 4x4’s, for those of you who does not have 4 x 4s’ we have recently purchased three 4x4 Pajeros that we will make available to you with a driver or with out. If you would like to book please contact me on [email protected]
Regards
Clinton van Vuuren
Hi Guys!!
We just returned from another Kwa Nokeng Adventure to the Makgadikgadi pans.
Prior to the adventure, I kept a watchful eye on the weather forecasts, and by the look of things it seemed like we could be in for a wet Patti Pans adventure.
The Boere came riding at Kwa Nokeng with all the riders being Afrikaans and from the Freestate.
Rodney Adamstein joined us as a non riding guest and photographer, Rodney better known as “Crumpet” was the only Soutie on the trip.
We usually run these adventures from May – August trying to avoid the heat and rainy season at all costs. This however was a last minute booking and since we managed to get through the pans in June when the pans received 300mm’s of rain, we thought lets do it!!!
Below a few pics of the adventure, thanks Crumpet for all the photos!
We left Kwa Nokeng at 07h00 on Thursday and stopped over in Serowe for some coffee and rusks. Dunking my rusk into my coffee I kept one eye on my rusk not getting to soggy before pulling it out, the other eye was checking out a grey bank of clouds building up toward the North saying “How you doing, good luck with your trip to the pans this weekend!”
We got to Lethlakane around 12h00 and the clouds did not seem so dark anymore. There was a strong wind blowing with lots of shade compliments of the clouds for the next 160km’s to our bivouac and as any adventure rider will tell you clouds + wind = heaven. In the summer the clouds keep us cool and the wind blows the dust out the way so you can see where you are going.
The group represented Agent Orange quite strongly with two KTM 990’s adventure’s of which one was piloted by Stephan Boshoff of Country Trax fame in the Freestate, Stephan is an instructor and I knew I had a riding buddy for the weekend. The other 990 was ridden by Stephan’s brother Jan or “Bees” as known by his friends, a KTM990 Super Enduro ridden by Bennie, BMW GS 800 ridden by Jan, and of course our Medic Bertus on his XT 660 Yamaha.
Below the pics that tells the story of Kwa Nokeng’s last adventure to the Patti Pans for 2009!
Coffee in Serowe
While off loading the bikes in Lethlakane Gideo and Inge driving a 38 year old blue range Rover approached us and asked if they could tag along up to Kubu Island. I must say the Range Rover has seen better days but inside it had all the bells and whistles for camping. A lovely couple, once we got to Kubu I invited them to spend the night with us at our base camp, they accepted.
Gideo and Inge
The sand swallows it’s 1st victim
There were more fly’s than tourists at Kubu Island so we moved a kilometer away to have lunch, it was cloudy so shade was no problem
Trouble up ahead
Waiting for the back up vehicles to arrive, it’s “lekker” in the shade
Bivouac for the next two days
Shumie stayed over at Gweta Lodge the night before, Terry the owner of Gweta Lodge mentioned to Shumie that 16 Scandinavian Nurses will be staying at his place on Thursday and that they are doing some work in the area. Shumie mention this to the riders and we had some riders insisting on sleeping over at Gweta Lodge ASAP, reasons varied from “I have a bad back and need a good bed” to “I am scared of sleeping in my tent alone” the best one was “A naughty thorn hurt my finger and I need a medical help” No problem I said Bertus from Outdoor Medical is here to help, “I err uh no no only a Scandinavian nurse is allowed to help me, my medical aid says so” Ja right bud have a beer instead.
When I put my boots on at Lethlakane, I was to lazy to wear my extra long enduro socks, and decided just to wear my normal “short” socks that I had on. That night when I took my boots off a very long blister said hello to me. The top of my socks rubbed against the bottom part of my knee braces during the ride leaving this ugly blister. Bertus came with a syringe and extracted all the moisture out of the blister, after this Bertus extracted some black liquid from a bottle and injected it into the empty blister. The burning was unreal and I was convinced that Bertus injected me with pool acid, the last time I felt such pain was when Mary from high school gave me the “its not you, it’s me” speech!
Another rider had some chafing on his lower legs and Bertus gave him a plaster for each leg, he returned from the ambulance and we laughed so much we almost fell out of our chair’s, the pic below says it all Nemo on the left and Doree on the right!! Really Bertus give us some man plasters next time.
Shumie treated us to some awesome lamb chops and rice and we were off to bed, that night we had a few drops of rain but nothing too serious, it was a first for me to sleep on the pans with the sound of rain on my tent, awesome!
The next morning a visibly concerned Crumpet pointed to the Spotted Heyna tracks 5 meters behind his tent. “This was not here last night Bru!” “O” I said. “I took a wee right here at 2 this morning” Crumpet said. “Mmm maybe you should stop drinking at 7 tonight, it may help” I said.
“Crumpet”
Today was awesome with the clouds remaining and the long sand road to Gweta wet, giving us a good ride.
Chapmans
This photo was taken during lunch at Planet Baobab
We got back to the bivouac and were met with fierce winds and pending rain, some of the tents blew away and we opted to have our usual sundowner over the pans inside the tented kitchen
Luckily the wind died down at sunset and we even had a chance to take half a sunset pic or two, that night around 02h00 we had quite a bit of rain and some of us got up to put the rain covers on our tents, Shumie sleeping in a double tent ran around the pans armed with his underpants and headlamp trying to find his tents cover, he ended up finding it in the back of the Landcruiser.
Before leaving camp the last day we decided it a good idea if we got the base camp cruisers out from the pan edge onto main land. The one cruiser got stuck and we snatched it with the other cruiser, resulting in both of them getting stuck. Bertus drove down with his Landrover and he got stuck. Luckily Bennie came to the rescue with his Landcruiser and managed to recover the three vehicles from the pan edge.
The last day was great with the sun shining, we headed for Orapa around 10h00. A first for me was finding elephant dung on the pans 20km’s from the main land.
Bertus discover that the sub-frame on his XT broke in half. He repaired it with a “bomb” that is used to inflate bike tyres. The bomb being a small round metal cylinder fitted snuggly inside the broken frame. The plan worked and he made the last 150km’s back to Lethlakane.
Please note that for next year we have opened up this adventure to families that would like to make group bookings and do the adventure with their 4x4’s, for those of you who does not have 4 x 4s’ we have recently purchased three 4x4 Pajeros that we will make available to you with a driver or with out. If you would like to book please contact me on [email protected]
Regards
Clinton van Vuuren
