The POMPHUIS BIKERS CHRONICLES

[bonova]

POMPHUIS BIKERS CHRONICLES:

I'm sure that i've left out stuff, and some of the other guys will no doubt post pics and stuff  :thumleft:

The Chaps:
Garrick Ponte, Claude Deyzel (Crazy Horse) Koos Wessels, Ryan Leliard, Peter How (bonova).

Garrick

Koos

Ryan

Claude

Peter (me)

The Bikes:
4 x BMW 650 DAKARS, one x 2003, 2 x 2006 and 1 x 2007 models, Mileage all around 30K, 1 x KTM 990 Adventure S – mileage – 6000 Km, 1 x BMW X-Challenge Mileage 1300 km – that makes 6 bikes, with 5 guys…

The Plan:
Our plan was to travel through Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Namibia, as well as a lot of SA. We wanted to do as much dirt and off-road as possible, and didn’t want a back up vehicle (no one would be able to say nasty things like they say about Ewan and Charlie’s trip  ;D
We also wanted to rough it wherever possible, meaning camping.
We estimated 15000km and 2 ½ months for the trip.

Claude:
‘The inspiration for this trip started along way back.  Our first trip took place in 2002 when a group of Varsity friends went on a journey up to Northern Tanzania on a project called ‘Vetbooks for Africa’.  6 of us traveled in two bakkies for 36 days.  As we finished our studies we decided to get together every two years, our first reunion being Zanzibar in 2006.  During this holiday we rented bikes for a day, giving bike riding 101 to many of our mates, which led to a very entertaining day.  This day claimed many victims including suturing one of our friends, many close encounters with the traffic and the disappearance of a few, to be found many hours later. 
It was there and then that we decided to repeat this adventure on a larger scale.  An approximate date was set and 5 of us committed to the trip.’ 

Peter:
A bike trip of this magnitude, with no back up, is not for pissies, and one must choose your mates carefully to make sure that when the proverbial shit hits the fan (and it’s going too…), everyone keeps positive and pulls together. I don’t think anyone could choose a better bunch of chaps. As Gazza would say about taking some idiot on a trip like this: “I’d rather baste myself in honey and play catch with a Grizzly bear”.

Ok, so it all started a long while ago planning wise. What with all of us being spread across the globe (SA, UK, AUS), it took some coordination.
Being a long trip (3 months holiday), the main thing was to plan to quit our jobs…which 4 of us successfully did, and one managed to get 3 months off work – sweet!

Then, there was the small detail of bikes. Koos and Garrick didn’t have a bike with less than a year to go, let alone a licence. Koos managed to get a good deal on a bike early in the year, and had a fair bit of practise pre-trip. He also just managed to get his licence a few days before leaving. Garrick left it to the last milli-second, did his learners a week before, and rode his bike for the 1st time a mere 3 days before leaving… Interesting…. I recall the story of him making it about 5 meters before dropping it nicely on the cement, scratching his new helmet and denting his pride.

Now this deserves mentioning: Garrick had never ridden a bike in anger before. Apart from some tar road riding training in the UK, which amounted to a few hours only (trying to squeeze in a licence before the trip), he was basically a virgin biker.
He’s got co-ords though, I’m sure he’ll manage…..
We bought his bike while we were still in the UK from Wes in Cape Town (the-wes) and Claude went and collected it for us. It was a 2007 Dakar with 30000km on the clock. Also worth mentioning, was that all things being equal, Garrick could not touch his feet on the ground while astride his shiny new steed (with standard seat on….and it had a standard seat on J)

Claude and Garrick met up in Mamesbury, where they did some last organizing, before heading to Napier to pick up Koos. Here Koos and Garrick traded seats, Koos being happier with a standard one, and Garrick getting slightly more foot time with the lowered seat from Koos – all going well…
The Plan was for them all to meet myself and Ryan in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, in a few days, travelling some nice scenic routes on the way up.
Everything went a bit pear shaped, Injuries were had, a bike was smashed, beers were drunk. But I wasn’t there, so Claude will give the account…..

Claude:
Garrick and I left Malmesbury on the morning of the 15th travelling down to the southern Cape to meet up with Koos.  Koos’ brother travelled with us for two days.  On our way to Malgas we met the crazy Irish guy Mike for the first time.  He has been travelling for a year and a half from Ireland down the west coast of Africa.  This being his turning point to start his journey up the east coast of Africa back to Ireland.
Outside Riversdale Garrick had a bad accident after hitting a hidden muddy road at about 100km/h.  If it wasn’t for the Leatt Neck Brace and ATGATT his trip would have ended that day.  Luckily these bike can take the punch and the local bike expert, Bertie, had the bike up and running in 2 days.  We would just like to thank Bertie, his family and friends who treated us like long lost family while Garrick and his bike were in rehab.
Koos, Garrick and I left for Queenstown stopping along the way to say farewell to the respective concerned parents.

