The last third of the river track opens up into a bigger dirt road as it heads north towards Dal-Josaphat but it's fantastic riding on the heavy bike with the track snaking through the valley crossing dry riverbeds and nice klip koppies to explore. From here I headed towards the R37 to take me east, the small villages dotted next to the tar sections all have small spaza shops and I must have stopped by almost all of them to stock up on my water supply. Unfortunately they also have a gazillion speed bumps and goats making progress painfully slow. After a while I could not take it anymore and went fully Africa mode, passing cars and bakkies by any means possible !
Filling up a local who certainly did not consume on site came walking up to me with zero social distancing first asking for a job and then failing that for some money. Gave him R10 to cut short the conversation and he was happen as can be. From here I headed to Djata, eventually the route would lead me to the Steelpoort Mountain track which looked interesting on Google Earth at least but never knew about it. First though I had to ride Sidetrack Pass (registered trade mark, all rights reserved), I have done it before on a DRZ and a previous XTZ but each time going west to east downhill, well this time I went up and I guess no maintenance took place in the last 5 years because it was in pretty bad condition. Even my XT's fan came one, it has never come on before, in fact I had my doubts it even worked as per my post in technical section. But now I know it takes a rocky climb and 35 degree weather to activate that sucker. Start of the pass is in the last picture. It's a fun ride and nice views from the top.