Me and Johan went for a dirt road ride on Sunday the 22nd. We left the local Engen at about 6am and had to make a 1 hour stop at Johan’s place of work for him to do his production logs at the mine.
We started by taking the Rooiberg turnoff from the R511 about 15km out of Thabazimbi and headed in the direction of Verdrag, the police training facility. The road was slightly damp from a bit of rain the previous few days which helped with limiting the dust and compacting the loose sand :ricky:.
After passing Verdrag we headed towards Alma. Before reaching Alma we turned left in the direction of Vaalwater. We found numerous animals along the roads on the farms. In this section we even saw a large herd of buffalo. We reached the Vaalwater / Nylstroom tar road about 14km from Vaalwater. By this time, we were quite hungry and stopped for the hamburger & chips. Unfortunately I did not take a pic of the hamburger as the WD custom is for ride reports.
From Vaalwater we took the tar road towards Lephalale. We took the Schoongelegen dirt road. Johan calls it the snake road as he had numerous encounters previously with black mambas on this road. Even once he witnessed his brother jumping from his KLR and landing with the KLR on the mamba :eek7: :imaposer:. Therefore, Johan kindly allowed me to take the lead on this road
.
The security guard at the anti-poaching boom gate told as that the road is closed as a bridge collapsed after the rains. He said that we had a slight possibility to pass through with the bikes.
Challenge accepted :thumleft:. I have always enjoyed this section of road between the mountains with a number of mountain stream crossings. We were able to cross the stream where the brige was washed away without too much of effort. By this time, it was time to head home as the temperatures were between 37 and 40 degc.
The total round trip for the day was about 320km of which about 280km was scenic dirt roads between the mountains and local game farms.