I in the mean time was blaming myself for the accident and worrying that I shouldn’t have gotten Gazza into this. Anyway, all turned out fine, and they were on their way after a few days, x-rays, pain-killers, some Chinese parts on Gazza’s bike (handle bars, mirrors etc), a missing windscreen and some seriously panel-beaten panniers.
I was also worrying for Ryan, who lost his passport 5 days before the trip – in a bike shop in AUS, 12 hours before his flight to SA. The Omens were piling up.

A little pretrip ride past Wildschutsberg Game Farm

However, 3 days pre leaving date (from Queenstown), we were all sitting pretty on the farm.
Work started in earnest on the bikes now. Tyres and tubes needed changing, uni-filters needed fitting, new sprockets and chains needed fitting, new battery for the one bike, 12 v sockets, radiator protectors, fork protectors, panniers and racks needed tweaking, spares and equipment needed to be counted and checked, and generally, the bikes needed going over.
Claude and myself got out bikes serviced in East London at KTM and BMW respectively as our bikes were still in the warranty period..
We were still waiting for Ryans’ passport at the Mozam embassy, and international drivers licences for Ryan and myself that were in Bloem. With some frantic couriering it all got there in time - sort of.

Working on the bikes

 

[Metaljockey]

This looks like it could be lekker.

 

[pierredb]

This looks good......next installment please!! ;D

 

[the_BOBNOB]

so many dakars all togehter  :drif:

 

[oo7]

:happy1:

 

[bonova]

Eventually, time eeked by, and we could leave. A small complication was that Ryan had to wait in Queenstown another day for this passport. Garrick and Claude had managed to break the bead on the new rear Dunlop 606 tyre on Gazza’s bike while putting it on (and Claude bent the tyre leaver…well, the man is stronger than Chuck Norris after all, and can actually kill you with a thought…).
Fortunately Koos noticed on the morning we were leaving that the tyre had a serious wobble, and we had to change it for a new T63 that I had lying around. Also, we noticed Garrick had a front puncture, so we just filled it with slime and it held (for the whole trip as a matter of fact). The rest of us headed to our farm near Sterkstroom, slept the night there, and rode some beautiful dirt roads between Sterkstroom and Dordrecht the next day, where Ryan caught us.
It was cold that morning...

We waited in a nice little church coffee shop for him, which the ladies opened especially for us nice and early. Some guys in a bakkie (who could easily have passed for Oom Schalk Louwrens – with long beards etc) called the church lady when they saw us milling around outside. It was late in august, but it was still very much winter.
The church in Dodge city (Dordrecht)

Finally, we could put the stress behind and hit the road proper – it was superb. To look behind in a sweeping bend and see 4 headlights tailing you was just great.

On the way to Telebridge

We took back roads as much as possible, and stopped a good few times to just grin and take it all in. Our next stop was the border into Lesotho – Telebridge.

Everything went smoothly at the border until Ryan’s turn. The police wanted to lock him up – accusing him of being in SA illegally. He had brought his new Dutch passport, and it didn’t have a new visa stamp. Bugger. After a discussion, it was decided he would return home to fetch his old one, and meet us at Sani Top in 3 days by going around to catch up time. We carried on into Lesotho. Our destination: Malealea.

Lesotho was not new to me, but it never fails to inspire. Amazing views, friendly people (mostly) and lots of donkeys. We wound our way north, through Holy Cross and Mohale’s Hoek on dirt roads and tracks to get to Malealea in the dark. It was a stunning ride. Fast and slow, with the slow riding into dusk being a highlight of the day – spanning the last 15 km on a nice winding track.
No major issues since the border apart from a mild dropped bike by Gazza when he stopped on a camber and couldn’t touch the ground.
We unpacked our kit and headed to the bar for some well deserved drinks and a great 3 course supper. There at the restaurant we bumped into Thabo, a Lesotho prince who we all studied with – small world…
Also, there were some people shooting a movie there – they thought very highly of themselves, and note-worthy was the cameraman who kept telling me that the reason my external lense on my camera was out of focus was an issue with the main camera autofocus or something, even after I had told him I’d checked it. He was adamant though, and a bit kuired, so I left it. It turned out that the bad roads had vibrated the lense of the external camera loose and I had to disassemble it and fix it with some electrical tape at Katse later.
Idiot

Dinner at Malealea - Gazza "so i ramped over THAT rock...."

