Rain in the Richtersveld and refloating the SAS Wildehond

[Crankshaft]

GS - Mid December!!! What part of "That is nigh impossible, are you very crazy?" did you miss?

Respect!!!!

It sounds like you have a similar approach to the one that works for me. Start in 2nd gear, get to 4th as quickly as possible, get your speed up to the moment your entire being says "WTF do you think you are doing?" add 5km/h, hang off the back, look up and hope things stay the way they are. It works like a charm . . . . .until it doesn't.

Inevitably the sides have wrestled someone's front wheel, trying to drag it into the bushes, the rider has fought back and now over corrected - first zig across the road. Hit the other side, turn hard back to where you came from - the next zag. This goes one of 3 ways, 2 of which have bike and rider catching a tan on the sand.

One - the zig zags increase in frequency, until the inevitable happens.

Two, you give up fighting the escalating war with the road edges, and hurtle off into the veld (that is assuming there is some run off space)

Three - the most unlikely, you manage to look up and against every fibre in your body open up and head off down the road.

In the unlikely event you avoid watching the oscilloscope patterns on the road and pull it all together, get back on the throttle and ignore the many dabs prints and other signs of trouble, until the next moment.

Jip, crazy stuff.

The whole idea was to meet up with a friend of mine's in-laws who were camping at Groenrivier. His wife took all the baggage in the bakkie a few days prior to our trip to her father just outside of Springbok, so we traveled "fairly" light.

At that point the idea of riding that route sounded like fun and a great adventure, testing your riding skills to the max. The dirt road from Koekenaap towards the coast and on route Brandse baai was a breeze and I thought by myself "hoe moeilik kan dit dan nou wees, die pad loop sommer mooi".... hahaha what a rude awakening we had.... I was on the GSA and him on the 800GS.

After the 5th tumble I was drained, gatvol and almost puked if someone just mentioned "nog net so n kleint entjie se sand om te ry" but we made it eventually with just a few minor scuff marks and bruised egos.

Knowing now what I didn't know then.... do it on a smaller bike.

 

[51Mobile]

Jip, crazy stuff.

The whole idea was to meet up with a friend of mine's in-laws who were camping at Groenrivier. His wife took all the baggage in the bakkie a few days prior to our trip to her father just outside of Springbok, so we traveled "fairly" light.

At that point the idea of riding that route sounded like fun and a great adventure, testing your riding skills to the max. The dirt road from Koekenaap towards the coast and on route Brandse baai was a breeze and I thought by myself "hoe moeilik kan dit dan nou wees, die pad loop sommer mooi".... hahaha what a rude awakening we had.... I was on the GSA and him on the 800GS.

After the 5th tumble I was drained, gatvol and almost puked if someone just mentioned "nog net so n kleint entjie se sand om te ry" but we made it eventually with just a few minor scuff marks and bruised egos.

Knowing now what I didn't know then.... do it on a smaller bike.

With the arsenal of bikes available to you - you choose a GS!?

Serious riding skill to get that through all the way.

 

[51Mobile]

Another perfect dawn greats us, with heavenly riding promised. Today we ride through the heart of the Namaqua National Park followed by a sprinkling of 4x4 routes in around and over the mountains that surround it.

We left the Papierhuisie and headed out for an obligatory photoshoot at the wreck of the Aristea.

 

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Who needs an old rusting wreck when there is such a fine line up of examples of the pinnacle of motorcycling engineering!

The remnants of a coal-fired trawler, built in Scotland as a fishing vessel in 1934 for I&J, the Aristea was then commandeered to serve as a minesweeper during World War 2. The Aristea ran aground on 4 July 1945 on its maiden voyage back in civi street. Apparently, the captain had indulged in one too many. A junior deckhand swam ashore with a rope and anchor to save the rest of the crew of 24, there was only 1 loss of life. Seems civi life was not for it. I'm gonna give you 40 days.......

Ring master and bringer of Rain, Gus, with his son Hot Dog, Porridge wheel Jarod.

Hmmm....... a little past a squirt of WD40 me thinks.

 

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A not so quick breakfast in Koingnaas. We try and make a point to support as many local small businesses along the way as we can and found this great spot. Terrific baacon and egg toasted sandwiches. Just our numbers all at once stretched their production capacity.

Yes Mike - we get to eat again! Remember armies and stomachs.

And we are on our way. Today’s destination is Oewerbos River Camp, yes I know Port Nolloth is around the corner from Hondeklipbaai and that is on the agenda, but first we had a few tracks through the Namaqua National park to attend to.

 

[51Mobile]

The flowers were a spectacle of grand proportions. Flowers from horizon to horizon, orange, white, yellow, purple it was both breathtaking and endless.

Even the hardest Rowwe biker amongst us was on his knees looking for an angle to properly capture the magnitude of the beauty all around us.

One thing about the Namaqualanders is their wonderful names they gave the flowers of the area, we have the Rooisnotroos , Varkslaai, Grootstinkkruid, Pietsnot, Tonteldoek, and then I think they were overwhelmed and those left were Vygies - Bergvygie, Douvygie, Skaapvygie, Geelvygie. The English were just downright lazy and everything was a daisy.

 

[Crankshaft]

With the arsenal of bikes available to you - you choose a GS!?

Serious riding skill to get that through all the way.

That’s all I had at the time

 

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That’s all I had at the time

oh dear! You need to do a little work on your timing.

 

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We bid the flowering valley farewell, and headed out to a track Gus had selected for us (probably one suggested by Amsterdam who among others Gus interrogated for tasty riding tracks).

 

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On the more out of the way tracks, the effects of the recent rains were as evident in the damage to the tracks as they were to the abundance of flowers. Both pretty significantly greater than normal.

We headed down a crest and along a track which quickly turned into a river bed - complete with water.

And before too long it claimed a victim. No damage done, dry off, and we were back on our way. Matching the track on the GPS with what was presented on the ground became a bit of a challenge.

We soon teased the route out of the rivers and streams that had now formed.

What lay before us was one of the most glorious adventure biking sections. Too many washaways for 4x4's but perfect for Adv bikes.

 

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A few tricky sections were thrown in, just to toughen up those who had succumbed to the more floral side of life. We had to put the Rowwe back into Bikers.

 

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And then a precipice ambushed us.

You going first? No - you go, don't think so. Next.

It was steep, with a wonderful layer of course round stones providing the most remarkably well lubricated slip surface, oh and there were a whole squadron of erosion channels to contend with.

Slowly does it.

 

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The Maestro showing how it should be done.

Lock up your back wheel, and it will come next to you to crap on you, when it is done it will throw to the ground in punishment for your insubordination.

Keeping the front wheel rolling but still braking was a true test of brake control. (It was steeper than it looks here - I promise).

 

[51Mobile]

Our plan was to cross the mountains towards the Vaalheuwel pass and then on to Steinkopf for fuel.

When we got to the bottom of the track we were aiming to ride, there was a sign asking that one checks that the track is passable. It looked fairly new, so we thought we had better check. We were fresh out of luck, the gentleman on the other side of the line said there was no way through. He had probably got sick and tired of rescuing errant drivers 7/or riders who got stuck.

Oh well, let's go the long way round, which turned out to be a long stretch of deep sand, but with alignment that allowed us to cover a lot of ground in a very little time.

 

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Fuelled up in Steinkopf and headed towards Vioolsdrif to reach Oewerbos River Camp for our night's stop.