Limpopo! Who would've thought? ***Video Added - Day 2***

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DjfLoYd

Pack Dog
Joined
Mar 2, 2006
Messages
347
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Location
Centurion, GTG
Bike
KTM 1190 Adventure
Firstly - a massive "thank you" to Steekvlieg for having us stay on his family farm at no cost.
Myself and Richard truly appreciate your hospitality and generosity.

Secondly - a big thank you to all the contributors in the "planning a ride" thread for this trip.
All your various inputs were greatly appreciated. This was one of my favourite rides thus far.

So, on to the ride report…….

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There’s always a hidden danger when one is part of a community of like-minded people.

It’s a rather benign sort of danger at first. A quiet, lurking danger. And it always manifests itself when it’s
too late to do anything about it. It usually jumps out of a bush, or emerges from a rocky river
or even comes sauntering down a rocky pass in the opposite direction.

I call it Trip Envy and it’s our affliction. Or at the very least, it’s mine.

A while back I saw some trip reports of Orrie Barragwanath and Lekgalameetse and I immediately
decided that I needed to go there. Ride that. Experience it. Trip Envy had me before I even knew it.
After consulting various sagacious forum members I hatched a plan, made some routes
and found a base of operations for two days of riding in Limpopo province.

Limpopo was a place I knew nothing about. I often passed through it on the N1 on my way to Zimbabwe.
The province, whose name is derived from the Sepedi for “strong gushing waterfall”, was as foreign to me
as anywhere in deepest, darkest Africa. As it turned out, though, the place is a gold mine for off road riding.

Two of us loaded our much loved KTM 690s onto a trailer and made our way north from the capital, early
on Saturday morning. Ahead lay two days of riding.

Day 1.
Distance: 249Km
Time: 10 Hours 58 Min.

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First a little tar to get to the good stuff. Luckily only about 30Km of black stuff. The crisp fresh air
and early start made it more tolerable.

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A quick stop at Ofcolaco, a name I found annoying to pronounce at first. Turns out
it’s an acronym of sorts and stands for Officers Colonial Land Company. It was started by
former British army officers after the first world war. The petrol station is pretty much all that remains
of the shared services and facilities these officers set up. Their descendants are still in the area though.

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The eastern entrance to Lekgalameetse Reserve. Signed in, R70 poorer and off we go. The mountains in
the background being our destination. Our route was to take us out of the southern gate of Lekgalameetse
reserve and on to Penge (pronounced Pen-sh-uh) via some little-used pass that certain forum
members alluded to. Remember Trip Envy? Not long now and she makes her first appearance.

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Closer to those above mentioned mountains as we approach Mafefe. We are now well inside
Lekgalameetse reserve and heading south. The scenery is dry for the most part with smatterings of
green. It’s still early morning, the sky is clear and the temperature is perfect for riding. 

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Very suddenly, the scene looks very different. We find ourselves in what looks like a tropical forest.
There is a steady stream that we constantly criss cross. Here was one of the first few crossings.
It was unbelievably picturesque and felt completely out of place, as if we had suddenly ridden
into a post card. Dry and brown one minute, green and over grown the next.

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Now, as it happens - when the going get’s rough the pictures become few. After one such stream
crossing we were faced with a rather steep and rocky climb. The path suddenly felt as if the stream
was no longer of interest and that the top of the mountain was a far better place to be. I made it roughly
two thirds of the way up before a rock stopped my forward momentum and I came to a halt.
I immediately realised I was on a rather steep slope because no matter which combination of front and
back brakes I tried, the bike insisted on sliding back down. Clearly intent on going back to enjoying the
stream and to hell with this hill business. Thankfully a rock (probably the same bastard that stopped me
in the first place), some swearing and a little brute force kept the bike stationary. The freshly
drenched tyres helped nothing. I quickly dismounted and tried to push the bike while giving it clutch and
throttle. Nothing but wheel spin. I cursed a little more. Some choice words I might add.

