Day 4: Baviaanskloof to Willowmore via Antoniesberg Pass
Distance: 243 km
Moving time: 05:51:40
Total time: 08:03:20
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here for Google Map
Since we had a kettle at our disposal, we had some cappuccino and rusks for breakfast. We always travel with rusks and instant cappuccino on the off chance that we happen across some boiling water…
We said goodbye to Baviaans, heading to Patensie for some fuel…
…and then doubled back roughly 5km to take the Elandsrivier road in the Willowmore direction.
It had been decided: we would try
Antoniesberg Pass
Early on, the scenery demanded your full attention.
This could be a problem, as the road progressively got worse. I hit a pot-hole hard and almost immediately started hearing a strange sound coming from the back of my bike. I stopped, thinking I had picked up a rear puncture. My poor bike endured some tyre-kicking before I was assured that my tyres were fine. I did a slower lap around my bike, this time looking for fluids. Nope. The next lap was made at snail’s pace. I spotted a blackish mark at the base of my number plate. Then I knew where to look for the trouble.
My bike has a history of shedding bits. The back-end once rattled loose completely on a previous day-ride. It was hanging by a thread (actually a wire in that case). I lost my number-plate during that ride.
This time round it wasn't just a loose screw that was the cause. One of the plastic mounting pieces had sheared off. The number-plate had been dragging on the back tyre; hence the black mark and strange noise.
Lance eventually realised I was not in his rear-view mirrors and headed back. The cable-ties were at the bottom of his bag, so we went with the option that was easier to reach: duct tape. Never leave home without it!
Nothing that a little duct tape can’t fix!
See the tweespoor on the left? That was our route.
The road is nicely sign-posted (Grootrivierpoort), but do not let this fool you into thinking that this is a “gravel highway.”
There was no gradual road deterioration. Within the space of 10-20m, the road went from passable to really, really rough. The warning signs were loud and clear. Given this, at least from the Patensie side, you are afforded the luxury to make the decision on whether to turn around quite early into your trip. I was game for the challenge, so we headed onwards. My fear is sand; not rocks. As long as I can ride slowly on the technical bits (read: first gear), I am ok.
The view was indescribably beautiful. This is what I imagine Lesotho must look like. In contrast to the main Baviaans route (called T1), the T2 (Grootrivierpoort) route travels on the mountain ridges rather than in the kloofs.
This road will be far worse in a car. On a bike, you have more options, including completely off the road!
More stunning vistas
Perhaps not the best line…
Don’t fall into the donga
Pick a line!
The following piece of road was the only stretch where the fear-factor kicked in. It does not look bad on the photo below, but photos tend to bugger around with depth perception. The gradient is incredibly steep and the footing is loose and stepped. The road also curves to the right. Or at least one of the options goes in that direction - from about this point onwards, the road splits a number of times as people tried to find a better route. We wanted to head right, because there was one lonely tree that could offer a patch of welcome shade in the blistering heat of the day – see it?
At this point I lost my mojo. I picked a bad line, went over a rock step, freaked out, hit the brakes and hit the deck. My left foot was wedged toe-down into the ground, with the weight of my bike resting on my heel. If not for the steel shank in my boot’s sole, my foot would have been folded in half or my Achilles torn (this happened to a friend of mine). As it was, I was stuck good and proper and the pain was increasing as my foot was being squished. I could not pull my foot out from beneath the bike.
Meanwhile, Lance, who was ahead, heard my bike go down through his headset (you get a tell-tale revving noise when the throttle is not yet disengaged but your wheels have disengaged from the earth). He turned to look at what had happened and promptly had a side-stand incident. Great. I could not expect speedy help from that quarter. In the end, I managed to forcefully drag my foot out of the boot (the boot still stayed put). My foot was sore for a bit afterwards, but it could have been much worse.
Lance’s perspective as he walked back up the steep curve to get to me.
You get a better idea of the road’s condition and gradient from this angle.
Note to self and anybody out there who wants to follow this route: I would not want to ride this route in the opposite direction (from Steytlerville/Willowmore to Patensie) or in the wet. Some crazy people have done it though.
