I recently got married, 3 weeks ago to be exact.
4 days after we got back from Honeymoon my new wife, left me on my eis for 2 weeks as she had to go to Zanzibar for some work (no I promise it was not her second honeymoon with other guy,
)
I consider myself able to be alone for a few days, with enough going on upstairs to keep me busy long enough. She has already been gone for about 9 days, and I found myself extremely bored, to the point that I was always working late into the evenings just to keep from the boredom. Then I had a brain wave, why not do a SOLO trip (since being alone was starting to become part of my character).
First things first. Need to be comfortable changing tires with little or no hassles. Spent a few hours in the garage changing my tubes (just for fun, boredom is a bitch). Managed to change the tires with a bit of difficulty, but felt comfortable enough to now disapear on my own (this was my only real worry - mechanical issues baring something small, would render be immobile so that was not even going to worry me)
I had been to Sabie once with a late friend. Was part of a adventure Racing Second's crew and I loved every second of it. Perfect, I knew my destination, found a cool little place on the net for accomodation, and set sail on Saturday around 6am.
My Plan was to stick to a relatively strucutred route (just in case something happened, at least people would have a rough clue to where I could be lying)
Day 1:
680kms (about 60% gravel)
packed steed ready to roll
Rode along N14 and some other tar roads to Cullinan for a quick breakfast before the long part started. Found gravel soon afterwards.
I already started to appreciate the whole SOLO vibe. THe fact that you are pretty much all alone along some very quiet gravel roads - it immediatly forces you to ride within your limits. By all means be a little reckless here and there, otherwise it would be pretty boring [and recall I am trying to alleviate the boredom]. But I quickly settled into a good pace and comfort zone. I woke up this morning and my jaw is just so stiff, now now, dont get any odd thoughts into your head, it must have been that everytime on the trip I can recall, I was smilling from ear to ear. I was in my paradise.
Straight Fast Gravel
The weather was supposed to be foul, however I have never experieced such great riding weather, best of all no dust (being in the front and all)
Found some great little dirt roads, where it became a less gravel and more dirt/sand type of thing. AWESOME!
Then hit some tar and saw a telkom tower that looked like it had a nice view from so decided to go take a look. I hate locked gates...
Again Awesome roads, this close to Loskop Dam.
Loskop
More Tar and Gravel roads. Started having that flat tire paranoia, checked about 5 times, all was good, eventually just ignored it and carried on. Like I mentioned eralier the weather was great, the temperature was sitting around 28-32 for most of the morning. Lots of clouds on the periphery and some roads were very wet, seems like it was my lucky day!
Cant remember this small pass but it was really amazing. We live in such a diverse country, each area has its own unique ability to capture the mind. We are truely blessed in SA.
Nearing Lydenburg
Long Tom's Pass rocks! My word it is utterly amazing, great for bikes, but be careful, some of those corners tighten as we continue through them, almost had a close one, took some caution with it and enjoyed the view rather than the road after that. I went through to Sabie, had a quick lunch and then headed towards Mac Mac Falls, Gods Window and Bourkes Luck potholes (all tar section, not very intersting except the sites.
After that I was getting pretty moeg, all that riding and walking to the places in pretty much full kit [temperature was still sitting near 30]. I was going to go the same way back to Sabie, but I noticed a good looking gravel road as I left the potholes plase. Tracks4Africa picked it up so I took it. What a flipping road. eventually I ended up in the plantations (2 people looked like they wanted to kill me for being on their property but I saw no signs saying otherwise. Gave them a look and left in a little hurry. THe road was a powder like quality, probably from all the logging trucks beating the crap out of it. Would not be fun doing this behind a few other riders, the dust was so fine, would have been k@k.
Came out near Sabie, and saw the weather was looking threatening. At this stage I have done around 640kms so was looking forward to a nice warm shower, a cold beer and some decent chow. As I went back up long toms pass from Sabie, the temperature change was incredible. From around 30 to about 14 in less than 20 kms. I booked myself into Hops Hollow - what a cool little place. It was misty and cold outside, in the main pub area they have a huge fieplace in the middle of the room. Very cosy indeed. The mangers were great, had a few locally brewed pints, watched the one semi final and had some yummy food. We sat down as a large table and spoke crap and had a good time. By 8.30 i was absolutely finished - the manager even suggested that I go to sleep [not sure if he was trying to go to bed himself or if I looked that tired, I certainly felt that tired]. He mentioned to me that in the morning I must take a road just passed his turn off for one of the best views ever. Awesome something to look forward to after an unbelievable day. That night there was a huge thunderstorm, thought tomorrow would be very wet indeed [time to try out my waterproof gear]
Some Pics of Hops Hollow.
spooky...
more to come....