End of day one…

 

[bonova]

Day2
Next morning we had a lazy packing session and after studying the maps etc headed off. Destination: Semokong
We headed west 1st and then took the 1st road that headed North East. It was a little track, with some mild technical sections for the 1st 20 km or so. We were pretty heavily loaded on the bikes, with spare fuel on board in case we didn’t find. This was great going, potting along and stopping often for photo’s.

Lunch on the way to Semonkong

At Ralequeka, we needed to head east to get to the main road. This is where the fun and games began. The standing joke was that I misread the map, thinking it was a biking trail, whereas it was actually a HIKING trail. It was actually marked as “offroad and difficult” on the Tracks for Africa map. Just the thing for loaded bikes.
There were some very technical sections.

On a really steep downhill section, with rocks and a sharp bend, Koos ended up dropping his bike upside-down into a gully. It was a hard fall for the bike, but apart from a bent mirror and scratched pannier, no major damage. Claude rode Gazza’s bike down after that. After this there was a really long river crossing, with tonnes of loose boulders knocking the bikes wheels all over. Koos and myself made it across. Claude was unlucky to lay his bike down softly, and Garrick soldiered across with some guidance and pushing from Claude.
At this point here was the typical discussion: Do we turn back and go around – a long way to get around? Or do we go on?
Everyone was keen to go on.
The risk of damaging a bike seriously on this road was good. My rear Michelin T63 was almost bald, Koos had a newish Michelin sirac on the rear, Claude a worn Scorpion tyre, and Garrick was the only one with some traction with his new T63. We were all carrying replacement offroad orientated tyres (exept Garrick), but needed to save them for Mozam and the sand else we would run out of rubber before Malawi. On the next uphill, Claude had 2 nasty falls with his heavily loaded bike up a steep rocky section, and ended up breaking off a water carrying jerry-can and damaging his left pannier. After this I was nominated to ride the rest of the bikes up that section. We were still loving it, but the likelihood of a fall that could end the trip for a bike was sinking in.
At this point Gazza coined the road the p&*s-k*$t-d**s road J (I think it may have been part of the roof enduro at some point, but I could well be wrong.)

Part of the P K D road

Actually, after that the road was manageable, if not pretty extreme for a fully loaded bike. We eventually burst out onto the main road that turned south-east towards Semokong. It was just 1 km from the town that Claude ran out of petrol. No problem, we filled up from the jerry cans and headed through to the very beautiful Semokong lodge on the river.

On the road

We organised a nice chalet and chucked our kit down to head for the bar. Many stories were told about the trials of the day, and a MASSIVE T-bone steak was consumed.
There was a large group of missionaries there, and we traded some stories before they headed to bed and left us talking shit late into the night with some tourists and a girl who worked at the lodge-she was weird, but good conversation.

Things might have gotten a little out of hand...

Tally for the day: Gazza: 9 spills, Koos 2, Claude 3. Two bent mirrors, broken indicator, broken pannier, lost bolt on pannier rack, water carrier attachment broken, Hangover for the next day. Awesome – that was day two.

 

[bonova]

DAY 3:
Destination – Katse Dam – it’s a long way.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way north-east towards Katse from Semokong. There is a road marked “bad road” on the GPS, and I’d love to go ride it one day, aswell as Baboon’s pass, but we decided that discression was the better part of valour, (that and we were fast running out of indicators and mirrors J) and backtracked north west up to the tar road that runs south of Mohale dam, over Bushmans pass, God help me pass, Blue mountain pass and Jackals pass and on to Katse. These are stunning tar road passes, with footpeg scraping corners, and brake-pad burning decents. It was also absolutely freezing, with ice in places.

Just before Thaba-Seka, we turned north on a fairly bad dirt road towards Katse Dam
and had to make up some time as the sun was already getting low.

We did really well, flying around corners, and hammering the bikes over the potholed road. Each time I
looked behind me, it was great to see 3 headlights, stuck to each other like shit to a
blanket, bobbing and weaving around rocks, potholes and cows, and sucking dust and
rocks. The light was incredible and the dust hung around in the road. We arrived at
Katse Village just as dark descended, and booked into the dorms there.
Smiles all round and Garrick declared that he and his bike now finally came to an
understanding on that last fast dirt section, and he was starting to feel right on her.
This made me happy.
It was a meal of soya-mince, tuna and noodles, with some game. One of the very few days that no beer passed our lips, but it was worth it. This was also the 1st day that Gazza did not fall at all – good work all round.
End of day 3 – everything going smoothly

Cooking at Katse

 

[gcsvShredder]

awesome report bonova, awesome trip guys!!! one wack adventure by the looks of it! good stuff! :thumleft:

 

[bonova]

Day 4.
Now we had to haul ass today. Destination Sani Top.