Thinking about life and my boot, which is still stuck somewhere beneath my bike.
I went over the rock step on the right
Me and my trusty boot. I’d broken a foot only 18 months previously. I don’t mean to do it again.
No fluids or damage (or at least no new scratches that I can distinguish from the plethora of existing scratches). A fall at 5km/h doesn’t have too much damage potential other than the squash factor.
Just as I climbed back on my steed, we saw the first and only vehicle we would see on the Antoniesberg stretch of road. He stopped so as to allow me to continue on my merry way; thinking I would go straight, but I actually wanted to go right towards the shady tree. Now I had to turn sharply behind him on steep, loose road without losing it again. Sigh. At least I managed. Lance queried the driver as to the road conditions up ahead. The driver said it was very bad. Could it be worse than the section we had just completed?
Still one more obstacle stood between us and the shady tree (do you see the tree?): we had to lift Lance’s heavily-laden bike.
When Lance’s bike was back in the upright position, I struggled to right my bike, as I had stupidly parked it on a left-leaning slope. Scrap that thought. I am actually just dancing a tango with my machine.
We finally reached The Tree.
Its shade was incredibly welcome.
For those who are ultra-observant: yes, I have been wearing the same top for 3 days now. It’s called packing light.
When we continued, we found out that the road actually got better (at least from a biker’s perspective).
More avoidable dongas.
Waving to a little kid at the farm gate. I don’t think they see a lot of traffic on this piece of road.
We finally reached Grootrivierpoort. The water level was low, thanks to the drought.
We found a tree with shade. Unfortunately, so did the whole area’s ant population. They were big and angry blighters. Hence, our boots had to sit out in the sun to avoid becoming the next ant colony hotel.
If you lay flat on your back, there was just enough water to cover you. Yet again, we had decided to skinny-dip, considering the desolate nature of the road.
At one point, we thought we heard someone approaching. It ended being a couple of someones – woolly someones.
The road got much better after the poort.
The route is nicely sign-posted from the other side as well.
We spotted a wider river as we were heading upwards. That would have been preferable for our swim.
The pass climbed even further. The drop can give you heart palpitations if heights are not your thing. Notice how I’m keeping far left.
After Antoniesberg, we continued to follow the Baviaans T2 / Grootrivierpoort route. I think I would have enjoyed it more if not for the blistering heat. Any shade was an invitation to stop.
We cut out a bit of the T2, heading to the R329, as Lance wanted to show me the concrete road towards Willowmore. This piece of gravel, off the main T2, ending up being the most interesting. We saw duikers, vervet monkeys and even a hare.
Unfortunately the only creature of interest we caught on camera were some rams…
…and a whole family of collie dogs.
The one puppy showed a bit more dedication than his peers. He eventually did turn around close to the inevitable farm gate.
East of Willowmore, we hopped onto the 36km one-of-its-kind stretch of cement road. It was built in the 1950s. Back then, cement was cheaper than tar, which had to be imported. One funny anecdote offered up by the Internet concerns a German tourist in a rented vehicle. He threw up his hands in the air and stopped right in the middle of the road when a car approached from the opposite side - he simply did not know what to do!
I suppose this did not occur to him:
We would spend the night at
Jumper’s Place, a biker-friendly backpackers.
Lance’s bike was also tired after the day’s exertions:
Rony showing us around in our digs.
We had our second cold shower of the trip, as the geyser had not yet had time to heat up, but we wanted to get clean NOW. By this point in time, my boots had so much personality that they were left to sleep outside. I would highly recommend Jumper’s Place’s steaks. They were huge and yummy.
It was still very hot, even at night, so we slept in our sleeping bag liners, rather than under the supplied duvets. At midnight, I was woken up by ravenous hordes of mozzies. There was no escape. They chewed me right through the liner. Lance’s brilliant plan was to pitch our tent outside, making sure no mozzies got in. We left off the flysheet, so that we could have the full benefit of any breeze that happened to wander along, but the under-layer’s mesh kept the mozzies at bay.
