A couple of friends, an evening in Caledon and a 4x4 route the next morning...

So this was the mission of a spur of the moment ride plan:
Take our tents, go to the Owl's nest just outside Caledon, spend some time in Zanzibar (Uiltjie's bar), wake up Sunday and tackle the 4x4 route on a friend of Uiltjies' farm.

Easy.

More a little later on the spur of the moment decision...


My weekend started the Friday afternoon on going to Langebaan to hook up with Vicky who's been busy with the 'Weskus Kunste Makietie' since

Wednesday. Also following an impromptu decision I went to get coffee and say 'hi' to White Stripes and 'the American'. It was too short but a very nice 'powervisit' so to speak.

Next morning I discovered my zorst have gone loose again. (Those of you that I rode with to and from the bash will remember it came loose there for

the 1st time - I kept fastening it with hose clamps. Came loose again on the shavathon ride).

This time I decided to make a better 'temporary plan' : : and got a state of the art pooratech zorst clamp.




All set and I'm off home to get some stuff packed on the bike.

Surf arrive and we are off to meet up with Operator in Franschoek.

Over Franschoek and towards Theewaterskloof in ride photo:


Operator was concerned that he would keep us up, but that Djebel XC 250 of his kept a brisk pace for a 250. And if you are in a 

holiday-on-your-way-to-the-mountains mood, who needs more than the 120 that the XC was easily capable of anyway ?

This was me eating some dust on the way from Theeaterskloof towards Boontjieskraal road and the N2.



Surf doing his HD impersonation. Waaaay too much ATGATT and gear...  : :


Operator giving it some stick on the Boontjieskraal road. Notice the pooratech orange lens cover (R20 worth of perspex and he had it)



Surf giving it some more stick on the Boontjieskraal road.
I don't care what anyone says - I still like that GSA triangle of lights front face.



There is a reason why Surf always have a lighter bike (and easier ride) coming back from a weekend ;D ;D ;D



Another friend of Uiltjie had a rally over a part of his farm and they invited us to come and watch with them. We had a prime spot on a hill on the farm overlooking a descend and a spectacular turn at the bottom.

Kudu boerie rolls and lots of laughter (oh and a couple of 'doppe' on his farm's bar as well) later we were on our way through some scenic Overberg roads towards the Uilnes.
Thanks Heinrich for letting us gatecrash your party and your bar.
I like those 'exotic birds' in your trees!


Here is Operator's bike looking happy:


A couple of photos of a car coming past.
These guys came down that road so fast that it made normal traffic later the day look like they were crawling.
Oh and what a lovely sound those rally cars made.

Here's a photo or 3 - I had to zoom in very far, hence the not so lekker quality:









The evening was started with lots of laughter and jokes and listening music.
I'll leave the evening's photos to Surf. He does artistic photos of all kinds of booze...

The evening in Zanzibar was absolutely amazing. We didn't end up making donuts in there however.
That is and will remain a six pack privilege and we will respect that (and that is the ONLY reason > >  :  )

Now back to the impromptu nature of the ride plans - at about 19:30 / 20:00 we heard a very familiar sounding thumper pulling in.
What a pleasant surprise to see Topbox joining us there!

Needless to say the rest of the evening was just one joyous monumental 'kuier' of note.
We went to bed at about 2:00.

Or I think it was 2:00. That was the last time I looked at my watch.

Oh well.


The next morning was met with some resistance (only some) and lots of rain.
Yeah - Uiltjie's weather forecaster is never wrong - apparently he just changes his mind (and forecast) closer to the time as more info becomes available. So while we were already on our way to Caledon, Uiltjie found out that we were going to have rain.

>

So we had breakfast and just saw if we could wait the worst of it out.

So the weather subsided a little and at about 11:00 we were ready to pull out.
Awesome!

The 1st one or two kilometers up the route had us a little busy dodging fist sized rocks, ruts, furrows and the cliffs.
Operator is on a bike for the 1st time in 20 years and he was a little nervous, but he did a good job of keeping his bike upright, albeit not always

on the track. ;D ;D


This was the 1st point where we could actually stop and take the camera out:



15 Seconds later Operator joined:



I went ahead and waited for the rest for a photo.
The water on the lens made for some interesting effects. Yeah - it started raining again, but we didn't mind. We were on the mountain having a blast.
And besides - this isn't called adventure riding for nothing!







Then after the next stop this is the group going further up again.




One thing that is seriously cool about the route is that for the first 1/3 the ascend rate is so high that you'll be concentrating hard to keep the bike in the road and upright. Next thing you know you are looking down on just about everything.

Surf had a close call coming around one turn and being met by a hole as big as as his GS on the side of the road in his line...
He managed to save it - he is quite good at saves...

Then - about 3 k's on I came across this:
A GSA parked in the fynbos and Surf smiling beside it...


Turns out some rocks and the wind threw him out and he went off the road and into the fynbos. Just before that spot was a mother of a rock next to the road - things could have gotten nasty.

Still life - a GS, some Fynbos and a missing spotlight cover.



Lucky he found the spotlight cover. The only damage was a broken speedo cable.

Could have been worse...

Look - no stand - it stood on its own. Either its hellova strong Fynbos, or he managed to wedge it in quite tightly. ;D ;D



Operator also had a close call once when he got thrown from a rut in the road and landed sideways. One moment he was going up and the next he was shooting out sideways, over the shoulder and into the veld. About 4 meters later he caught the bike at an angle. He wasn't going to keep it for long, so decided to not take a photo but rather offer some help. Yeah I know - very un Wilddog like, but it was his first time...



This was going round the peak:



I also went ahead again to set up a photo.
Notice the loose rocks.
Uiltjie coming down smiling.



How do I know he was smiling ?
This is cropped from the above:



Surf on the same piece of road:



Back at the Uilnes we had some coffee and again had it supplimented with some very animated and cool conversation.

Then the Goudinie bike wash was fired up:


;D ;D

This photo says it all - tired but very satisfied.





Uil - thank you thank you thank you for your and Mrs Uil's hospitality and all the things you did to make our weekend super.
You guys seriously and absolutely rock!

Thanks for taking us up there and being our guide.

Thanks also to Surf, Topbox and Operator for sharing in this and making it such an enjoyable weekend!
Spur of the moment things like this sometimes have the habit of turning out memorable as this one.

Operator, I don't want to labour the issue too much, but you did good for someone who is a little new to this on a road that demanded a not-so-new-to-this skill level.
You shifted some of your boundaries today and did very well. Remember - the more you do it the easier it becomes!


Thanks all - this is Varkkneukel and I can like to be riding 4x4 routes in Caledon again soon...