SwaziTrax - Beginners Epic trip 24 July - 1 Aug

[BlueBull2007]

Apologies for the relatively few pics early on. I had'nt mastered the art of riding and photography at the same time yet.  :biggrin:

We finally came to the decision to do this trip against rushing across to Namibia and back in the relatively short time frame we have available to us. There is so much to do in the short time while we are in SA, so unfortunately our grand plans to do a southern African tour will just have to wait till some other time. The main thing was to be able to ride the bikes in properly and sort out any technical gremlins before we ship them to South America, where there is no "BMW on call", computer and other fancy stuff that cost lots of money.

Instead we figured we would ride down to the Country-trax on our new bikes, do the course and then travel up the border of Mozambique and see how far we get. Well it turned out that we didnâ??t get all that far after all, to be perfectly honest we were severely fatigued after the three day intensive off-road course at Countrytrax. More on that later.

Day 1

We left Pretoria around 11 and did the toll road to Middleburg, and then down to Ermelo.

We stopped quite bit on the way, to adjust our bike to bike radios, fill up etcetera.

Stopping at Ermelo in the mid afternoon, we noticed to our horror that half our gear was gone off the back of D´s bike. The tie downs were clearly not enough. 

Frantic I leapt on my bike and tore up the road all the way to Hendrina looking for gear. I then realized that if I didnâ??t turn back soon we would not make it to the course venue before dark. So we hope that some poor desperate individual enjoys and can make use of our great tent, spare tubes, BMW parts, some tools, tyres levers, puncture repair kit, braai grid and matrass.  Perhaps even the bog pipe could come in handy, who knows.  ;D

But by then I was hungry and seeing it was only 15h45, I had a quick burger and a cold drink. It was after four when we left and knowing it was only half an hour´s to Amersfoort, we would get there with plenty of time to spare. Hee hee Ha ha. No we did not. In my infinite wisdom, we decided to follow the dirt road 5km from Amersfoort as per instructions. Anyway it would be more fun, and get us ready for things to come on the course.

Well that it did. The road was freshly graded and the nice layer of gravel left behind made it character building for me. D never seemed to be bothered by it, except by the tractor and trailer parked across the road doing road works over a blind rise. That 650 decided to have a rest in the soft sand next to the tractor and it took us a while to get it up and on the road again. Before you ask me why, I never picked up and turned around a 200kg bike in sand before okay?  Thatâ??s also one of the many reasons why we were going on the course.

Anyway it wasn´t long after that that I began to get really anxious because the sun was getting low and we still had to refuel in Amersfoort. We got to T junction and I knew we had to go left to the course, but we first had to go right into town. And that was nearly 30km away! We were both now really zipping along to beat the dark to Amersfoort.  The problem was D has never been able to drive in the dark, never mind ride. Itâ??s a night blindness thing.

Along comes this bakkie with JJRed and his wife inside and towing a trailer with a beaut 990 on the back. How I wanted to get our bikes onto that trailer. I nearly lost it trying to wave him down and stop at the same time, but somehow kept things in the balance. JJ says â??Hey how was the course, did you just finish it?â?
â??No, listen. Were in trouble we still need to get fuel. We can't ride at night. Can you tell them at the course to send out a vehicle (read: Helicopters, rescue parties, trailers and large barrels of beer). We are not going to make it.â?  I get this blank, stunned look. â??Heh? Ok then.â? And with a quick â??Thanksâ?, I was off in a cloud of dust, holding onto my noble yellow steed as it tried its best to toss me into the grass.

We eventually got to the little dump called Amersfoort, that used to the worlds biggest producer of wool. D filled up first and hit the road immediately, I would catch up and she was to stop when she could not see anymore. Anyway five minutes later I was also on my way, cruising at 120km/hr in the dark to catch up. And I really battled to too. Where was D? Had she taken the wrong road, was she in trouble?  :-\

My heart was in my mouth as it was now completely dark and there was no sign of her. This is when I realized our bike to bike radios would probably work, and sure as eggs they did even though we were quite a few kilometers apart. I eventually caught up with her, it turned out that her new glasses made a huge difference. She had been cruising at 100!  Soon we caught up with Byron who was also on his way to the course with his beaut 990 in tow too. We rode in a kind of convoy to the course venue from there, as he had the GPS and all I had was directions that confused me.

So we finally arrived tired and dusty around 7 pm just in time to catch the rescue party were setting out. no barrels of beer, no maidens dressed in nurses uniform. Only Jan 'Staal' and his pickup.

