Zerc and I set off this morning with the aim of finding and documenting a rideable rail service road from eMalahleni (that used to be Witbank) to Rayton.
We failed, but had a lot of fun doing it. I think the reason I could not find any reference to this on the forum is that people may have failed before us.
Zerc is a great guy to do this sort of exploration with – he is not in a hurry most of the time, and does not get concerned when you have to do a u-turn for the ninety-sixth time because the road disappeared from under you.
Much of today was like that. You would be riding along on a nice service road at a good speed somewhere between 50 and 70 and suddenly the good road turns into a tricky twee-spoor with difficult surfaces and long grass and big rocks lurking in big holes.
But on to the report.
This was today’s track on the way home.
Woke up far too early and had plenty of time for the wake-up coffee in Faerie Glen. Saw Blazes at the garage getting fuel in - he was heading out to do the same rail line but outward – we decided to do tar out and tackle the railway on the way back.
We started by waking the souls of the departed at the Witbank Cemetery at the start of the leg I have marked as “A”. We could only follow the track for a short while before it lead away from the line but we were able to loop round and get back on it. I am sure we were trespassing on mining land, but there was no sign of anyone. Once back on the rail line it was fairly easy but there were bits of twee-spoor where we had to ride on ballast stones, and the only way is to get a up bit of speed.
The road ended in Clewer and had to tour suburbia (depressing looking place with some quite tricky sandy roads) but got back on the track on the other side of town on the section marked B
At the end of that section we were out in the country, and all was well until we hit a closed gate and would have had to do quite a bit of unwiring to get through, and we were nervous we were on private property, so we backtracked and detoured on R104 to Balmoral where we were saw what looked like a tricky bit and decided to find a way around it.
The section I marked D we did in reverse, and actually got back to Balmoral and looped back but were confronted by this.
It may have been possible to manhandle a plastic over the pipe, but not a GS1150 !
On the way was this sphincter-tightening bit. Does not look too bad in the photo but the drop-off to Zerc’s right was quite steep and the hole on his left was about a bike and a half deep – there was less than 300mm to ride on and no chance of putting a foot down.
From there we headed back to the R104. We tried a few side roads to get back to the track, and once we got to within a few meters of the rail line but with no way back.
We did manage one last piece just short of Dronkwordspruit, but hit another gate. That bit was nicely sandy in parts and did some nice KLE two-stepping !!
Zerc said he spent a lot of the time sideways.
All our messing about meant it was getting late in the morning, so from there we gapped it home, leaving the piece from Dronkwordspruit to Rayton for another day.
Wonder how Blazes and KykDaar did from the other direction ?
Thanks to Zerc for the company - appreciate it ! :ricky:
We failed, but had a lot of fun doing it. I think the reason I could not find any reference to this on the forum is that people may have failed before us.
Zerc is a great guy to do this sort of exploration with – he is not in a hurry most of the time, and does not get concerned when you have to do a u-turn for the ninety-sixth time because the road disappeared from under you.
Much of today was like that. You would be riding along on a nice service road at a good speed somewhere between 50 and 70 and suddenly the good road turns into a tricky twee-spoor with difficult surfaces and long grass and big rocks lurking in big holes.
But on to the report.
This was today’s track on the way home.
Woke up far too early and had plenty of time for the wake-up coffee in Faerie Glen. Saw Blazes at the garage getting fuel in - he was heading out to do the same rail line but outward – we decided to do tar out and tackle the railway on the way back.
We started by waking the souls of the departed at the Witbank Cemetery at the start of the leg I have marked as “A”. We could only follow the track for a short while before it lead away from the line but we were able to loop round and get back on it. I am sure we were trespassing on mining land, but there was no sign of anyone. Once back on the rail line it was fairly easy but there were bits of twee-spoor where we had to ride on ballast stones, and the only way is to get a up bit of speed.
The road ended in Clewer and had to tour suburbia (depressing looking place with some quite tricky sandy roads) but got back on the track on the other side of town on the section marked B
At the end of that section we were out in the country, and all was well until we hit a closed gate and would have had to do quite a bit of unwiring to get through, and we were nervous we were on private property, so we backtracked and detoured on R104 to Balmoral where we were saw what looked like a tricky bit and decided to find a way around it.
The section I marked D we did in reverse, and actually got back to Balmoral and looped back but were confronted by this.
It may have been possible to manhandle a plastic over the pipe, but not a GS1150 !
On the way was this sphincter-tightening bit. Does not look too bad in the photo but the drop-off to Zerc’s right was quite steep and the hole on his left was about a bike and a half deep – there was less than 300mm to ride on and no chance of putting a foot down.
From there we headed back to the R104. We tried a few side roads to get back to the track, and once we got to within a few meters of the rail line but with no way back.
We did manage one last piece just short of Dronkwordspruit, but hit another gate. That bit was nicely sandy in parts and did some nice KLE two-stepping !!
Zerc said he spent a lot of the time sideways. All our messing about meant it was getting late in the morning, so from there we gapped it home, leaving the piece from Dronkwordspruit to Rayton for another day.
Wonder how Blazes and KykDaar did from the other direction ?
Thanks to Zerc for the company - appreciate it ! :ricky:
