It started Saturday morning 6h00....
... all packed for a trip.
My Crocks give away there's an overnight planned somewhere.
@Xpat (if you know him fine, if not he's our always-riding local non-Russian) had asked if I'd be interested to ride his Botswana Border route again - which I had done with him on my 790 Adv R in 2019 on which I was less happy with the sandy bits.
But now I'd do it on the riceburner, this nomer dropped by Martin in Jericho earlier this year, and sand is a non event, bring it.
He'd be on his 690 for this trip.
We met at the Pinehaven Sasol filling station down the hill on the N14 in Krugersdorp at 7h00.
From there tar to Koster, then we got onto dirt to the Marico Oog - a spot of beauty new to me, with a few houses for accomodation also: nice!
Thomas told us we were allowed to scuba-dive to only 30 meters, and that the hole was 120m deep .... which really surprised us. Once there Martin quicky googled and it turns out it's only 12m deep, a small mistake I reckon
Anyway, beautiful there, with crystal clear water, you can see even the small fry hiding inbetween the water lilies.
From there more West, not sure where we all rode but somewhere up and over a small escarpment...
... onto a rather large undulating plain sort of, where there were a surprising lot of succulents growing plus other plants, flowering - this area must have had quite a bit of rain, it would not look like this otherwise.
No pic, I anyway took only a few, the wide one's are from Martin.
We rode on, and we did not see any further proof of recent rains, the whole area was dry and dusty.
Martin knows this area so well he'd not bothered to bring a GPS, and with the myriad of tracks there we lost out bearings a few times.
Nothing wrong with some bundu bashing though, so we did our share of "it must be that way" and tried to bash our way through the thorns. Losta Haak & Steek there also, and because I have mousses in I used the smaller bushes for traction rather than trying to circumvent them, but doing all this I was wondering how Martin did this, as he's got a front tube and a TubLis on the rear.
All went well enough though, we popped out onto a tar road full with parked trucks & trailers, kilometers of them waiting to cross the border.
Anyway, we circumvented Madikwe Game Reserve to our overnight stop, and here Martin suggested I ride ahead of him, in fact he will wait a while - so he can see some game on the other side of the fence.
My exhaust is a little anti-social you see, scaring away any game as soon as I stop or go slow. Oh well, fine with me, I'm anyway the last to see a T-Rex grazing on a Whale, and also I couldn't care too much about that anyway... so I roared off to the lodge.
Only somewhere today I asked him if he actually
did see game, but he said naah, not really .... serious, see pics below, that's "naah"...
I - really! - didn't see anything of this, I just roared past - I wanted coffee!
At the lodge the owning couple were present this time, and she indeed made a coffee for me.
He suggested a cold beer of course - which I had later, and later, and yeah, later also.
Martin rocked up a lil later and we had a great eve, with some unexpected interesting conversations - I mean, it's not every day you meet a 69 y/o who's doing his Doctorate now do you?
We braaied of course, and had pap , vleis & sauce - lekker!
This morning after some coffee we left.
The plan was to have lunch at Beestekraal, which we reached over a mix of tar & dirt.
Somewhere there I found Martin stopped to take some pics of a small herd of Buffalo loafing almost against the fence, so I of course stopped also, I don't see Buffalo too often.
Martin also decided to have a pee there, and as soon as he unzipped the Buffalo suddenly moved on.
He then bragged that they must have seen his tackle and thus got scared, but those who know me will recognize that my too good manners prevented me from saying 'Hey, we're upwind from them, time to wash your undies'.
We reached Beestekraal traversing long wide dirtroads...
..... where Martin discovered a he had a flat front tyre.
Oh well, a bite and a milkshake first!
We put a new tube in his tyre...
... and then left, each our own way: me home, he via some canal roads first also home.
My bike needs a wash now...
... and yes, that leaky stuff on the tyres is the mousse-grease leaking a bit - all normal, that stops, has probably already now.
This was a 867km trip in total, through a gorgeous part of our country, full of nature and game too.
We did invite a few others to come along but nope, they were otherwise occupied.
If you're one of them and read here, eat your heart out
Thanks Martin, was awesome again!
