A bit of the Free State and Eastern Cape

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Wayne Duck

Race Dog
Joined
Aug 29, 2011
Messages
947
Reaction score
303
Location
No fixed address...Travelling Southern Africa in a
Gravel roads across big sky country, a little rain, a dollop of mud, many tight twisties and clear, fresh high altitude air...a recipe for a great trip!
Oh yes, and very importantly, a magnificent motorbike on which to ride   :ricky:

This trip was conceived when my fiance's dad suggested we all celebrate his 60th birthday at De Vlug (on some maps it is spelt De Vlught) on the Prince Alfred Pass between Uniondale and Knysna. There was no way that I was going to do another mind numbing trip there in a car (was there briefly over Xmas) so I promptly opened up MapSource and started planning a route.

Day One
Leave was tight so Ronelle and I decided to save two days (rtn trip) by getting up at 4am and towing the bike to Thaba Nchu (from Jhb) where we would continue on the bike to Venterstad, our first overnight. That would make it 460 something in the car and 244 km on the bike for day one. After parking the car and trailer safely at Naledi Sun Casino (in Thaba Nchu town) we set off straight onto gravel roads, great to be out of the car and on the bike!

Very soon we were confronted with a huge thunderstorm moving across our path in front of us...interesting!

IMGP4145_zpsc52e308f.jpg


IMGP4146_zps495c2b73.jpg


Reaching the edge of the storm we stopped and waited for it to pass in front of us. It was a magnificent show! Lightning and thunder all around and over us as we stood there watching it move across from right to left (west to east). It really made us feel so small out there on the Free State "vlakte"!

After about 15 minutes it had moved off to our left and we continued on our way.

IMGP4151_zps422f2f01.jpg


Obviously the storm had dropped a few million liters of water across these "vlaktes" so the roads and tracks had became little streams in places and rather muddy. The bike soon started to look like the veteran tourer it is...a bit of "houding".

We stopped at Buckley's in Smithfield for lunch (nice place) and in Bethulie to refuel, reaching Hotel Wild in Venterstad at about 5pm.
(Day two to follow...)
 
Top