Katse dam

We headed over the Senqu river just below the Dam wall, and then took a dirt road that hugged the dam, heading North, eventually meeting the tar road A25 which crossed the dam and continued north. At Ha-Lejone, we turned right onto a dirt road that headed north and then turned east to Kao mine.

This road to the mine is ok, with lots of fun river crossings. At one point we stopped on a long low bridge. The wind was pumping, and Koos left his gloves on the bike. When we wanted to leave, one glove was missing… it had blown into the river. After much searching though, it was found downstream wedged against a rock – very lucky.

After the mine though, the road turned sour, labled as “very bad” and “slow and rough”. Steep rocky sections carried on for hundreds of meters, with large boulders, ruts and wash-aways. In one particularly bad section, Koos dropped his bike in some rocks and we stopped to take stock.

Gazza

It was decision time again – turn back and loose a day going around, or head on. I went 3 km ahead to suss out the situation, and discovered that the worst was mainly behind us already. So we headed onwards. Garrick had a hairy off in a muddy section, with deep holes, and another hard fall when his front wheel slipped badly on a smooth algae covered rock going through a stream.

We were really high now, and it was getting colder, but the effort of riding on these roads, in 1st and 2nd gear only, was keeping us warm. Eventually, we came out in Tlaeng pass, the highest Tar road in Africa. This road turned south again, and had a nasty gravel covering on the top of the tar. Garrick pulled up next to Claude, exasperation on his face now – “ how the hell do I ride this??” I chuckled to myself. The Dude just rode some of the worst roads imaginable, and now has to deal with a completely different type of riding skill. That’s what biking is about. You have to have your wits about you….

The wind here made for shitty riding conditions, but time was not on our side, so we hurried on towards Sani. After awhile the road turned to gravel, which was corrugated due to all the tourist activity from Sani. It was on this road that I had my 1st off. Typical - nice smooth gravel road. I was riding along at the back, minding my own business and waving to a small kid on the side of the road, when said kid decided to throw a rock at me. Now, you should never swerve, but it caught me off guard, only one hand on the bars, and standing, and next thing I know, my back wheel was sliding to the left from touching the rear brakes, and then I was on the dirt. I was going pretty slowly though, so apart from scratches, no major damage to the bike (those touratech panniers and the bomb) and I had a mild bruise to my elbow. When I looked up, the kid was hauling ass over the mountain – just aswell - the little shit.

We pulled into Sani top at sunset.

Ryan was there already and had booked us in. We ate supper and drank beers, gluwein and rum. The wind was absolutely horrendous, and it was still freezing.
End day 4: Gazza – lost track of number of falls. Koos a couple of offs, Claude none, and me – one.
Ryan had been blown over twice by the wind on the way up sani.
Gazza kept asking if the roads we were riding earlier were worse than Sani, cause everyone always says Sani is a bitch. I kept telling him that Sani was like a ripple in the sea compared to the tsunami we were on. But still Sani has a stigma attached to it, and being scared of something is the worst thing on a bike. That and the wind showed no sign of letting up. Talk about ABS brakes on gravel and clutch control ensued. In the end though, each to their own, and it comes down to just having the balls and not letting fear grip you. That, and an inch of experience. Gazza had no experience to hang onto, but balls, he had those a plenty, and somehow, managed to aquire some fairy dust that night for the trip down the next day.

 

[bonova]

Day 5 – worst day of my life so far (I’ve had a good life obviously  ;D.
Destination: Brett‘s (and Zee’s) House in Howick (a Vet mate from varsity)
Conditions: worst situation imaginable.
The wind was incredible. It blew our kit off the bikes while we tried to load them. Dust and gravel burnt your eyes if your visor was up, and you had to scream to be heard over the roar.
We did formalities at the border, and headed down.

Claude went 1st, because of the long 1st gear on his KTM. Garrick stuck to him, and that was the last I saw him until the bottom. Koos in 3rd, had a nasty time at the top. The wind made it very difficult, and he fell over 3 times on the 2nd and 3rd bend. I think it was nerves too, cause after Ryan and I helped get him going, he was fine again. At the SA border post we stopped and it was laughing and smiles all round. Turns out Garrick had fun on the way down, only dropping his bike once when a 4x4 stopped in the middle of the road and expected him to go round over some bad rocks on a corner. Koos enjoyed the rest of the road, and the rest of us had a blast too. Sani conquered.
It was then on to Underberg and some breakfast, after which we took the R617 towards Howick.

