Pete, Kevin and I had done previous trips in Namibia and Mpondoland checking out the Spaza shops and the local price of a quart of Black Label. This time we decided on something shorter and nearer to home.
Plan was to head up to the Tankwa Karoo, over to the Wes Kus, then to ride up to Groenriviersmond before heading back down to Cape Town via St Helena Bay.
Kev decided to steer away from the ratty hire bikes and to take his own BMW Geen Sand 1150. Pete was on his trusty DR650 and I had my KTM690R.
Day one started at my place in Rosebank with a heavy breakfast washed down with a wee dram, then off North via the bike shops of Paarden Eiland. Managed to lose Pete before getting off the R27.
We eventually got started and headed through Durbanville to Wellington. My brother Geoff owns the Railway hotel. A salubrious venue to start the Black Label sampling and a quick game of pool
Obvious choice out of Wellington is always Bain’s Kloof. Really one of the best tar rides in the Western Cape. Kev still doing very nicely on the GS.
Ceres, not much further and we were stopping for lunch already. We are not talking big Ks in a day. Thursday 2pm in Ceres not a great selection of lunch spots on offer. Ended up in the Spur where Pete was very upset that they had no mustard for his rib eye. After sending all the staff all over Ceres we eventually settled for a mustardless meal before heading on North. Decision was already made to head up through the Cederberg rather than Tankwa. Part laziness and partly to get a better ride North.
Fearlessly entering leopard country.
“Its lovely here…”
Stopover was then with the familiar faces of Gerhard and Chantelle at Oasis. Pretty quiet there but for a young Dutch group with whom we fervently discussed the pros and cons of decriminalisation of drugs. We also met Percy on his KTM990. A superbike convert, he was getting some dirt miles in and decided to join us on the route to Nieuwoudtville via Wuppertal.
Not an early start on Friday. I was farting about endlessly with packing up the camping equipment on the KTM. That interspersed with a big breakfast from Chantelle has us leaving Oasis only around 10.30am.
Great ride up to Wuppertal for a quick lunch at the Lekker Bekkie. Cute place, but abstinent and run on some kind of mission basis. No BLs to be seen anywhere necessitating the hip flask.
The road to Wuppertal
No Black Label for 100km in any direction.
After Percy peeled off for Cape Town the arrival in Nieuwoudtville was typical Karoo town entrance when you feel like the most exciting thing to happen in the past 6 months. Len the proprietor at the N Hotel gave us a verbal history of the teak bar and a rundown on how the superbikes from Vredendal do the pass.
“They come down that straight at 330…”
Great coming down the pass, but boring tar run all the way to Lutzville. 650 singles with no fairings are not the best way to do 20km straights into a head wind. Dum de dum. Wonder if I will have any teeth left by the end of this….
Stocked up with braai meat and BLs at Lutzville to the point where we only set off for the coast after sunset. On the Wes Kus, the mist comes up in the morning and stays until lunch, hangs around for the afternoon then comes up again in the evening for the whole night. We hit the mist and the darkness about 5km out of Lutzville. Searching for a camping spot in the dark, in the mist, with Ancient Mariner style wind turbines everywhere was slightly eerie.
We did eventually stumble on some excuse for a camping spot and sheltered under 3 miserable trees for the evening. Got a fire going, braaied the meat, opened a tin of beans, consumed the beer, brandy and whisky and thinks started to look up. Only an attempt at a camp photo revealed that conditions were still pretty grim.
Spot the fire in the mist.
After squeezing the tents in amongst the fynbos Pete and I looked on jealously at Kev’s 6 inch thick blow up mattress. He spent about 60 minutes pumping it up with some noisy compressor and the bike running. Eventually got it into the tent only for the fynbos to finish it off within 30 minutes. 6 inches thick became 6mm thick. Served him right for destroying the ambiance.
Morning reveals the campsite in all its splendour. Nice parking slab courtesy of the local mine.
Gerhard’s mum does a great line in wooly beanies.
Morning came and lack of creature comforts got us going early. We had a long ride planned for the day, heading north on the coastal sand road, before turning and reaching south for St Helena Bay. The sand road is reasonably compacted by the 4x4s with only a few soft spots to worry Kev on the GS. When we dropped down onto the tracks next to the beach the sand became much deeper and softer. Kev then would start having a fight with the GS to stop it from diving into the bush every 20 meters. He eventually decided to stick to the upper road and we followed him, but dropped down now and then to do some sand and have a bit of fun.
