Namakwaland and Richtersveld Wildride
- Thread starter Noneking
- Start date
Noneking
SKOOTHOND
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2012
- Messages
- 33,110
- Reaction score
- 10,527
- Location
- Slowveld
- Bike
- KTM 890 Adventure R Rally
Kamanya said:
I share your sentiment.....
Being able to ride your bike at speed for kilometres on end, spectacular scenery as your backdrop and terrain to keep your senses focussed........ This trip was just amazing. Riding with a bunch of pensioners that can maintain a good pace was just a bonus :ricky: :ricky:
Noneking said:
[member=7804]Amsterdam[/member] said it himself, "he packed some ambitious routes" - and note that both applies to technical as well as distance/duration, he wanted to wear us (INcluding himself note!) out. Not bad for a notayoungster anymore, and yes, I like that too - keeps me fit without having to do mindnumbing stuff like a treadmill or why
And, let me put this here for eternity: Thank You for this! :thumleft:
The track from Oewerbos to Klein Pella though started with a longish loose-rocky section - for those who've ridden it the De Wildt 'coconuts' springs to mind here - which wore me out, thouroughly even. As Canzius has mentioned earlier this is not too conducive for my sense of humour - he knows me well it seems, and true too.
Dan was missing today, and with him our self-appointed sweeper, a role I prefer to take - and took: I'm hardly the fastest so I won't slow down the lot, and I hate someone riding close behind me (on this, Dan never does - dankie maat!).
So all was well.... but as said it wore me out completely, I was knackered by the time I caught up with the others somewhere at the end of the 'Weskus Kokosneute'.
In ever-cristal-clear hindsight, bitofa Babbelaas maybe? Had a bottle of wine the eve before, possible maybe.... O0
The rest of the track to Steinkopft though turned out to be fast stuff, and I sortof got my mojo back chasing Amsterdam, he's no slouch especially in the corners (where I suck :-[ ).
Anyway, in Steinkopf Marc told me the rest was 'SandandSandandSand an MoreSand' so I thought it best not to slow the guys down and take my own route to Klein Pella.
Google Maps showed me tar-only whilst Maps.me offered something completely different, nicer I thought.... but Amsterdam looked at it, said it was SandandSand and told me to take the tar.
Then they left and I finished my coffee.... and my plan: I would do the Maps.me route, bugger it, tar is boring at the best of times!
Some 12 to 13km tar on the N7 North (the others went a bit further apparently), then off right on a wiiiide dirtroad - good!
This road is not unlike a Namibian dirt highway, so at ~130 one makes good progress here.
At the end some public works (a water pipeline to Steinkopf I reckon) were there, and the road tuend to a smaller more rural one, and led me to the Orange River's oewer.
Here I stopped at some pumping station and a kinda 'tunneltjie' for a photo, and this was lucky for a herder with some 150 sheep coming my way on the road, a running bike with a loud barking exhaust would have had all those sheep swimming in the river as on the other side was a too-steep hillside ;D
After they'd passed I thought 'let's see where I will cross the track of the others for today', so I switched On my GPS.... to find I am ON it!
Zooming out I discover that both routes are not too dissimilar, the Maps.me one only adheres to the large dirtroads whilst the track does not.... so I decide to follow the latter!
I did too, a beautiful route indeed, and I discover I can do this at quite a clip even - great, lekker!
But - NO biketracks, nothing, I only see here & there a not-too-fresh single bike spoor, and this bike seems to have come the other way.... which means my maats are behind me!
Look, I was genuinely fast on that wide dirt highway, but they're behind me?
Clearly they are, so now i do what: wait, or carry on on the track? After all, Marc & Canz were not too pleased that I had taken the last bit of the route on my own the previous day (plain proof that they are friends btw! :thumleft: ) so I didn't want a repeat - but, a big BUT, they're behind me yeah, so if shit happens they'll come along this time, no?
So I did: took the track, had a ball and arrived at Klein Pella without incident, in fact I had plenty of time for pics (below), smokebreaks and the like, even tried to find a beer in a tiny settlement I encountered along the way - but in vain, no beer sold at all there :-\
Attachments
Just before Klein Pella the route veered off through a plaashek, and of course I took it.
The others, arriving some 2 hours later only, skipped this short bit I heard later.
At Klein Pella I booked into our accomodation and bought some Dates for Dan's wife - which he had promised to do but obviously could not do that anymore, and after our trip I was going to visit Stellenbosch anyway so... :thumleft:
Klein Pella turned out to be the biggest date plantation in the Southern hemisphere, with 25,000 trees of which 20,000 in production!
Awesome quality too, mainly for export - see pic, I can recommend them :thumleft:
The others, arriving some 2 hours later only, skipped this short bit I heard later.
At Klein Pella I booked into our accomodation and bought some Dates for Dan's wife - which he had promised to do but obviously could not do that anymore, and after our trip I was going to visit Stellenbosch anyway so... :thumleft:
Klein Pella turned out to be the biggest date plantation in the Southern hemisphere, with 25,000 trees of which 20,000 in production!
Awesome quality too, mainly for export - see pic, I can recommend them :thumleft:
Attachments
Noneking said:
I did too ;D , was a too-good photo oppotunity! :thumleft:
Got nearly stuck on my way back though, that sand inbetween the rocks at the river proved VERY soft!
Similar threads