From Underberg, I was sweeping at the back. The wind was the worst I have ever ridden in, blowing us across the full width of the left lane of the road, and ripping at our helmets. It was pretty dangerous, and we had to go slowly, making the cars passing us the whole time a safety issue as well.
Next thing, around a corner, there was a veld fire ahead, with some smoke across the road. We slowed down, but the smoke was pretty mild, and thin. I was a distance behind the other bikes, hanging back, with a car on my rear when I entered the smokey area. Next thing I know, I could see absolutely nothing. NOTHING, not the road, not tail lights, not even my console. The wind had blasted up suddenly, fueling the fire into a thick yellow/white smoke that blackened out the sun completely. Now I’m tapping my brakes to show (hopefully) the car behind to brake, and hoping to break through the smoke. Things go through your head, but it was too quick, I had no time to make any decisions. Through the smoke, 1m away, I saw brake lights and then it was over. The only thing to go through my mind was ‘fuck, I’m toast’ amazingly calmly I might add.

The rest of the guys had narrowly avoided colliding with a bakkie that had stopped in the middle of the road. They had seen it just in time through a lull in the smoke. No such luck for me. I hit the back of Ryan’s Lt pannier and went over the handle bars. My bike bounced Lt into Garricks Rt pannier. There was an eternity of grating smashing sound in the howling wind, and then the choking smoke enveloped us all. I don’t remember hitting the ground. Next thing I was up and screaming at the others above the wind – “get off the road, get the bikes off the road” There were bits of bikes strewn all over. Claude turned around to slow traffic down and was almost taken out by cars rushing through blindly.
Through the smoke I could just make out the headlights of the car that had been behind me, about 10m short of us. Thankfully they had stopped. I ripped off my helmet, gagging on the fumes, my head spinning. I’m going to die here I thought. I couldn’t breath or see. It was terrifying. I ran over and threw my helmet into the back seat of that car and screamed “please stay there, don’t leave with my helmet” their eyes were big as saucers. I gasped some freshish air from inside the rear window. That car was protecting us from behind with their hazards on. All this time, other cars were rushing by, smashing bits of plastic from my bike that lay in the road. I grabbed Ryan’s goggles off his mirror and put them on. At least now I could see. After what seemed like an eternity, the smoke cleared a bit. We got the bikes onto the shoulder, and managed to tie Ryans pannier on again (it was smashed off the bike and needed to be retrieved from the middle of the road)
Bits were hanging off Gazza’s bike too. I cut straps holding them on with my leatherman and he shoved them in somewhere. I retrieved my helmet. After a quick look at my bike, saw it could still be rideable, we all shouted to one another to get out of the smoke. I was ready to just leave it there to burn, just to get to some fresh air. My bike fired up, and I rode it 800m up the road with Ryan behind me to were the others had stopped. It was all so surreal, and all of us just stood around coughing and shaking our heads in disbelief. We were all just happy all of us were ok, and really didn’t care about the bike. The front of my bike was pretty smashed, but actually, it was amazing how little major damage there was. It was still ridable – slowly, cause the front forks were bent, but after gathering our thoughts, we limped the last kays to Howick.
We drank a few beers to steel our nerves, and took in the reality of the situation. It was Sunday afternoon. My trip seemed to be pretty much over. There were valiant suggestions of others riding pillon to accommodate, but I knew that that was not realistic. All of the guys would have waited as long as it took to sort things out, but that would be stupid.

Feeling sorry for myself

The back of Ryans pannier (strapped back on)

After an early call to Ryder BMW in Hillcrest on Monday morning, they had the bike there by midday. They did a quick quote to fix it and now we waited for the assessor. The quote was R43000-00 odd, and it was almost a given they would write it off. We decided the others would continue on to Swaziland, and find a cool place to wait for me in Mozambique. I almost cried when they left. It was the shittist thing that could happen. But it left me to concentrate on getting everything sorted. Police affidavits, insurance etc 1st.