Day 2, 3 & 4 (the course)

Im not going to write about this other than to say that it was an EXCELLENT but intensive course that is a must for anyone riding dirt. We both learnt a lot and made a lot of good friends too. Thanks Jan, Elsie and JP for your fantastic hospitality, wonderful facilities and patient instruction. Thanks also to all who attended, we had a lot of fun.

Here is a group pic:

Posers on the left:

Posers on the right:

Okay, who wouldnt pose with such beautiful bikes??  ot:

Our Countrytrax Instructors JP and Jan with Johan, our hero participant who turned out also to be an instructor!

Johan gassing it on the Oval track: Great fun

Eina, my hand is sore...maybe this coffee will help.

"Oom Staal, can ek nog n' Cookie kry asseblief?"

The lodge is all hand crafted cedar: Beautiful.
No one saw the lurking 1100 engine in the ceiling waiting to pounce on it next victims until it was too late...

The course finished us on our new bikes, unfit as we were. On the Sunday, so fatigued in fact that we were, we just rode to Paulpietersburg and crashed for two whole days in a semi-catatonic state at D´s ouma´s place.  I have huge respect for those guys on the course with us who had to go to work the next day!

 

[BlueBull2007]

Day 5

We left Dee´s ouma (grandmother) in Paulpietersburg around 10 and hit the tar road to Pongola via Piet Retief. The decision was to stick to tar for a bit so Dee could gain some confidence after hitting some sandy sections of road at 110km/hr between the course venue and PP and having a of a tank slapping moment or three.

The last bit of the road before the border post goes through a wildlife reserve and we had the pleasure of seeing a young giraffe and some bokkies and stuff.

Arriving at the border:

With the routine of the border behind us we stopped to adjust and tighten my clutch control which had worked loose and our bikes enjoyed the admiration of some young Swazi boys going past to the shop.

Having packed up everything, I found that my keys were missing! Shock and horror, a frantic search revealed no keys in any of the obvious places including in and under the bike. The conspiracy theories began to abound in my mind: The Swazi´s had stolen it. Impossible, they were never closer than 10m away. Yes but your back was turned and the little and etcetera etcetera.

Low and behold, a serious session of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth was narrowly averted when I eventually agreed to D´s suggestion and found that my keys were efficiently packed away in the toolkit back in the panniers! With a mumbled apology to the Swazi nation in general and cheesy grin at my laughing wife I swung back into the saddle and away we went.
To our amazement, many of the dirt roads on my map turned out to be tarred.

Not to be outdone, we continued to the north, knowing that sooner or later the roads would deteriorate into something we would enjoy.

Stopping to rest and have a drink:

Time wore on and a couple of missed turns added about 150km to the trip.

Yours truely at some fuel station somewhere in Swaziland

It was after five in the afternoon as we hit dirt, it was going to be hard going to get to our destination, Piggs Peak in time before dark.

As we began to climb into the mountains, D lost her nerve on a steep climb. We were both tired riding all day, and still being riding unfit I believe this had a lot to do with it.

We parked the bikes off the road and considered the options before us: D had had enough. I ride on and get a support vehicle from the hotel, or we camp next to the road in the middle of nowhere.  I was not happy leaving D by herself so the latter really was the only option. After about an hour, a kind old man and his family of 14 offered us accommodation outside his modest shack. I think the specter of being watched all night by the kids galvanized D into action, because she jumped up, graciously declined and said â??Well let´s get this done withâ?.

So off we went, in the pitch dark, through the highlands of Lesotho. We rode side by side to improve on the lighting, except on blind corners to the right, where I pulled back into D´s dust. The riding wasn´t too technical apart from the odd cow or two that were lying on the warm surface. We took it slow as well, an off at this time by either one of us would have been disastrous. Some forty kilometers later we arrived at Piggs Peak and after finding the cop shop, we got directions to the most must be the most expensive hotel in all of Africa, okay maybe Swaziland. R1,200.00 later we were able to have a good shower and a decent meal, relieved to be in one piece and finally at our destination.
Nine hours on the road, well done D!

 

[BlueBull2007]

Day 6

The next morning we raised aching bodies for a great breakfast and another late start for the border and Barberton mountain land.

Onto the Dirt from Piggs Peak

The ride took us through  huge area devastated by fire perhaps a year ago:

The ride was fantastic,

through beautiful scenery:

To the quaint old mining town called Bulembu, which is not unlike Penge in the Limopopo Province.

