Grahams trip to George
23rd APRIL 2005
Friday night was actually a beaut of an evening with clear skies and stars (after a week of rain and storms), I got excited just thinking about our ride and I went to sleep with some difficulty as I do not sleep well on the eve of a trip) and guess what woke me up????? My neighbour collects water from his house's gutters and the drip
drip sound meant ................rain!!!! Damn! Yes, damn!
We had planned on doing the Bredasdorp/Riversdal route to George and you do not want to be on that road in the wet! So I dragged myself out of bed very the hell in and phoned my mate to wake him up and he has a policy that if it is raining he just .stays in bed ! I convinced him to still join us and assured him that the weather would clear beyond the mountains and so we agreed to join up at the Firlands Shell Garage at Sir Lowrys Pass as planned.
I had agreed to meet four other suckers at our local garage close to home and surprisingly there were only two! We had all agreed to meet at 07h00 in order to arrive in time for the 07h30 rendezvous with the group, so at 07h05 we beetled off! If they were going on our ride then punctuality is a must! Ja well, I had visions of just two people doing this ride and me having to explain to Leon at Kwelanga how much of a FADER these Cape Town moffies are! Well ANDRE KINGHORN and MICHAEL JACKSON arrived and the three of us rode (in the rain) with all types of thoughts going through our minds, to Somerset West where PETER BELDEKINO arrived at the SHELL stop at the same time.
5 Minutes later KOSIE OLIVIER and WICUM SMITH arrived, raring to go! We took a look at the weather and decided that we would rather get to the other side of Sir Lowry's Pass and see how bad it was and then decide on route. Well we got to the other side and it was belting down and seemed to be getting worse by the kilometer and upon looking over at the Eastern side we realized that this weather was not going to improve, by any stretch of our imagination!
We pulled over at the second off-ramp to Grabouw in pouring rain and collectively decided to chance our luck inland , toward Robertson via Villiersdorp and there it bucketed down even more! Determined as we were to catch a good ride I must admit that even I was beginning to have my doubts about carrying on. Determined biker's are obviously not that easily put off and we set about killing the mileage to arrive at some point where this *&%^rain would show signs of STOPPING!!!!!!!!!! NO CHANCE.?????
Well we arrived in Robertson and we noticed that we were one bike short! Guess who?
Peter B. (When you reach the ripe old age of 50! one tends to become .?) Well Pete, maybe next time? The group were not to be put out and we persevered through the rain to Montagu and at this point the rain started showing sign's of abaiting and we arrived at BARRYDALE (SOON TO BE RE-NAMED DERRICKVALE) for a well deserved breakfast. (dis darm maar 'n lekker plek daai PUMPKIN PATCH) Oh so bike friendly!
We were welcomed with the traditional Muskadel and after a hearty breakfast we set off on our way for one last bash at this ADVENTURE (IT WAS BEGINNING TO TAKE ON A NEW MEANING AT THIS POINT IN TIME) We were way ahead of schedule at this point and we were ITCHING to get some dust under our butts and we were not to be disappointed because 16 km's the other side of Barrydale we were to turn off at Lemoenshoek on to a dirt/mud? road which would take us to HERBERTSDALE via Brandrivier, Langberg and Cloete's Pass. (Guy's, you have to experience this route. fast and furious!..LEKKER!)
We were welcomed with the traditional Muskadel and after a hearty breakfast we set off on our way for one last bash at this ADVENTURE (IT WAS BEGINNING TO TAKE ON A NEW MEANING AT THIS POINT IN TIME) We were way ahead of schedule at this point and we were ITCHING to get some dust under our butts and we were not to be disappointed because 16 km's the other side of Barrydale we were to turn off at Lemoenshoek on to a dirt/mud? road which would take us to HERBERTSDALE via Brandrivier, Langberg and Cloete's Pass. (Guy's, you have to experience this route. fast and furious!..LEKKER!)
We were welcomed with the traditional Muskadel and after a hearty breakfast we set off on our way for one last bash at this ADVENTURE (IT WAS BEGINNING TO TAKE ON A NEW MEANING AT THIS POINT IN TIME) We were way ahead of schedule at this point and we were ITCHING to get some dust under our butts and we were not to be disappointed because 16 km's the other side of Barrydale we were to turn off at Lemoenshoek on to a dirt/mud? road which would take us to HERBERTSDALE via Brandrivier, Langberg and Cloete's Pass. (Guy's, you have to experience this route. fast and furious!..LEKKER!)
Well the road looked dry....ish and we pulled over and the chatter was something like this..... 'Well I will wait half an hour and give you guy's a head start and come flying past you and wait for you Stromer's to catch up ....."