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Suddenly, there she was. Trip Envy. That little bitch was sitting just off
to the side of the path having a good laugh at me. “You see” she said, “You want to ride
routes other people ride? Now you have to suffer the consequences. Google Earth can’t show you everything!”
Richard was about half way up the incline behind me and walking up. He could see that I needed a push
and that I was not going to get the required momentum to get going again. At least not on my own.
Man, it’s good to not ride alone.

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As always, photos are particularly bad at conveying inclines. Or rocks. Or degrees of difficulty. It’s simply
a format that does not lend itself to conveying that information. So take it on my word. It was steep. It was
rocky.

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After walking back down and fetching his bike, we both stopped on a more level spot to catch our breath.
While the climb was fairly technical it was not that bad actually. What was bad, though, was our fitness.
Clearly we had none between the two of us. In just the next few kilometres we climbed up and up towards
the southern gate and with each rocky climb my fore arms pumped up like some juice monkey
after a work out session. I was knackered and the day had barely begun. Trip Envy was around every
corner. Laughing her ass off.

The southern gate of Lekgalameetse Reserve.

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After some more rocky climbs (that were at least done on dry tyres now) we reached the spine of the mountain
along side Lekgalameetse. Here we stopped for a quick break and so that Richard could take off some
of his warmer under garments. It was getting pretty toasty by now.

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Having had a quick break we headed along the spine of the mountain and then slowly descended
down the other side into a valley. Here we rode along jeep tracks and single tracks. Troops of
baboons as big as great danes ran in front of us, as startled by us as we were of them. The scenery
was awesome, riding between hills on all sides. Small streams were crossed and some were fallen into.

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Richard managed to fall over in a stream and got pinned underneath his bike. His boot firmly wedged
between a big rock and his bike. I was slightly ahead of him and did not hear his shouts or his hooter.
Fortunately I stop every so often and wait for him to catch up. When this did not happen after a few minutes,
I started back along the route to see where he was. As luck would have it he managed to free himself
within short order and was already back on the bike by the time I got to him. Not more than 5 minutes had elapsed
between him falling over and me finding him, but after he realised he was seemingly stuck the
combination of transitory panic and the remoteness of our location slowed everything down and made it feel like
he was trapped for hours. His eyes were fairly wide to say the least and I found he stayed a lot closer from there on.

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What goes into a valley must come out of a valley at some point. And this the path surely did.
We crossed some streams and suddenly found ourselves at the base of a mountain.
The route snaked up the mountain, rocky and loose.
Kind of like a drug-addled-Hillbrow prostitute (or so I’m lead to believe).

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After some twists and turns, and I mean hairpin turns, we found ourselves roughly halfway up
the mountain. The going was good but tough, the small rocks made for some traction issues but generally
we managed to get up with not too much fuss. Our fitness however was letting us down badly. That and the
heat were doing us no favours. I would hate to do this route in the dead of summer. At one point I had to
walk back down and help Richard traverse a slightly tricky, off camber, rocky, hairpin bend but other than
that we managed well. Second gear and some clutch worked like a charm for me. After a particularly hairy
corner, where I lost traction due to fatigue and a loss of concentration, I finally boiled over. I had to stop and
take a break and get some kit off to cool down. Even my bike’s clutch was starting to cook. Trip Envy was
loving this.

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We finally made it up and over the mountain only to have to descend into another valley.
This descent was just as rocky (more so actually) than the climb we just did. I found
it was easier going down as I just picked a line and let the wheels and suspension do the work.
That was the riding at least. The standing and leg work was another story. Somewhere
on the way down my legs started quivering like a nervous school girl at prom night with Johnny B. Goode
behind the bleachers. Damn! I am unfit! Luckily I had some conditioning left thanks to playing soccer
and some cycling from days past. Richard was not so lucky. He was paste! He could not even stand on the pegs.
Sitting down on those rocky slopes did him no favours but we both got down the mountain with no incident.