Coming into Bulembu

They mined gold and asbestos here, and its probably not to safe to live here for any appreciable length of time due to the exposed dumps.

Nevertheless, the sleepy town is still inhabited and there is a relaxed air to it.

D Battling to turn around in a dead end:

Bulembu School:

They also have a really nice golf course which begged to be ridden on. I managed to refrain ;D

Bulembu also has that famous aerial ropeway stretching 32km to Barberton that used to haul the gold ore around 100 years ago. Here is the end of the cable way.

There are stories of guys illegally riding the hoppers home over the mountains and valleys, and getting stranded and freezing to death 400m above the valley floor when the system was turned off for the night. I would love to read up about this, it must have been an amazing thing to see in operation. Anyway the cables and towers and everything are still there. It´s an impressive piece of engineering that you must see if you are in the area.

Leaving the town

Dappled light

The Road to the Border

On the other side of the border there used to be a really hectic logging road, but unfortunately this was being upgraded to tar, with much of it already completed.

We did this road years ago on our Honda 250´s and it was really quite challenging. Still the scenery is excellent, and I was a little sad to know we are probably the last bikers to do dirt on this section of road.

Waiting for road construction people:

Why cant we go round the left of that truck?

Coming up to one of the cable stations:

 

[BlueBull2007]

The road nearing completion:

Dropping down to Barberton is impressive.

Over lunch in Barberton

we decided a bit more dirt would be necessary with a camp in the mountains, so we returned up the pass we had just descended and turned off at top to a place called Shiyalongubodam â?? Try saying that with a sandwich in your mouth! 

It was a great dirt route taking us through a huge sappi plantation.

We really had a lot more confidence by now and were cruising quite nicely along the narrow track.

The road also goes through a nice big chunk of riverine forest, and we stopped for a breather on the other side:

D took this left hairpin too fast:

and could not find her rear brake in time to tap off the speed, dodged a trunk with a deep donga behind it and ended up under the bike in a large, thick bush. Coming round the corner to see her under the bike really freaked me out as well, but amazingly she had no serious injuries. It really pays to wear ATGATT. Her pads in her jacket saved her from was could have been a broken back.

She was really shaken, but to her credit she got back on the bike and we rode on a good few kilometers.

We got to a populated area and this time we were not going to camp in the dark, so we backtracked to close to the scene of the incident and snuck off and camped on a side road in an area were a whole lot of trees had been recently felled.

Only 6 hours on the road today, but we wanted to relax and do the camping thing, something we both love.

The new R300 tent proved to be suitable for midgets and pygmys but I guess thats what you get for R300. Still apart from that it was a good tent.

Day 7

We rose before the sun, and as we were packing up a team of tree planters arrived in a big truck and made casual conversation with us in Zulu. To my horror and disgust while I could understand them perfectly well, my ability to converse in the language had been abominated by the Spanish we have been learning in Peru. My Zulu vocabulary has all but disappeared! They had no clue what I was saying so we spoke for a while in English instead. To our surprise they unearthed a whole lot of digging tools and stuff from hiding places around our camp!

Setting off, with the scene of the accident in the background.

The road took us past a beautiful lake which I failed to photograph and down a steep mountain pass: Louws Pass. Again, no photos, our camera battery was now flat, the ride was technical, and we needed our wits about us to deal with the churned up surface and the wide Bell B20 ton dump trucks hauling ore up to the nearby gold plant. D was very nervous indeed and initially wanted me to take the bike down the mountain while she walked. I took it down 200m but then she decided walking was for the dogs and she was going to do it with the engine off. She managed well, took it really slow, and eventually turned the engine as well.

Unfortunately on one of the hairpin bends the 650 showed its dark and dirty side and plopped over in some deep, thick, powder. She was very upset indeed, but despite this she calmed herself down and got back on the bike, finished the pass on her own steam. I have to say in her position, I  donâ??t think I would have managed. She later told me she even considered riding the thing off a precipice, jumping off before it got too close, but didnt have the guts for the jump.

We soon joined the Road from Barberton to Kaapmuiden at Louws Creek to discover that they had no unleaded fuel. Not a problem for the 650, but I had burned up more fuel on my 800 the previous day, ferrying water to our campsite from the river, and burning dirt looking for a decent camp. We trundled slowly and actually made it easily with the clock still reading 25km-to-go-till-empty.