OK ......RACE?........MM. We certainly were surprised at how DRY the road was and boy did we enjoy this!....(let the RIDE begin!) Sjoe, maar is stof nie 'n lekker ding nie! We had a ball and at our first T-junction we leisurely pulled up and took a smoke break and our first photo of the day and guess what.......? I had turned around and what do you think was coming our way? A frigging bus! (loaded with youngsters) and he was not looking like he was stopping for the T-junction either!!!! Well at the last moment he swerved to avoid our group(and our motorcycle's!) and by the look in his eyes he was actually cursing us (for parking on his RACING LINE?) and I promise you he missed us by what seemed like inch's!!!!!!
OK we are now awake and time for the first lesson in off-road riding.....make sure that you are parked well out of the way when parking off for your ciggyphotograph stop. We had by now forgotten about the lousy start to the day and we hunted down every last dirt road to arrive at our destination with as much dirt road under our butts as possible. Nobody wanted to see TAR again on this ride! We experienced a little bit of rain on our approach to GEORGE (Cold and WET...CAW). We were also determined not to use the N2 and almost succeeded excluding a 15-km stretch to get to KWELANGA . We arrived there at 16h20. Leon welcomed us and set about making us feel at home and we enjoyed our first frosty of the day........mmm. That night it was a tired bunch that went to bed and we were all itching to get started Sunday morning....
GEORGE to CAPE TOWN
We departed Kwelanga (after a mechanical repair.. . . . .Kosie dropped it and broke the gear lever..THANK YOU OUTENIQUA SUZUKI...) at10h00 Sunday morning with a lot of enthusiasm and trepidation not knowing what lay in store for us today and with weather report's threatening RAIN we headed off with mixed expectations. Well do you know what? As soon as you throw your leg over (the V-Strom I mean) you soon forget any niggling doubts about your day's ride because whatever lay's ahead you are going to enjoy it!
And enjoy it we certainly did and the ride never ceased to excite us. As one leaves Kwelanga you are on dirt! (only a short distance,but it gets you into the mood!) We gassed up and bought soft drinks and we were on our way home and the guys were very quiet because I know that nobody wanted this ride to end! We struggled a little to find the correct road out of Mossel Bay but we did and we soon got into the groove as we found our gravel legs again and the road conditions were fairly easy going and the ride into HERBERTSDALE is awesome. By this stage of the game everyone is in his own little world, enjoying his relationship with his steed and nobody in the world is going to tell him that their motorcycle is better than yours! (we all know what people are like!) Klomp windgatte!
Well just as you think that it cannot get better than this surely, you come across a road like the next one. The road to RIVERSDAL is good fast gravel and we were very lucky in that we virtually had no oncoming traffic the whole trip, and this few people realized so we belted it on this section and upon arrival at RIVERSDAL we certainly were a happy bunch and I was half expecting some guys to high-tail home on the tar but NO WAYS was anybody going home yet! We lost each other in Riversdal because the guys were very enthusiastic to get going and left without me because I was taking photo's and I had to play catch up on the forestry road to Heidelberg which was probably the highlight of the trip. Running through the forest area past the dam and chasing to catch up I was able to test out the KNOBBLY TYRE'S which I had fitted to my DL1000 especially for this trip and boy was that fantastic! The tyres transform the DL into a proper dirt monster because of the enhanced grip, especially the front tyre which enables you to steer through the kitty litter instead of over it.
When I did catch up to the rest of the group they had just arrived at a T-junction and they were smiling so much that I thought that they were pleased to see me! but no sir, they were now so into this ride that I knew that we were going to be home late because they were all having such fun! We arrived in Heidelberg all in one piece and without wasting any time we proceeded to SUURBRAAK still on dirt and unfortunately the AUTHORITIES had fixed the road so well that this section became BORING, without any challenges. Apparently there is a bit of a feud going on between the town folk of DERRICKVALE and SWELLENDAM as they are vying for the TOURIST MARKET and have CLOSED THE TRADOUW PASS, much to the detriment of the Barrydale Tourism market. On my last trip there I was asked to sign a petition which Derrick was passing around to force the authorities to complete the repairs to the road which was washed away in the floods recently. DAMN POLITIONS! We decided to take the ASHTON route from Swellendam because we did not want to hit the N2 and we arrived in ROBERTSON itching for some more DIRT!!!!!!!!!!
Well we found it....we wound our way on dirt and came out on tar just before the pass at VILLIERSDORP and of course we went through FRANSCHOEK pass (resurfaced) and we were HOME!!! We split up in Franschoek and headed home, well satisfied but lekker MOEG! Another successfull V-Strom Adventure Tour.