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At some point at the bottom of the pass we passed what looked like a small village and I think I saw the
name Murasi. Once there though it was lowlands and dry river beds. Easy riding until just before Penge.

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Here we had the Olifants river to cross. Now here is where I question my sanity. Look at the photo and you will see
a perfectly working bridge, not 1km down the road. Yet we decide it’s a great idea to cross the river
at a rocky section where the water is running low and fast. I can just see Trip Envy out of the corner of my eye.
She’s watching me like a bad practical joke watches an unsuspecting victim. I feel her anticipation.
Oh what the hell, the river is shallow. How bad can the rocks be?

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The rocks were not that big but they were as slippery as the front row of a Justin Bieber concert.
(again, so I’m told).

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After swearing, blaspheming, cussing and cursing my way across the Olifants river rocks, my malediction-infused
crossing ended on the opposite, sandy banks under a tree with me having to empty out water from my boots.
Now I was grumpy. It’s one thing to battle heat, rocks and inclines but it’s a whole new level of “af kak” to ride
with wet feet. Trip Envy was rolling on the floor with glee. Dismally, Richard fared no better. He got proper
stuck in the middle of the river. The bike just spraying water into the air. Unenthusiastically, I had to walk
back into the river and help push him out. That was a process all on it’s own. I haven’t laughed so hard in ages.
For some obscure reason (in hind sight, most likely because I was pulling the bike sideways and not forwards) every time
we inched over a rock the back of the bike came around. Eventually he was facing upstream and couldn’t
understand why. Especially since I professed innocence and offered no reason for the bikes strange behaviour.

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We eventually made it to Penge and found a lovely lady-proprietor of a small shop called Hlongi’s.
Here we bought some ice cold water and Sprite. Her shop was clean as a whistle and she was
bubbly and friendly. Laughing the whole time. I suspect she thought we were crazy, basweu. She is
the lady in white, sitting down.

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Chugging our drinks and refilling our Camelbacks we did the same to our bikes. With freshly refilled
petrol tanks we carried on. Trip Envy now riding shotgun on the back with me. We had a short tar stretch to
do.

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Not too far down the road we crossed over the Olifants River again as we headed north again towards
the western entrance of Lekgalameetse Reserve. This time a lot less drama on the slippery rocks
and only about a 100 metres of deep, dried-up river sand before hitting the next embankment.

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By now the day was getting on and the sun was getting closer to the horizon.
We still had the Orrie Baragwanath Pass to do. As it turned out it was
rocky but not bad at all. We hit some traffic halfway up when we came across a group
of 4x4 vehicles heading in the opposite direction, one of which had broken down.
Luckily we had a gap we could take to pass them. The route was slightly more intricate than I thought it would be. Remembering
all the ride reports I read, it seemed a lot tamer for some reason (perhaps I thought the bigger bikes
would not have ventured here) but was still a breeze compared to what we had done earlier that day.
Richard’s facial expression very clearly articulated his feelings towards yet more rocks. Trip Envy liked him.

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Some views from the Orrie B. pass.

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The late afternoon sun made it decidedly more stunning in my opinion. Both Richard and I have been
fortunate enough to have travelled to many corners of our earth and we both agreed, there is still
nothing out there like big African sky.

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We carried on through the reserve and went up to the view point. Here you get a view of the knuckles.
Behind me in case you weren’t certain.

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The bikes that brought us here.

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After enjoying the view (and some biltong) we headed back down and out of the reserve.
The last few kilometres of the reserve is tarred and made for a nice relaxing way to wind
down a great days riding. By the time we got out the reserve the sun was low
on the horizon and we clearly had to make a dash for the farm where we were staying.
We rode the last stretch of dirt road into the farm in the dark. Parking our bikes
we climbed off feeling accomplished, tired and very, very satisfied.
Trip Envy could suck it.


Day 2 coming soon....
 
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