I found the range-tll-empty function on the bike to be extremely useful, although it is not very accurate for the first 80-100km after having filled up. If you have 650 or 800 GS donâ??t worry if it tells you that the range is only have 212km just after filling, it takes about 80km [correction its kilometers not metres!]  to sort itself out. We tested this function to the limit on our subsequent "LimopopoTrax" trip (RR coming up soon, more on that later).

After a quick refuel in Kaapmiuden, we headed to Nelspruit via the tarred Boulders pass, a very bendy, nice ride through a nature reserve with great views of the granite mountains. We wolfed down two steers burgers at the shopping centre in Nelspruit and discussed possible ways on to Dullstroom on dirt. Eventually we took the main road out to Sudwala caves and instead of going to the caves, we continued along a bad dirt road to Lydenburg, about 60km. 

This made for good technical riding up a pass that I wouldnâ??t want to do in a cage. Boulders and rocks are strewn everywhere along a very dusty and bumpy road, riddled with wash outs and ditches. We stopped a few times along this road, to rest, our muscles and hands in particular were really aching. This riding is tiring stuff, but great fun too.

The last bit over the top is really spectacular, with a â??God´s windowâ? type view over forests and the lowveldt. We took a wrong turn but fortunately were nearly run over by two young guys in a Sappi vehicle who got us back onto the main road. This was quite fun, because it involved backtracking down a very steep road, something D was not confident to do. She managed easily though, and the experiences earlier in the day must have steeled her for the challenge, because not only was it steep, but the surface consisted of that evil fine powder that gets everywhere and is more like riding in thick sand.

Anyway the last stretch to Lydenburg was good dirt and we cruised in at speed, spoiling ourselves to some cold cokes at a road side pub when we got there. Then it was the tar schlep through to Dullstroom, cold beer and tea for D.

Another long day, 9 hours of riding.

Day 8

This was pretty straight forward, boring tar back to Pretoria, all the way. We considered doing some dirt, but we had things to do, I needed to buy some gear for the caving trip the next day and we both needed some rest.

Nevertheless this was a great trip, not without its mishaps, and something that in our inexperienced books would probably be epic. Perhaps one day in the future we will do the trip again and find it easy, I donâ??t know. For the both of us though, it was a toughie 2,200km for the time being.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Lito]

:thumleft: :thumleft: :thumleft: :thumleft:  fantastic ride report!!!!

Wow..... really nice and inspiring. And great photography!  :deal:

:thumleft:

 

[keithk]

Super RR, congrats to D for enduring , sounds like you are already well prepared for your adventures overseas , is there place for another ??  ;D  Good Luck and safe riding  :thumleft:  :thumleft:

 

[letsgofishing]

Great ride guys - respect to you both!

 

[JJred]

Bravo bravo !!!!!

See BB there is nothing wrong with D's riding... no need to sell her bike.

Brilliant on the both of you...

D hang in there, the riding will only get better from here

 

[Malibu]

Fantastic report!  And D looks terrific on her bike!  A bit more saddle time and she'll feel brilliant on it!  :thumleft:

 

[iep_kruger]

wooo hooooo,,,,dammm that brought back some great memories,,,

those roads are super great, even with the road works as well

i often think what will it be like when it has rained,,,,wooo hooo,,,heaven

but well done to both of yous and thanx for sharing the trip and the pics and report

 

[Misty]

That is one amazing ride and adventure you guys had â?? great pics and great RR â?? those roads look like a lot of fun to ride and in such beautiful scenery â?? well done both of you!  :thumleft:

 

[FortyZA]

Well done to both of you. Great report and nice picks.
PM sent.

 

[JonW]

Great Report guys......really nice to be able to share experiences like this with each other.

Keep the bike D, you won't regret it!

 

[Smithey]

Fantastic report. Great pictures and commentary.

 

[Yefimovich]

Awesome Report! The On-bike photies uber kewl! :ricky:

 

[Plothond]

Very very nice
Lekker report and some very nice on-the-go pics

Keep the bike - you guys did well

 

[johang]

Hi you guys, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow evening.  It's a bit sad that you guys have to leave.  But hopefully we will see some good ride reports from Peru as well.

Yes, the fitness plays a big role later in the day.

Excellent photos, I am impressed, just hang in there bot of you, the end is in sight!!

Good wishes eepwall:

 

[pierredb]

Hats off to both of you. lovely ride report! ;D

 

[Cave Girl]

Nice one BB glad you found the time to post before you left.
Now how about that caving thread 

 

[dieterf]

excellent report. well done and enjoy your further travels  :thumleft: