The Western Cape, and time on my hands.

[2StrokeDan]

Dirk, it was a pleasure having you here, and I hope to see you again some time.

 

[OomD]

Koedoeskloof

Having packed early and said my goodbyes I headed out of Stellenbosch, on my way to Koedoeskloof and the Dwarsbar. It was quite a stretch of tar getting out of Stellenbosch, but oh the views of the surrounding areas is simply beautiful.

My route took me over the river with the Malgas Pontoon, and on the way there I enjoyed the awesome surrounds that the Western Cape has to offer. Albeit a bit cold higher up in the mountains, lovely to see nonetheless.

 

 

 

At the Breede River trading post I felt very welcome and toiled a moment while drinking a quick cold coke.

 

Arriving at the Malgas pontoon I was met with this sign. My heart sank.

I was told by the guys working on the pontoon that it's just regular maintenance and it would open again very soon. Within about 30 minutes or so. Great, I thought, I can wait that long. A detour to Koedoeskloof was going to add another few hours to my trip, so I elected to wait and took some pics of the old pontoon parked off to the side.

 

The 30 minutes turned into 2.5  hours, just after 4pm I finally had the opportunity to park the bike on the pontoon and cross the river.

Note the helmet on the mirror closest to the water...

Soon enough things went even more pear shaped. I took this photo...

... and as I turned around I bumped my bike. It fell over against the barriers of the pontoon, with my helmet (gloves inside) dropping into the river. Seeing my helmet float past the bike my immediate thought was to dive into the water and save it, but I got away with diving onto the pontoon's floor in front of the bike and grabbing the helmet just as it came floating by... only to see my gloves float off down the river. Another facepalm. Well I wasn't going to dive into the water to save the cheap gloves, so I let them go. Unloading on the other side meant I had to put a soaking wet helmet on my head. I didn't mind, I was just glad that helmets floated!

This part of the route took me over Tradouw pass, another sweeping and curvy tarred pass that seems very well maintained. I was impressed to see the MountainPassesSouthAfrica.co.za sponsored sign, with the request at the bottom to place stickers on the back of the sign instead of defacing the front. Sure enough people obliged and the back of the sign already had a few. Great to see people cooperating like this.

 

I'm not sure sure what the significance of this "Drupkelder" is, but it made for a nice photo anyway. Probably related to water dripping down in the cave-like entrance.

Due to the pontoon delay I reached Koedoeskloof later than planned, but was still warmly welcome by Eugene aka [member=5716]Veldbrand[/member] and his wife Debbi. They had 2 friends over, @Raka and his wife so it was just the 5 of us for the evening. They made me feel welcome and part of their family as we sat and chatted on the Dwarsbar's deck until supper was ready.

 

Debi made us a splendid Pesto Pasta dish for supper, and we all had a hearty chat. I learned that Raka's wife knows my son at Dimension Data, what a small world. After bidding them all good night it was time to tuck in, the next day surely had plenty of adventure to come...

 

[Vintage_Mania]

Drupkelder. Afrikaans is darem maar wonderlik beskrywend uit die volksmond uit.

 

[chicco]

Drupkelder. Afrikaans is darem maar wonderlik beskrywend uit die volksmond uit.

Kon erger gewees het...drupgrot.... eepwall:

 

[Dorsland]

Mens weet nie of jy moet aanbied om volgende keer saam jou te ry met die hoop dat dit jou string teëspoed sal verbeter. Of om so vêr weg moontlik van jou te bly ingeval jou teëspoed aansteeklik is nie. eepwall: :lol8:

 

[Operator]

:sip:

 

[OomD]

Mens weet nie of jy moet aanbied om volgende keer saam jou te ry met die hoop dat dit jou string teëspoed sal verbeter. Of om so vêr weg moontlik van jou te bly ingeval jou teëspoed aansteeklik is nie. eepwall: :lol8:

:lol8: Wag, die storie is nog nie klaar nie...  :-\

 

[Dorsland]

:biggrin: :thumleft:

