The Wood for the Trees

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Bomber11

Pack Dog
Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
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Bike
BMW R1200GS Adventure
In our search for freedom and peace of mind, we left the city life far behind.

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Our plan was to utilise the accumulated space-banked points for a weekend in Hazyview to experience the intriguing wooded forests of Mpumalunga. During our adventures over the past few years, we have experienced various terrains and conditions ranging from mud, rocks, mountain passes, valleys, river beds, thick sand, soft sand, powdery sand, corrugated and rutted roads, cold, wind and of course rain. While setting up an interesting route through the tree plantations, we hoped to experience firsthand the beauty and serenity these wooded areas have always captured while driving past.
The pack would be made up of five dogs with Zugger and Bomber11 tackling the gale force winds on Friday afternoon, Amelis would be leaving later that day with the bike loaded onto his bakkie while the final two (Bushboy and Husamarine)would brave the early morning cold and darkness to join us by eight thirty.

Everything went according to plan until Saturday morning when Husamarine’s 950 decided that the trip was a bad idea and started to splutter some 30kilo’s into the ride near Bronkhorstspruit. (We somehow suspect that he was missing his wife and family far too much to consider a weekend with his riding buddies). After a little fiddling on the bike next to the road in the cold and darkness, no improvement was apparent so a seriously disappointed and understandably pissed-off Husamarine reluctantly had to turn back and miss the weekend. This unplanned event obviously had three very important implications, firstly that our pack would be incomplete and Husamarine would miss out on a great opportunity to ride the forests. Secondly, Bushboy had to ride the remaining 350km on a very fresh morning all on his very lonesome while thirdly, I had passed on all the GPS way-points of the planned route to Husamarine to load for the trip.(Fortunately by pure luck, I had a rough diagram of the planned route packed into my kit)
Husamarine had booked his bike in for a service on the Monday prior to the trip, requesting to collect the bike on Wednesday afternoon so that he could test drive it while on his way to work on Thursday. Unfortunately due to various internal servicing shambles at the dealership, Husamarine was only able to collect the bike late Friday afternoon by trailer and therefore the test drive never took place.

Bushboy arrived ahead of schedule, a little cold but all in one piece. A quick breakfast on the veranda in the fresh morning air, we then started off on our adventure supported by a rough sketch indicating a few route markings.

(Breakfast)

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(Petrol stop at Hazyview)

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