Claude- on the trip from Howick to Bamboozi:
‘We entered Swaziland at Golela just before sunset and stayed at ………  A roaring lion woke us up a couple of times that night and a male lion even charged us, being separated with only 2 fences from us.
We took some bad rocky gravel roads to Manzini where we changed our tyres at the BMW dealership and spend the next night at Hlane Royal National Park with some more amazing lion roaring that night.  We went through the Lomahasha International Borderpost into Mozambique.  We took the EN251 and carried north all the way along the Incomati River avoiding the EN1 and especially Maputo and surroundings.  We crossed the Limpopo and planned to stay in Praia do Xai-Xai.  A young indian guy approached us as we entered the town and offered for us to sleep in his house which was empty at minimal cost.  He dropped his price to less than half of his original price and that made us a bit suspicious of him.  We ended up sleeping at Montego Pirates with a tiring sand road after a hard days ride.  We organised with the owners of the campsite to leave all our kit in one of their chalets and planned to head to the Limpopo mouth the next day.  The original plan was to go to the southern side of the mouth but the owners told us we must go the northern side because there is only one dune of about 500m that we must conquer.  The road ended up being 27km of very bad sand and long winding dunes.  100m short of the mouth Ryan’s clutch was burnt out and we were stuck.  Dehydrated and tired we were approached by a landowner who invited us to stay with him for the night.  It turned out that there was another couple that stayed there for 3w already and they were more than willing to ride out the bikes with their old Toyota Hilux Bakkie.  With no sleeping bags or tents that night we had to sleep in our bike kit, helmets, boots and gloves in the stormy wind that picked up.  Later that night one of the locals came to cover me up with their blanket.  We drove the bikes out on the bakkie and enjoyed a nice cheap chicken and pap lunch in Xai-Xai.  We spend another night at Pirates, with Carl and Louise joining us the next day as our journey continues north to Inhambane. 
We decided to stay at Bamboozi in Tofo where we would also meet up with Pete in a couple of days time.  Our bikes’ safety was guaranteed with 24 hour security and 3 nightwatchmen on duty every night.’

Peter:
Roger at Ryder BWM in Hillcrest gave me a great deal on a demo x-challenge with some soft panniers, and a screen and hand guards. But licencing, getting a carnet and insurance proved a mission. Everyone really pulled together and sorted all the shit out. Exactly a week after the accident, I left for Mozambique on my own.
Brett and Zee were incredible in their hospitality, and the lady at AA really helped a lot. I can’t say enough about Roger and the dudes at Ryder BMW in Hillcrest– what legends.

 

[bonova]

Day12
My plan was to blast through southern Mozam. The others were living the dream in Inhambane, Tofu, Bamboozi. My 1st night would be Ponte do Ora, where the sand monster resides. I made it through the border into the sand that awaited by early afternoon.

I was pretty heavily loaded, full tank, 12 L of fuel tied on the back, a spare rear tyre, and well as much of my luggage as I could fit on (I had left a fair bit behind that wouldn’t fit in my – now much smaller- panniers).
That 1st bit of sand shook me. It was madness. By myself, with deep sand tracks and sand dunes to contend with. I didn’t see another vehicle. I laughed and I swore, but I never fell. I kept telling myself – you can do this man, just relax.
But with the weight, the bike was a pig, and I had never ridden it offroad before. It took me more than an hour or so to get to Ponte de Ora – I think it’s 10-15 km. I would ride as fast as I could at a dune, and when I ran out of traction and speed, leap off and push for all I was worth, gunning the throttle. Then at the top, I’d rest and repeat. My rear tyre wasn’t great for this sort of riding either. By the time I got there though, I was feeling better, and looked forward to the long sand road north. I had a beer and a toasted sandwich at the bar and got some sleep in my hammock.

Day 13
Today I rode a lot of sand. It was a good 30-40 km of jeep track road, with undulating dunes and deep sand. At times I was doing 80km/h on this track, the bike weaving under me, and that was only just enough speed to carry me over the next dune. I absolutely loved this kind of riding. I bumped into a short-wheel-base land-rover that was lost, and gave them some directions, but otherwise, it was just me until I hit the gravel that I followed through to the tar road to Maputo, and then it was tar all the way north to Xai-xai. I stayed the night there, and met a SA chap on a 1200 GS who was heading to Malawi. Otherwise, it was pretty non-eventful.

Day 14
Destination – Bamboozi, Tofu.
It was an early morning again, keen to meet up with the rest. I took a ‘dirt’ road that looked like a short-cut up the coast and then west to the tar road.

The short cut 

It was a bad decision, and I hit some really hectic sand and had to do some major pushing to get over a dune and onto a normal gravel road. From here though, it was plain sailing all the way to Bamboozi.
I pulled in through a mild bit of sand monster and was pretty much ecstatic to meet all the chaps again. Smiles all round. It was here that I met Carl and Louise, a couple that had helped out the others out when Ryan burnt out his clutch at the mouth of the limpopo river… another story that needs them to tell you.
Lots of beers, a prawn braai over at flamingo beach, and many rushed stories later, I woke up with a moerse hangover.