 

[OomD]

:biggrin: :thumleft:

;D ;D

 

[Psycho Porra]

Dan, moet ons jou maar nie sommer OngeluksVoël noem nie[emoji15][emoji2359][emoji48]
Want die Pok weet alleen, jy het omtrent alles beleef op die toer sover

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[OomD]

Dan, moet ons jou maar nie sommer OngeluksVoël noem nie[emoji15][emoji2359][emoji48]
Want die Pok weet alleen, jy het omtrent alles beleef op die toer sover

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ek is maar nog altyd bietjie lomp, ja.  :lol8:

 

[OomD]

Beaufort West

This trip has no shortages of beautiful sunrises, one of the perks of always getting up early. Koedoeskloof was no exception, and with a sunrise like this one could only appreciate the beauty and look forward to a great day's riding.

I've been through Seweweekspoort before, and being in the vicinity again I could not resist riding through it again, if only to refresh my memories of the stunning beauty this road offers. It has some rock formations unlike anything I have seen before, or since. But first, a quick stop at Ladismith's Koöperasie to buy yet another set of cheap gloves, and a 32mm spanner for adjusting my chain. Again.

Some off my favourite pics of Seweweekspoort:

The way this rock formation rolls is simply stunning.

Taking the Groenfontein road just past Calitzdorp leads past this retreat next to the dam, I was wondering if it is still actually in use. It seems a little desolate, although nowhere near as a terrible state as the VP camping area.

This road leads to the turnoff for the Kruisrivier guest farm road, the place where I had my accident a little more than a year ago. I was sure to keep a lookout for Toyota's. I saw this hilux, and couldn't understand why it kept getting bigger, then it hit me. Oh wait, sorry a flashback there. No incidents this time and I followed the road that brings you out just south of the Swartberg pass. One cannot pass past Kobus se gat though, without stopping for a delicious cheese & ham roosterkoek with a cappuccino.

The Swartberg pass is awe-inspiring as always, and in a very good condition. It's also nice to see people placing their stickers to the rear of the signs here as well, as requested by MountainPassesSouthAfrica.co.za

 

 

After crossing over Swartberg pass and passing through Prince Albert I get some dirt again, leading north.

Yet another locked farm gate that forces me to find an alternate route.

Finding an alternate route was not difficult at all, and I followed one that crossed many dry concrete drifts. The very first wet one I saw though, ended up being one with a slimy green bottom and by the time I realised it my rear wheel was already trying to overtake the front one, and I moered off spectacularly in the roughly 5cm deep water. First order of business was to get the bike turned off, then trying to stand upright without feeling like you're standing on ice. Luckily this was a low speed incident without injuries. Well, physical ones at least.

After catching my breath and coming to some senses I tried picking the bike up, only to have my feet slip out underneath me and sitting down flat on my arse. Another attempt from the other side of the bike had a similar result, it was clear I had to get the bike out of the slimy snot before I was going to be able to pick it up. Here's the thing though, I could barely stay upright without my feet slipping out again, never mind actually pulling or pushing the bike to dry ground. So what I ended up doing was this. I'd turn the handlebars all the way left, then put my foot inside the hand guard, pegging it to the ground. I'd then turn the handlebar to the right, using it as a lever to pull the bike forward. I repeated this process until the bike was out of the water, at which time I could still not pick it up because of the weight of the luggage. So I had to undo the luggage, pick the bike up, and re-attach all the luggage again. My boots were quite waterproof... it would not let the slimy water run out again. Every drift I got to, following this one, was inspected with great attention before attempting to cross it. I encountered many more of these, but thank goodness I did not fall down again. Lesson learnt.

I smelled horrible, and desperately wanted to get to a place where I could have a shower. I only got this opportunity late in the day when I managed to book into a guesthouse in Beaufort West. I didn't realize until the next morning though, that my right hand side luggage bag had taken in a lot of slimy stinky water, the same bag that had my clean socks and shirts. :

 

[Crankshaft]

Beaufort West

This trip has no shortages of beautiful sunrises, one of the perks of always getting up early. Koedoeskloof was no exception, and with a sunrise like this one could only appreciate the beauty and look forward to a great day's riding.