After about 2 hours heading north we stopped for an early lunch on top of a pleasant sand dune with a view of the sea. Still about 50km short of Groenriviersmond, we decided to head south after lunch.
Die Wes Kus
“If that mattress had held out I might have got a few hours of sleep last night….”
Mount up!
Lutzville
On the long drive down we avoided tar roads almost all the way. At one point North of Doringbaai Pete made a reasonable attempt at dropping the DR off a cliff and into the sea. He had wandered up a single track and lost the back wheel as he went close to the cliff. No real danger to life and limb, but his stubborn refusal to wait for us to help him up with the bike almost had us doing some recovery work.
The Sishen railway line service roads are probably the widest and flattest dirt roads in die wereld. Signs all around stated they are closed to the public since some date in 2014. We generally ignored these and blasted down at way over the 80kph limit. We were joined by an occasional local Corolla, also hitting speed. Funny how you can cruise at 130 comfortably on a dirt road, but not on a tar road. At the end of each section there was generally a toll point which, we always found a way past. Not sure if they could collect tolls if the roads were closed. No one seemed to be too worried in any case. Bikes need to ride free.
Don't see any trains.
At St Helena Bay we had a very comfortable night at a friend Matthew’s place up on the hill. Next morning it was a breakfast run down to the Kwekery en Koffie Huis with Matthew on his 19voetsak BMW. Not exactly the Twin Peaks, but great breakfast:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/18/texas-police-arrests-biker-gang-shootout-waco
BMs in the Mist. 60 years of progress...
Followed a fairly uneventful trip south to CT via die Wes Kus Nationale Park and then the R27. Pete has a gazillion litre tank on the DR, which started losing suction (with fuel still in the tank) just south of Yzerfontein. Managed to get it going again, and so he sailed past the next filling station determined to get his money’s worth from the big tank. And so it lost suction again around Melkbosstrand. Still had a few litres of fuel, but this time took about 20 mins to re-prime.
Our standard finishing post is Biker Bar 58 on Main Road in Obs. No exceptions allowed to this rule.
Written by the Soutie on the trip, please excuse all attempts at Afrikaans folklore.
Plan was to head up to the Tankwa Karoo, over to the Wes Kus, then to ride up to Groenriviersmond before heading back down to Cape Town via St Helena Bay.
Kev decided to steer away from the ratty hire bikes and to take his own BMW Geen Sand 1150. Pete was on his trusty DR650 and I had my KTM690R.
Day one started at my place in Rosebank with a heavy breakfast washed down with a wee dram, then off North via the bike shops of Paarden Eiland. Managed to lose Pete before getting off the R27.
We eventually got started and headed through Durbanville to Wellington. My brother Geoff owns the Railway hotel. A salubrious venue to start the Black Label sampling and a quick game of pool
Obvious choice out of Wellington is always Bain’s Kloof. Really one of the best tar rides in the Western Cape. Kev still doing very nicely on the GS.
Ceres, not much further and we were stopping for lunch already. We are not talking big Ks in a day. Thursday 2pm in Ceres not a great selection of lunch spots on offer. Ended up in the Spur where Pete was very upset that they had no mustard for his rib eye. After sending all the staff all over Ceres we eventually settled for a mustardless meal before heading on North. Decision was already made to head up through the Cederberg rather than Tankwa. Part laziness and partly to get a better ride North.
Fearlessly entering leopard country.
“Its lovely here…”
Stopover was then with the familiar faces of Gerhard and Chantelle at Oasis. Pretty quiet there but for a young Dutch group with whom we fervently discussed the pros and cons of decriminalisation of drugs. We also met Percy on his KTM990. A superbike convert, he was getting some dirt miles in and decided to join us on the route to Nieuwoudtville via Wuppertal.
Not an early start on Friday. I was farting about endlessly with packing up the camping equipment on the KTM. That interspersed with a big breakfast from Chantelle has us leaving Oasis only around 10.30am.
Great ride up to Wuppertal for a quick lunch at the Lekker Bekkie. Cute place, but abstinent and run on some kind of mission basis. No BLs to be seen anywhere necessitating the hip flask.
The road to Wuppertal
No Black Label for 100km in any direction.