Camping at Bamboozi

Flamingo Bay

Um - drinking games at Flamingo Bay

Carl and Koos

Claude:
‘Pete met up with us on the Wednesday after 3 days of hard travelling from Howick.  It never feels the same if all the members of your originally planned group are not present.  Everybody was happy again and we were ready to take the trip by storm.’ 


The plan was to leave after 2-3 days of chilling, but that plan was thwarted. On my 2nd day there, I wandered out of out open chalet at 9 in the morning, and saw that Koos’s bike was missing. Everyone thought I was joking, but I wasn’t, and the bike was gone. We tracked and looked and saw that 3 people or so had dragged the bike through deep sand and loaded it onto a Bakkie. Now, this from an enclosed campsite, with a security gate and 3 guards on guard the whole night. It seemed they knew all the details about a bakkie, when it left with the bike etc, but they thought it was just us… now, pray tell, what would we be doing at 3am in the morning, dragging a bike around – 50m and loading it onto a bakkie???  The police were no help really, and eventually we had to accept that there was nothing to do but sort out the insurance and make another plan.

The 'police' discussing what happened to Koos's bike

Koos spent the next few days getting mind-blowingly frustrated trying to get police reports etc, and we ended up being there for 6 more days I think. We partied at night and slept in the day mostly. We met a legend Irish dude on an 1150 GS – Crazy Mike, who was touring the world. He had come down the west coast and was on his way up the east coast-all by himself. Shit he was a funny guy – what a legend. It was actually incredible, cause Koos Claude and Gazza had actually bumped into him at Malgas in the western cape when leaving for the trip – small world.

Mussel potjie one night

The view from the Bar

Also, there was crazy Sue, a North Korean with a malaria death wish, who hung around looking like she was on some serious drugs, and lots of friendly people along the way.

 

[bonova]

ok, i got to get to work..... i'll do the next installments asap  :thumleft:

 

[Frohan Visser]

Lekker....lekker Bonova.............nice one!!!!!!!!!
Some nice Sand Monsters in Moz!! Hi...ha
I am waiting for the rest.........

 

[Chrisv]

Flip Peter 

What an awsome adventure  :drif:

Please post more .... I need more .... more .... more ... please !!!

:thumleft:

 

[Crazy Horse]

Me and Pete didn't have the chance to get together and place everything in order, so excuse the adding on afterwards.

 

[bonova]

Ja, as Claude says - sorry bout some disjointedness, but i'm sure you'll get the idea  :thumleft:

 

[bonova]

Day 22
Eventually, it was decided that Koos would send some kit home with a couple heading for CT, and jump on the back with Claude, and so, after having to jump start Ryan’s bike on the morning we left, we headed for Vilanculous – the Baobab.

Leaving Bamboozi - the infamous jumpstarting

Koos hitching a ride

After a shortish ride, we arrived. Mike, Louise and Carl had already set up camp the day before. Pulling into the campsite, my seat made an awkward clunk as I sat down. I thought it was nothing, but when I was looking over my bike later, I saw a clean washer lying on top of the shock – interesting, it must have just fallen down, cause it wouldn’t last long there on these roads….now, where the hell did it come from? I stripped the bike, and found that the bolt holding the frame together, just under the seat had sheared off on the right side, leaving the frame hanging on the left bolt precariously – shit. It’s a moer difficult place to get to, and there is ½ a bolt stuck in the hole still. I swore a lot, and after a beer or 2 and some rice we bought at the kitchen, we headed off to bed.