I've been through Seweweekspoort before, and being in the vicinity again I could not resist riding through it again, if only to refresh my memories of the stunning beauty this road offers. It has some rock formations unlike anything I have seen before, or since. But first, a quick stop at Ladismith's Koöperasie to buy yet another set of cheap gloves, and a 32mm spanner for adjusting my chain. Again.

Some off my favourite pics of Seweweekspoort:

The way this rock formation rolls is simply stunning.

Taking the Groenfontein road just past Calitzdorp leads past this retreat next to the dam, I was wondering if it is still actually in use. It seems a little desolate, although nowhere near as a terrible state as the VP camping area.

This road leads to the turnoff for the Kruisrivier guest farm road, the place where I had my accident a little more than a year ago. I was sure to keep a lookout for Toyota's. I saw this hilux, and couldn't understand why it kept getting bigger, then it hit me. Oh wait, sorry a flashback there. No incidents this time and I followed the road that brings you out just south of the Swartberg pass. One cannot pass past Kobus se gat though, without stopping for a delicious cheese & ham roosterkoek with a cappuccino.

The Swartberg pass is awe-inspiring as always, and in a very good condition. It's also nice to see people placing their stickers to the rear of the signs here as well, as requested by MountainPassesSouthAfrica.co.za

 

 

After crossing over Swartberg pass and passing through Prince Albert I get some dirt again, leading north.

Yet another locked farm gate that forces me to find an alternate route.

Finding an alternate route was not difficult at all, and I followed one that crossed many dry concrete drifts. The very first wet one I saw though, ended up being one with a slimy green bottom and by the time I realised it my rear wheel was already trying to overtake the front one, and I moered off spectacularly in the roughly 5cm deep water. First order of business was to get the bike turned off, then trying to stand upright without feeling like you're standing on ice. Luckily this was a low speed incident without injuries. Well, physical ones at least.

After catching my breath and coming to some senses I tried picking the bike up, only to have my feet slip out underneath me and sitting down flat on my arse. Another attempt from the other side of the bike had a similar result, it was clear I had to get the bike out of the slimy snot before I was going to be able to pick it up. Here's the thing though, I could barely stay upright without my feet slipping out again, never mind actually pulling or pushing the bike to dry ground. So what I ended up doing was this. I'd turn the handlebars all the way left, then put my foot inside the hand guard, pegging it to the ground. I'd then turn the handlebar to the right, using it as a lever to pull the bike forward. I repeated this process until the bike was out of the water, at which time I could still not pick it up because of the weight of the luggage. So I had to undo the luggage, pick the bike up, and re-attach all the luggage again. My boots were quite waterproof... it would not let the slimy water run out again. Every drift I got to, following this one, was inspected with great attention before attempting to cross it. I encountered many more of these, but thank goodness I did not fall down again. Lesson learnt.

I smelled horrible, and desperately wanted to get to a place where I could have a shower. I only got this opportunity late in the day when I managed to book into a guesthouse in Beaufort West. I didn't realize until the next morning though, that my right hand side luggage bag had taken in a lot of slimy stinky water, the same bag that had my clean socks and shirts. :

Daai is regtige n pragtige wereld. Dankie

 

[droffarc]

Great story of an excellent adventure well recounted. Well done OoMD

 

[lowrider]

Lekker Report, thanks for sharing!

 

[OomD]

Orania
Waking up to a slightly chilly Beaufort West the beautiful sunrises and warm weather seemed to be over. A few Km's out I get off the tar and head north towards Orania. No particular reason for choosing Orania, other than it seemed a reasonable stopover point between Beaufort West and Bloemhof. Ok, so I was slightly curious too.

The mist had decided to hang low over the road, such that visibility was extremely limited. This made the going slow, and cold. Very cold. The mist was condensing against my visor and I had to wipe it periodically to get the droplets off. This in turn just kept my cheap gloves wet, so my hands were freezing to the point of starting to feel pain in my fingers.

At one point I passed a herd of cattle, and noticed the heaps of dung on the ground. In my mind I recalled staying over on a friend's farm during holidays when I was about 8 or so, and I recalled the warm cowdung... This gave me an idea, and at the next seemingly fresh heap of dung I promptly stopped and grabbed hold of some. Damn, it was not warm, it was already cold. Oh well, so much for getting my hands warmer. Drying the gloves on the exhaust helped a bit, though.

Maybe I should've waited a bit before leaving, because at about 08h30 the mist disappeared, and the sun came shining out. And just like that, the day started getting better. Reaching a farm named Osfontein I had to turn in to it, and cross it to get to another gravel road at the other end. No problem, I had crossed a few farms already.... but this one required me to cross a river.

The river was not big as tall, it seemed like one could walk through the seemingly low water level with ease. The water was nice and clear, which I interpreted as having no muddy bottom. There was a weir about 30m upstream, and the farm road clearly crossed the river at the point where I was. The ground seemed nice and solid. Until it wasn't. Realizing that I was getting deeper and deeper into very loose earth I tried to turn around, and only succeeded in having my bike sink down on the river bed.

I immediately turned off and got off the bike before getting it deeper into the river bed, it was a mixture of sand and very fine gravel. Lesson learnt about the weight, the first thing I did was to unload all the luggage and get the rear of the bike as light as possible.

Then I started the bike and attempted to ride it out while walking next to it, but the rear wheel was so stuck the engine could not get it to turn. The engine just stalled repeatedly. So before using up what's left of the clutch I started digging next to the wheel to get rid of as much sand as possible. The wheel was down to the axle in water at this point.

After quite some digging I tried riding it out again. This time the wheel managed to turn, but only to dig itself even deeper into the river bed. By now almost the whole wheel was under water.

I did not want to admit it, but I realized more and more that I was stuck properly. The only way out of this mess was to get some help. Remembering that I had fleetingly seen a white building in the distance while riding I started walking along the river in that general direction. It was hot by now, I left my gloves and jacket at the bike with the luggage.

At some point I realized that I was going to have to cross the river, but I was already quite far away from where the road crossed it. I thought the river would not be too hard to cross, but it was difficult to see because of all the cane and bush. So I headed straight for the river and tried crossing it, ended up having to walk up and down a bit to find a good spot to cross it. At this spot the river was a few parallel streams, and I had no trouble getting over them... the problem was halfway through and on the other side of the river where the cane and bush was very lush.

Pushing the cane aside proved to be quite hard. It was not only growing vertically like a curtain, but criss-cross as well and it was like trying to undo knots while pushing through. It was actually easier to just roll onto the cane and flatten it with my hefty weight, falling down into the water each time but at least I made progress.

Once through the cane I reached the next stumbling block... some thorny bush as high as I was tall. Growing up higher against the river bank I had to climb upwards and try to work my way through the bush at the same time. This was painful, the thorns were fighting back ferociously and I regretted leaving my jacket and gloves at the bike. I just kept my eyes closed and pushed as hard as I could, pulling away thorny twigs and branches and forcing my sizable body through it.

I regretted my stupidity of leaving my water at the bike too, by this time I was sweating like a pig and had worked up a thirst of note. Going back to the bike was not an option, however. At long last I made it through the lush thorns, and sat down for a few minutes to recompose. There was a fence further up that I could follow in the direction I wanted to go. I was hoping the fence had a road next to it, but no such luck.

Following the fence seemed to be the good choice, as it led me straight to the house I had spotted earlier. By now I was roughly 3km from where the bike was. Reaching the house I saw people laying foundations for another building, and approached them. The farmer was a bit surprised to see me walking up to them, all sweaty with bloody scrapes on my arms and a shirt that, by now, had some holes ripped in it. I explained my predicament and he knew exactly the spot where the bike was. So we set off with his bakkie, some chains, and a bulldozer/digger of sorts, and reached the bike from the opposite side of the river.

The digger would not be able to cross the river to get to the bike, they had to scrape a quick access road for it first.

The road allowed them to reverse to close to the bike, and we hooked the bike to the digging arm with chains, hooked onto the pannier rack. The digger managed to lift the bike out with ease. I wanted to get a photo of this, but did not want to ask them to continue holding the bike while I take a quick photo... I was already using up this guys valuable time and resources. We managed to swing the bike to higher ground and lower it onto the sand again, after which I idled it out back to the road itself. The farmer and his guys left, and I loaded up my luggage again.

 

I headed back to the main gravel road, but still needed to reach to main road to the east. At the next farm, Bokpoort, I tried again following the road across the farm. This turned out to be an abandoned farm, such a shame to see the farmhouse and barn, etc in such a dilapidated state. One always wonders what happened to cause the abandonment of the farm, and you cannot help but feel a tinge of sadness at the outcome.

I managed to cross this farm without incident and reached the eastern main gravel road. Every drift I got to I was sure to slow down or stop, and inspect it first.

Spotted some interesting buildings along the road. Nogal with swimming pools.

This was a strange sight, I saw windmills with solar panels next to them. The windmills did not seem to be in use anymore, but I could be wrong. No idea what the solar panels do next to the windmills, maybe someone here can enlighten us.

 

I guess this building was not going to be used again any time soon.

At one spot closer to Orania I saw hundreds and hundreds of cement sleepers neatly stacked, although they seem abandoned.

That brought me to Orania, where I could quickly shower before an awesome meal at the Oewer restaurant, after which I went to my room to lay my head down and fall into a deep comfortable sleep.

What a day this had been.

 

[Vis Arend]

This was a strange sight, I saw windmills with solar panels next to them. The windmills did not seem to be in use anymore, but I could be wrong. No idea what the solar panels do next to the windmills, maybe someone here can enlighten us.

They use submersible centrifugal pumps to pump water from the borehole, the solar panel provides the power to the batteries for the pump to work. 
Hope my explanation makes sense.    atch: 

 

[JFE]

What a trip. I had almost a similar river crossing experience in Transkei many moons ago, although my XT550 was not as nimble as your KTM and I drowned it completely.

Excellent read thank you


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[OomD]

Bloemhof

The original plan was to stay over in Orania for an additional day, as a bit of a rest day. I wasn't feeling tired or anything at all, though, and started thinking of home more often. Besides, the cost of one night in Orania was basically what I had budgeted for 2 days, so I decided to abandon the rest day and head for Bloemhof.

Had a quick breakfast at the Oewer restaurant, right on the bank of the Orange river which was flowing nicely.

Shortly after crossing over the Orange river into the Freestate I noticed my rear suspension being quite bouncy. Ag damn, another flat. Lucklily though it was not totally flat and I could inflate it again with the little compressor. I could not find a puncture, so I assumed it might be leaking somewhere at the bead. The Tubeliss was still holding its 6.5bar I had pumped it to. While searching for the puncture I noticed the cracks in the new tyre.

Was this tyre going to last until Pta? Time will tell...

Removing the seat to get to the compressor stored underneath I also noticed how dirty the air filter was, so used this opportunity to swap the sock with a spare oiled one I had brought along. The filter itself was looking good, these socks really are a great solution.

 

 

Closer to Jacobsdal I passed this dam, which seemed to be fuller than normal. Nice sight.

There were also a few graders and stuff working on fixing the roads, and the usual swimming pools.

 

Soon enough I was in Jacobsdal, where a gentleman was very eager to wash the locusts from the windscreen.

 

Beautiful roads followed, and beautiful bridges.

Things were progressing well, I felt I could spend some time relaxing in the bike's shade (the little that there was) with a (warm-ish) coke.

