MissM
Race Dog
So after much searching, uhmming and aahing, I finally decided to take the plunge, and bought myself Kaboef's Xchallenge.
Best idea ever.
This called for a celebration, and so over the long weekend of Women's Day, monkeyboy and myself took off to the Cederberg to conquer the Old Postal Route. This had not been possible before due to the Dommie's small tank, so I was excited to say the least.
We set off on the road around 12, after some school obligations, and it was an uneventful ride to Ceres where we stopped for some Gluwein at Die Tolhuis. It turns out that baboons are rather cheeky in winter, and there was one raiding the patron's tables for food. Cheeky bugger was stealing rolls off of people's plates, and once one table had left it devoured the sugar, and almost the bowl! A baboon hopped up on sugar is not a pretty sight, so we decided to go on our merry way.
Finally we arrived at the Oasis, and made our way down to our home for the next 2 nights.
Beautiful isn't it?
The best part about staying at the Oasis for more than 1 night is that no one had to decide between Chantel's amazing ribs, or her steak! Happy days! Strangely there were no other bikers there that night, so we socialised with a pack of primary school teachers for the evening. Great fun, and thankfully the Cedeberg lived up to its name, and there was no hangover on Saturday morning.
So after a leisurely breakfast we were packed and ready to go when Kaboef suddenly pulled in with his new KTM. Great excitement, and we decided to ride to Wuppertal together. Now it is fairly intimidating riding with the old owner of your new bike, but I do think that I did his "baby" justice...
ot:
We could not convince Kaboef to join us on the rest of our adventure, apparently family was calling, so we sadly said goodbye to him in Wuppertal, and made our merry way on to the start of the Old Postal route. I was extremely excited as I had been dying to do this route for ages, but the stars had not managed to align. Monkeyboy was concerned about the possibility of the Tra-Tra being too deep, and us having to turn around, but Gerrit had sworn blind that it wasn't, so we decided to risk it anyway.
Onwards we went!
One of the many gates and "puddles" that we had to negotiate.
Some of these "puddles" were quite deep and sandy at the bottom, and snuck up on you. This meant that half way through the ride we were pretty wet, but in high spirits. There is nothing like watercrossings and sand to get the blood pumping!
I heart my bike.
monkeyboy and some flowers.
Then we reached the river. It looked quite bad, but monkeyboy (being awesome and having brought some specialised water shoes) walked across and decided that we could cross it.
Unfortunately I did not have the correct foot wear and was slipping and sliding EVERYWHERE, so my hero took both of the bikes across. Isn't he awesome?
Finally across we continued, only to go around a corner and be met with this sight:
We had not crossed the Tra-Tra quite yet...
What followed was an hour and a half of stress, nerves, fear, water, and slippery rocks. Knee-deep, with the rocks covered in green slime, this was never going to be fun. The engines had to be on, in order to walk the bikes through the strong current, and after one particular harrowing moment with the HP2, I visualised us stuck out there with 2 drowned bikes. Thankfully not, and yet again monkeyboy proved how he is completely awesome, and managed to get both of our babies across safely.
This is after his 7th crossing of the river. Grumpy-face.
The rest of the ride back was uneventful. But cold. As soon as that sun started to set, we both realised that our gear was damp, and this was not going to be pleasant.
It was a very tired, wet, and cold Miss M and monkeyboy who returned to the Oasis that evening. However one can always be cheered up by the sight of steak and ribs, along with beer, and we settled in to telling everyone about our amazing adventure.
I would do it again in a heart beat.
Just with less water this time, please.
Best idea ever.
This called for a celebration, and so over the long weekend of Women's Day, monkeyboy and myself took off to the Cederberg to conquer the Old Postal Route. This had not been possible before due to the Dommie's small tank, so I was excited to say the least.
We set off on the road around 12, after some school obligations, and it was an uneventful ride to Ceres where we stopped for some Gluwein at Die Tolhuis. It turns out that baboons are rather cheeky in winter, and there was one raiding the patron's tables for food. Cheeky bugger was stealing rolls off of people's plates, and once one table had left it devoured the sugar, and almost the bowl! A baboon hopped up on sugar is not a pretty sight, so we decided to go on our merry way.
Finally we arrived at the Oasis, and made our way down to our home for the next 2 nights.
Beautiful isn't it?
The best part about staying at the Oasis for more than 1 night is that no one had to decide between Chantel's amazing ribs, or her steak! Happy days! Strangely there were no other bikers there that night, so we socialised with a pack of primary school teachers for the evening. Great fun, and thankfully the Cedeberg lived up to its name, and there was no hangover on Saturday morning.
So after a leisurely breakfast we were packed and ready to go when Kaboef suddenly pulled in with his new KTM. Great excitement, and we decided to ride to Wuppertal together. Now it is fairly intimidating riding with the old owner of your new bike, but I do think that I did his "baby" justice...
ot:
We could not convince Kaboef to join us on the rest of our adventure, apparently family was calling, so we sadly said goodbye to him in Wuppertal, and made our merry way on to the start of the Old Postal route. I was extremely excited as I had been dying to do this route for ages, but the stars had not managed to align. Monkeyboy was concerned about the possibility of the Tra-Tra being too deep, and us having to turn around, but Gerrit had sworn blind that it wasn't, so we decided to risk it anyway.
Onwards we went!
One of the many gates and "puddles" that we had to negotiate.
Some of these "puddles" were quite deep and sandy at the bottom, and snuck up on you. This meant that half way through the ride we were pretty wet, but in high spirits. There is nothing like watercrossings and sand to get the blood pumping!
I heart my bike.
monkeyboy and some flowers.
Then we reached the river. It looked quite bad, but monkeyboy (being awesome and having brought some specialised water shoes) walked across and decided that we could cross it.
Unfortunately I did not have the correct foot wear and was slipping and sliding EVERYWHERE, so my hero took both of the bikes across. Isn't he awesome?
Finally across we continued, only to go around a corner and be met with this sight:
We had not crossed the Tra-Tra quite yet...
What followed was an hour and a half of stress, nerves, fear, water, and slippery rocks. Knee-deep, with the rocks covered in green slime, this was never going to be fun. The engines had to be on, in order to walk the bikes through the strong current, and after one particular harrowing moment with the HP2, I visualised us stuck out there with 2 drowned bikes. Thankfully not, and yet again monkeyboy proved how he is completely awesome, and managed to get both of our babies across safely.
This is after his 7th crossing of the river. Grumpy-face.
The rest of the ride back was uneventful. But cold. As soon as that sun started to set, we both realised that our gear was damp, and this was not going to be pleasant.
It was a very tired, wet, and cold Miss M and monkeyboy who returned to the Oasis that evening. However one can always be cheered up by the sight of steak and ribs, along with beer, and we settled in to telling everyone about our amazing adventure.
I would do it again in a heart beat.
Just with less water this time, please.
