My Date with Fate: back to Hell

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Zanie

Race Dog
WD Supporter
Joined
Jul 19, 2014
Messages
702
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137
Location
Table View, Cape Town
Bike
Honda CRF-250 Rally
Prologue

I have a bone to pick with Die Hel. Actually, it picked one of my bones. Now, almost 2 years later, I was going to take my healed self back there. My insurance: TITS (Time In The Saddle). My reinforcements: Lance, Ilse and Gerhard. Die Hel still held a grudge and levelled a curse at my bike this time, rather than me. Yet I managed to make it out (eventually).

Day 1: Cape Town to Die Hel

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Click here for the Google Maps route.

We froze all the way to Touwsriver, with the temperature staying stubbornly between 7 and 9 °C (the Garmin temperature reading with the track above is an overestimate, since it sits in a warmer bag). Given the distance, we planned to shoot straight through to Die Hel; all tar until Swartberg Pass. At least, that was what Ilse and I requested. We did not want to ride Die Hel at night and were worried about the time. Yet the guys still managed to work in an extra bit of dirt from Laingsburg; running parallel to the N1.

Floriskraal Dam

We headed down the R323 from Laingsburg. After 13km, we climbed onto gravel at the Floriskraal Dam turn-off.

Getting to the dam itself, requires the finding of this obscure turn-off:
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It resembles a farm driveway:
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Lance headed up some impossibly steep concrete tweespoor. I thought he knew what he was doing and followed dutifully. I had to concentrate hard on looking ahead and following my chosen line (it roughly entailed not going off the rather high concrete edges).

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Little did I know that Lance had no real idea where the road went. At one point he thought he had reached the end.

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It was actually just a very sharp corner.
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The road dead-ended on a platform…
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…with views of Floriskraal Dam to one side…
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…and mountains on the other side.
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But where was Ilse?

She had stalled and was now stuck at a very awkward angle on one of the concrete tracks. Luckily her right foot had purchase. If she had tried putting down her left, she would not have found earth, unless in the form of full-body-and-bike contact.

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Her first request? Open the visor! Stressed breathing equates to lots of fogginess.
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A birds-eye-view of Gerhard’s rescue mission.

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With all the bikes (and people!) safely at the top, we partook in some more scenery-gawking.

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Ilse opted for a bike-delivery courier service for the concrete tracks return journey; compliments from Gerhard. I tried my hand at self-service, with Gerhard’s action camera watching from behind and Lance’s from below. No pressure! The corner was scary. You could feel the back tyre sliding on the loose gravel despite the application of brakes. The drop to the right (just short of 2m) did not look pleasant.

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I managed to survive.

Don’t look down! Only ahead.
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The sand monster

The road after Floriskraal Dam started innocently enough. It was beautiful and enjoyable…

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…despite all the gates (some of them of colossal proportion).
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Legend has it that there are 28 gates on this road. The guys had a tag-team system going: one would open the gate, the other would close it, and vice versa the next time. Ilse and I just breezed through! Gates? What gates?

We went through a private nature reserve en route.
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From this point onwards (even beyond the reserve), the sand monster appeared.

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The scenery remained stunning, but Ilse and my attention was riveted on the terrestrial surface.

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The sign on this gate neatly summed up our feelings at this point: Vêrgenoeg!
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The guys, of course, were not phased. They had some sports while waiting for us; creating some brake tracks on the road for us to puzzle over when we arrived.

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They even did some recces on roads-less-travelled while us girls were plodding along on the “thoroughfare.”

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After a dry river crossing, it got even worse.
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And yet…something clicked. Something that my survival instincts have been fighting against for so very long: in sand, speed is your friend.

This knowledge had been purely theoretical until this point. It was the first time ever that I put it into practice. I’ve never had the balls to try it before. I still don’t have balls, but we do the best with what we are given! I can only think that my confidence level reached some tipping point after racking up the kilometres in trip after trip this year.