My GPS wanted me to cross more farms via a 60km dirt road that leads to a bigger dirt road, I guess. About 10km into the road I realized that this road had not been used for a very long time, it had turned from gravel to twee-spoor, and later even to single-track. Eventually though the road simply ended in the vegetation where a tree was lying across the path, and I had another 50km or so to go. I wasn't going to try and do 50km through the veld, so I turned around and headed back to the main gravel road.

 

The next farm up from this one was called Didimala, it seemed, and as I approached I was impressed by the non-regular farm entrance.

This sign, though, convinced me to rather not try getting through the gate, but turn around instead and take the longer route.

I was disappointed with having to turn around again, but glad nonetheless that they bothered to put up a proper sign.

Eventually though I reached Bloemhof and booked in at "Op die wal", a guesthouse right against the Vaal river bank. The river was a bit higher than usual...

After a shower and supper I relaxed and fell asleep content with myself, no major episodes occurred today and I was looking forward to the last day and getting home.

 

[OomD]

Home

Today I'm heading home, a day earlier than originally planned because I had skipped the rest day at Orania. The last 400km's or so to go. Even though I was looking forward to seeing my family again I also felt a tinge of pity with the trip ending, even though it was almost 2 weeks long. I couldn't get enough of the beautiful sunrises that we don't always get to see in the city, so I took one last photo of it.

I was heading towards Hartbeespoort, taking in a many gravel roads as I could. On these roads there was also some recent rains, the multitude of swimming pools across the roads being a good indicator of the recent weather. Every pool I got to I would slow down, decide whether to go around the left or right side, then proceed slowly so as not to splash (even more) mud onto the bike and myself.

So I happened to come across yet another pool, and after careful consideratino decided to go around the left side. Wouldn't it just be my luck that it's the side with a patch of soft, deep, sinking mud. Out of the hundreds of pools I passed, this one on the last day decided it should hold me back. The bike sank into the mud almost to the axles, and I immediately switched off and dismounted... stepping into mud almost halfway up to my knees.

Needless to say, trying to pull or push the bike out was not successful, I could barely get my legs lifted out of the mud. I was not going to try and idle it out, I've learnt that lesson already... so I was stuck again. But before I could unload all the luggage from the bike a woman in a Fortuner stopped and asked if I was okay. She did not have a rope or such in her car, but indicated that her husband would be coming by as well with his bakkie, so I thanked her and waited for the husband.

He arrived about 15 minutes later, would you know it - driving a Toyota bakkie. It seems that a Toyota bakkie was my savior this time around. Before trying to tow the bike out we decided to try lifting it quickly. He stood on the hard ground side of the bike and I stood in the mud and we lifted. As we lifted the bike I fell over backwards and landed with my arse in the soft mud... but the bike was out!  Literally moved half a meter to the right, and it was on hard ground/mud. He washed his hands with some water from a can and took off after a short chinwag.

In this pic you can see it's literally the last meter or so that was soft deep mud, the rest was totally rideable.

Taking off again I was already hungry by now, and stopped at the first Wimpy I could find in the next town - Wolmaranstad. The very dirty bike was right outside the window, me inside keeping an eye on it. People were staring at me inside the Wimpy, little children were wide eyed and pointing but I didn't care. They may never have had such a dirty customer in their store, but they've also never had one that cared so little about it.

After a hearty breakfast I hit the gravel again, this time with most of the roads looking wonderfully rideable.

I managed to ride all the way home without another incident... with a very muddy bike and all the while wondering when the rear tyre was going to give out again. I had to inflate it again at one petrol stop, but at least the leak was slow enough to allow me to reach home.

 

 

Getting home around 3pm allowed me to shower and unpack, before wifey came home from work. I just sat in the lounge waiting for her, I knew she could not wait for her husband to get home. When she saw me she just came to me and hugged me and held on, it was good to be home.

Last pic, that of wifey digging thorns out of my hands and arms. In all she managed to get 11 out, which by now had just started to become infected. Good timing.

That's it, guys! Thanks for enjoying this trip with me! Fluit fluit, my storie is uit.