Day 23.
Up early, Ryan and myself took my bike into town to find a workshop that could help us out. The Nissan dealer in town was more than helpful, and a chap with a KTM hat directed us to the back and asked a guy in the workshop to help us. It was a mission. We couldn’t disassemble the whole bike, but it was impossible to get to the bolt without doing that. We tried to drill into the bolt, and fortunately, while trying this, it turned the bold inwards, allowing some thread for another shorter bolt. After much debate, we stuck in a much shorter bolt in (and locktighted it in place), as we were scared we would strip the threads if we drilled in further.
That held for the whole trip.
Late morning we headed out to try to get some distance under our belt. Our destination was pretty much as far north as we could get.
50KM into the trip though, my bike starts to make a horrible metal clattering sound when accelerating – shit again. It seemed to be getting worse, so we stopped, and Claude and myself rode up and down trying to determine the source of the sound. We eventually gave up – it was that ‘your bike is about to fall to pieces’ kind of sound, so now we were stuck. I was pretty depressed and thinking about the need to turn around and head for home. We decided to head to Inhassoro, camp there and make a plan in the morning.
But, as we were sitting on the side of the road discussing this, a large bunch of school kids ended school and as we were in a small village, they were running around, and checking out the bikes etc. Suddenly, everyone was running away and screaming. A small child had been hit by a passing truck. I think he/she had stepped into the road and the driver could not swerve as there was another oncoming truck. We wanted to go and try to help, but we could see the child was dead, and everyone was hysterical. So we left. We were worried that the people might blame us for distracting the children. It was a terrible thing to happen.
We headed north a small amount and put in some fuel before heading to the Inhassoro on the coast. After putting in the new fuel, the noise in my bike stopped all together (evidently, the x-challenge has a higher - lowest octane rating, and I obviously got some bad fuel, starting the bike off pinging. I had considered it, but the noise was so loud that I thought it was something worse).
Makes you wonder about fate though… if my bike hadn’t made the noise, that child may well have still been alive.

At Inhassoro, the campsite was expensive and shitty. We headed south down through the town, following the GPS’s looking for a place to camp. Seems the local municipality owns the campground and has banned camping everywhere else. We hit some bad sand on a small road south, and Koos had to walk, cause it was impossible to ride 2 up. We ended up at a private house, where the caretaker eventually felt sorry for us and said that we could stay. He then proceeded to make beds for us in the chalet, help us buy some fish, and make us the best meal of the trip so far! What a cool guy. He was Zimbabwean, and Dixon was his name. Bless him.

Inhassoro - Dixon's hide out - the bikes pulled onto the veranda and guarded the whole night by an old dude

Day 24.
We had by now decided that, what with all the trouble we were having, it was necessary to make up some distance. We took the tar road north through Maxangue and on to Inchope. Then we turned south east to get fuel in Nhamatanda, and backtracked to Inchope again to turn north past the Gorongoza National park on it’s western border and finaly stopped in Gorongoza Village. It was late afternoon, and we scouted around to find a place to stay.
After Koos and Claude went into a hotel and chatted to someone there, they allowed us to sleep in a large shed around the back with some of the staff for a reduced cost – awesome.

Our 'camp spot'

We were pretty tired from all the tar riding, and my ass was taking shots on this hard enduro seat of mine. Unfortunately, it was here that Koos decided to take leave of us. His knees were killing him sitting pillon, and that is no way to tour either. After much discussion, and some beers, his mind was made up to leave us and take other transport to Zim. He was going to try to get a small bike there and meet us in Malawi… We fought off the mozzies that night and I had a fitfull sleep.

(As it turned out, Koos ended up hitch hiking through Zim, and on to Zambia, where he eventually flew home to Cape Town from Lusaka. He has some good stories to tell too)


Day 25
Next morning it was up early. Koos headed out to catch a lift, and we packed and shifted kit around.

Koos taking leave of us - very sad sight

We put in fuel at a good ‘bush fuel’ depot, and headed north for 2 kays and than took a beautiful dirt road that skirted the park on it’s northern border, eventually getting back onto the dreaded tar and headed to Caia. Just aswell we had filled with fuel, cause Caia’s fuel station was no longer.

Bush fuel

Just after Caia we crossed the mighty Zambezi on a ferry. Pretty soon you will be able to cross on a bridge, cause it’s almost finished. I remember a goat tied to a bicycle handlebar bleating the whole way across, making my conversation with a local dude in broken English pretty futile.

The Ferry

After the river, we turned east, and then before the coast, turned north again to finally stop in Mocuba.

The GPS gave great hope of a church where we could sleep, but no such luck, and we ended up camping in the back yard of a hotel called Saint Christofarius or something, I think it was the most we paid for accommodation, and by a long way the worst so far. We camped on the cement, right on the path that all the staff took to and from somewhere important, and trucks pulled in and out in the night. The food was good in the restaurant though, and there was a small black kid dancing kwaito style on the street who kept us entertained. There was also some local band there, and Claude and Garrick promised the lead singer they would go listen to him play/sing later, which they did, but it wasn’t great evidently.
All in all though, Mocuba is a hole. We drew money there, that’s about all it gave us.

Waiting to find a place to stay

Mocuba

 

[Crazy Horse]

The preperation:

Departure from Malmesbury, meeting up in Napier

 

[Crazy Horse]

Napier where we met up with Jan(Koos' brother) who joined us for 2 days

First encounter with Crazy Irish guy Mike at Malgas

Garrick's bike in Rehab

Bertie fixing Garrick's bike