Disclaimer: “Speed” in relation to me means riding sand in second gear rather than in first or paddling. It was a small victory, but I was delirious with joy. Lance had to deal with strange maniacal laughing and whooping coming through his headset.

Ilse, on the other hand, had hardly been on gravel, let alone sand, in the past few months, due to work commitments. It was a harsh return ride, but she did fine. She has more sand experience than I do overall, as a result of following Gerhard around, who seems to have a thing for sand.

The sand continued.
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But I was able to ride it!
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The sand monster had not been completely domesticated yet, but I could now classify it as “feral,” rather than “wild.”
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It was still snails’ pace for the guys, but Lance was happy that I appeared to cope. Our big Namibia trip was only 3 weeks away. This sand was just a forerunner of what we would face…

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Swartberg Pass

The sand road spat us out on the R407. We headed to Prince Albert and then up the northern side of the Swartberg Pass. The southern side has the steepest gradients, but the northern is the most spectacular (from my point of view). Ilse had never been on Swartberg Pass before, while Gerhard had only seen the southern side.

It is a pass that needs to be done at a reverent, slow pace to take in the surroundings.

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This also seemed to be the opinion of many flag-waving marshals stationed strategically at the tightest corners. They weren’t worried so much about the view as they were about the cyclists. There was some extreme cycling event taking place on the day. As a result, all the bikers we passed were going at a sedate pace. So were the cyclists! A chat with one of the lady cyclists revealed that she had arisen at some unearthly hour of the morning and could expect to have completed 160km when she arrived at the finish line in Prince Albert!

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The water level at the driffie was low.

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The red rocks of Swartberg.
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Some of the slightly unenthusiastic marshals. After waving a flag for an entire day, I can only assume that your arms feel like they want to fall off.
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Unfortunately the area recently burned, but it did not detract too much from the view.
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This is the most spectacular part of the pass: where the road doubles back on itself multiple times, gaining altitude fast through a series of hairpin bends.

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At the top, all you can do is stare.
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Into Hell

Somewhere near the highest point of Swartberg Pass, you find the Gamkaskloof (Die Hel) turn-off. How cool is that? You ride a pass to get to a pass. The sign-board warns of a 2-hour one-way travelling time. Take this seriously if you are of the 4-wheeled variety. We took just short of 1.5 hours; at trundling speed with view stops. I’m sure there are other bikers that go much, much faster.

The very first stretch is relatively tame. We even spotted an adventurous sedan vehicle there the next morning.
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Soon you start hitting “points of interest.” Wet points.
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Then it gets rough. It’s not technically difficult (I rode this pass when I had just short of 6,000km of total bike-riding experience and next to zero off-road experience), but it is jarring. Especially if (the KTM okes will love this) your bike doesn’t have the best suspension on planet earth.

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And yet, smiles all the way!
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Another “point of interest.” Rocks this time.
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I think this pass is one of the longest in SA; at 30-odd km. It has plenty of eye-candy…
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…if you can see, that is. The setting sun was blinding. I used my hand to shield my eyes when it got particularly bad. The helmet peak was not enough. If I ducked my head that low I’d end up seeing instrument panel only. While my odometer and rev counter were indeed intriguing, I desperately needed my attention on the road and one of its over-200 bends/corners/curves.

An approaching car from the front, on a particularly narrow section of road, caused my heart rev counter to rise. I needed both hands for steering, I could hardly see thanks to the sun, and I was 99.9% sure that – before the sun had completely obliterated my peripheral vision – there was a damn ditch somewhere towards the left of the road, where the car was forcing me to go. Ilse, close on my heels, also recounted the car vs. ditch as the scariest episode of our ride. Traffic. The universal bikers’ bane.

Shielding my eyes:
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One of the water crossings:
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The lookout point above Gamkaskloof valley, a.k.a. Die Hel:
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From this point onwards, the scenery shifts from pretty to spectacular. Or maybe “pretty spectacular.”

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One of the many hair-pins:
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Some cyclists on a hair-pin:
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