Cattle Rustler Pass

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JonW

Grey Hound
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I have been in and out of Lesotho many many times.

Sani Pass is spectacular, I have ridden up and down more often than I can remember and I have loved it every time. I think I have gone through just about every border crossing there is, including OngeluksNek, Ramatseliso, Monontsa, Tele Bridge as well as an unauthorised hop across the Tele River on the way to the National Bash last year.

But what has really played on my mind for the past few years is finding a rideable route up into Lesotho over the Southern Drakensberg.

The last time I was up in Lesotho we stopped on the road between Sehlabathebe and Ramatselitso and looked at the view over South Africa and I thought to myself, there must be some way of riding up through these mountains to get here.

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When I do a new route the first thing I do is spend some time on Google Earth, looking to see whether the terrain looks rideable, looking for existing paths and whether those paths go anywhere or are dead ends. After more than a few hours of playing I came up with this track that took me more or less exactly where I wanted to go.

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Most importantly the elevation profile didn't look too bad, with a maximum slope of 19.6%, which is quite rideable.

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Now I had the route I wanted to ride and I was pretty sure it could be done, I just had to track down the landowners and get permission to ride over their land, as these East griqualand farmers are notoriously hostile to trespassers. As luck would have it a friend of mine turns out to be close to one of the farmers over whose land my route passes, so after some sweet talking and sincere promises to stay on the established paths we were given reluctant permission to ride there.

Once I had set the date for the Thursday public holiday, my usual riding partner Outthere needed no arm twisting to join me. I also invited my good mate Philemon from Joburg to join us, but unfortunately he couldn't get away from his factory for the weekend. Maybe next time buddy.

The plan was to trailer the bikes to the Underberg area as we weren't too keen on a long tar ride there and back. We set off from Howick at about 06h30, bikes securely strapped on the trailer and a cloudless blue sky with the prospect of a scorcher of a day ahead.

The first bit was along farm roads, then we turned off, went through a plantation and onto the trail

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Wasn't long before we were into the foothills of the berg

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By now it was starting to get hot, and the trail was getting rougher and steeper

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to be continued

 
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