After Percy peeled off for Cape Town the arrival in Nieuwoudtville was typical Karoo town entrance when you feel like the most exciting thing to happen in the past 6 months. Len the proprietor at the N Hotel gave us a verbal history of the teak bar and a rundown on how the superbikes from Vredendal do the pass.
“They come down that straight at 330…”
Great coming down the pass, but boring tar run all the way to Lutzville. 650 singles with no fairings are not the best way to do 20km straights into a head wind. Dum de dum. Wonder if I will have any teeth left by the end of this….
Stocked up with braai meat and BLs at Lutzville to the point where we only set off for the coast after sunset. On the Wes Kus, the mist comes up in the morning and stays until lunch, hangs around for the afternoon then comes up again in the evening for the whole night. We hit the mist and the darkness about 5km out of Lutzville. Searching for a camping spot in the dark, in the mist, with Ancient Mariner style wind turbines everywhere was slightly eerie.
We did eventually stumble on some excuse for a camping spot and sheltered under 3 miserable trees for the evening. Got a fire going, braaied the meat, opened a tin of beans, consumed the beer, brandy and whisky and thinks started to look up. Only an attempt at a camp photo revealed that conditions were still pretty grim.
Spot the fire in the mist.
After squeezing the tents in amongst the fynbos Pete and I looked on jealously at Kev’s 6 inch thick blow up mattress. He spent about 60 minutes pumping it up with some noisy compressor and the bike running. Eventually got it into the tent only for the fynbos to finish it off within 30 minutes. 6 inches thick became 6mm thick. Served him right for destroying the ambiance.
Morning reveals the campsite in all its splendour. Nice parking slab courtesy of the local mine.
Gerhard’s mum does a great line in wooly beanies.
Morning came and lack of creature comforts got us going early. We had a long ride planned for the day, heading north on the coastal sand road, before turning and reaching south for St Helena Bay. The sand road is reasonably compacted by the 4x4s with only a few soft spots to worry Kev on the GS. When we dropped down onto the tracks next to the beach the sand became much deeper and softer. Kev then would start having a fight with the GS to stop it from diving into the bush every 20 meters. He eventually decided to stick to the upper road and we followed him, but dropped down now and then to do some sand and have a bit of fun.
After about 2 hours heading north we stopped for an early lunch on top of a pleasant sand dune with a view of the sea. Still about 50km short of Groenriviersmond, we decided to head south after lunch.
Die Wes Kus
“If that mattress had held out I might have got a few hours of sleep last night….”
Mount up!
Lutzville
On the long drive down we avoided tar roads almost all the way. At one point North of Doringbaai Pete made a reasonable attempt at dropping the DR off a cliff and into the sea. He had wandered up a single track and lost the back wheel as he went close to the cliff. No real danger to life and limb, but his stubborn refusal to wait for us to help him up with the bike almost had us doing some recovery work.
The Sishen railway line service roads are probably the widest and flattest dirt roads in die wereld. Signs all around stated they are closed to the public since some date in 2014. We generally ignored these and blasted down at way over the 80kph limit. We were joined by an occasional local Corolla, also hitting speed. Funny how you can cruise at 130 comfortably on a dirt road, but not on a tar road. At the end of each section there was generally a toll point which, we always found a way past. Not sure if they could collect tolls if the roads were closed. No one seemed to be too worried in any case. Bikes need to ride free.
Don't see any trains.
At St Helena Bay we had a very comfortable night at a friend Matthew’s place up on the hill. Next morning it was a breakfast run down to the Kwekery en Koffie Huis with Matthew on his 19voetsak BMW. Not exactly the Twin Peaks, but great breakfast:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/18/texas-police-arrests-biker-gang-shootout-waco
BMs in the Mist. 60 years of progress...
Followed a fairly uneventful trip south to CT via die Wes Kus Nationale Park and then the R27. Pete has a gazillion litre tank on the DR, which started losing suction (with fuel still in the tank) just south of Yzerfontein. Managed to get it going again, and so he sailed past the next filling station determined to get his money’s worth from the big tank. And so it lost suction again around Melkbosstrand. Still had a few litres of fuel, but this time took about 20 mins to re-prime.
Our standard finishing post is Biker Bar 58 on Main Road in Obs. No exceptions allowed to this rule.
Written by the Soutie on the trip, please excuse all attempts at Afrikaans folklore.
