Day 2 – Sani, Underberg to Port Shepstone
Distance Covered: Roughly 400km.
Waking up at around 4, disturbing other guests with my constant coughing and before mentioned bowel movements in the communal toilet (they didn’t have any en suites left), I was anxious to get the day started. Looking at my map book, it stated that the border only opens at 8am! I got back in bed for a while but then decided to get packed and go for a ride through town.
Early morning in Himeville.
After filling up, cruising around a bit and stopping to smoke a dube, I headed for Sani. Again I loved the tar section on the way there.
Some donkeys.
SA border was done in about 2 minutes. At first the riding was superb and just breathtaking but it got increasingly difficult the further up I went.
The bike was blown over by the wind while I walked down the path to take this photo.
There were a few bikers of varying ability in front of me and I had to stop in sections, waiting for them to finish paddling a rocky climb before I could get going again and maintain some momentum, only to reach the next tricky bit and having to do the same. At one particularly tricky section (the one where all the recent reports showed the bikes on their sides), I had to stop for the other bikers again. As I came to a stop, I paid more attention to the other riders than getting my footing right and I dropped the bike.The result was this broken lever.
Section mentioned plus a snap of yours truly. Not sure how that got in there
I had a spare with me but, as luck (lack of planning) would have it, not the right size spanner to remove the broken one. As I stood there watching three people trying to push a 640A up the hill with great effort, it was decision time. Either carry on to the top with a broken gear lever at and risk of damaging my bike further while being even more delayed by the guys in front of me, or turn back and go look for a bike shop before they closed so I could replace my gear lever and at least keep to my planned route for the rest of the day. I decided that Sani top will have to wait for another day and headed for the Yamaha shop in Himeville. They helped me with a spanner but this only lead me to find out that the bolt had been mounted from the wrong side, thus being blocked by the foot peg from coming out completely. By now I was out of spliffs (because of, like, too much stopping to admire scenery and stuff, dude), and hence also out of patience and decided to ride with half a lever for the rest of the trip. I headed for late breakfast back at Underberg inn, this time a massive 50 rand breakfast and I was back on the road at about 12 o’clock.
Now, I am not quite sure what route I took from there but I went east out of Underberg on the R617, turned onto the dirt towards Coleford, winding all the way down to Umzimkulu and onto tar at the R56. This section was the highlight of the trip for me. It was about 2.5 hours of superbly maintained mountain roads winding through little remote villages, people and even animals staring at you as you go by. Some waving, some just dumbfounded at the sight of this whitey traveller, some absolutely delighted at the sight of something other than livestock.
Photos of the Coleford area
The going was very slow because of all the people and animals around but I liked it that way. It gave me a time to absorb everything around me. What struck me most is how far these people are removed from what we would call civilisation. Not just that but also how content they seem in these beautiful surroundings, living their humble lives. If I ever come back to the region I’d love to spend time talking to the people, finding out more about their daily lives, maybe even staying over in a village.
I stopped and had a quick chat with this guy. He had about 5 or 6 dogs and another little kid with him. Not sure what animal he is holding and someone will probably come in and say that it’s endangered. At this point I didn’t really care. The guy said he caught it that morning and that he was going to use the skin to make himself a hat. I thought it was fantastic and wished him well. I am guessing he will not prematurely die of a heart attack like us city dwellers.
One thing that I learned on this section is that it’s not the people, cows, goats or sheep that you have to look out for, it’s the geese! Those things are fucking mental. They will see you coming, then pretend to move out of the way, only to head straight for you at the last second, making one hell of a racket and flapping their wings all over the place. I almost had an off in front of a crowd of people grabbing too much front because of one of these fuckers. What’s worse is I am sure he was taunting me through the entire episode.
“Kaaa kaaa kaaa….krrrrry vir jou p0es!!” he seemed to say.
Anyway, from the R56 it was a short hop on dirt to the N2 and took that all the way into Port Shepstone. My accommodation for the night was at the surprisingly pleasant, albeit slightly pricey, The Spot Backpackers. I had a little log cabin with on suite all to myself.
The room and the view from the stoepie.
That evening I cruised through to Margate to go check out the bike week. It was just a mass of people and decided to rather head back to Port Shepstone and go have supper and a few beers somewhere close to the backpackers. I found a nice fish place, had a nice platter and way too many Jagermeisters and met a nice couple and spent the rest of the night chatting to them. They were down for bike week on a DL1000.
When I got back to the backpackers, there were a few teenagers making one hell of a noise with their trance music and laughing and general happiness and fondness of life. How dare they rub their youthful exuberance in my face like that? A few more Jagers and Savannas had me sleeping soundly in no time though.
