Day 1
After reading many ride reports about circumnavigating Lesotho, a mate and I decided it was our turn. Once a year we take a week off and do a bike trip together. Last year we spent 6 days riding back from Cape Town, the year before we did Swaziland and Mozambique and this year it was time to do some mountain passes. I did the research by reading other ride reports and then started putting a route together. The plan was to do it in 6 days and complete about 2500km. Of course nothing ever goes to plan. First hiccough was not being able to leave midday Sunday due to work pressure for my riding partner. So on Monday morning (31st of October) we set off from my house in JHB. First stop the garage in Villiers – no issues and next stop Harrismith for juice and breakfast. While we eating Wayne gets some work calls and apparently all is not sorted back home and I can see his mind is not on the trip. He decides to turn back and take care of the business issues. At that point I need to decide if I’m continuing on my own, turn back or do something else.
After all the anticipation, there was no way I was going to turn back. So I decided to take the risk and continue. Only problem was I stuffed up the maps on my GPS. When downloading the latest T4A maps to my Zumo 660 it seems I had over written all the previous maps. I didn’t realise that this was how it worked so here I was about to ride in Natal, FS and E Cape and all I had on the GPS was Northern Cape Maps. What a balls up!
Thank goodness Wayne had a laptop so we attempted to download his T4A maps onto my GPS. That worked but it turned out later his maps were very very old and my routes did not work either. Fortunately, I had printed closeups of most of the route so that was going to have to do.
With the lost time from Sunday it was going to be a long day. Next target was Bezuidenhouts Pass. Going up the pass from the west side was pretty easy but descending on the other side was quite tricky. This pass is very rough – exactly the way I like it. Also, the scenery in this part of the world is just mind blowing at the moment – so green. At one point on the way down I came head to head with a huge heard of cattle – we frightened each other actually - they tried to turn and run in the opposite direction but the herder was having none of that. I quickly stopped to the side and turned off the bike and let them pass. You would have sworn I was an alien from another planet by the way they were trying to avoid me. Some even climbed the mountain to get further away
Then a few kays down the mountain an old bull conned me. I rode up to a normal farm gate and he was just standing nearby mining his own business. I opened the gate and went back to move the bike and he rushed through the damn gate so quickly I could do nothing. Then on the other side he bloody charged me!! So whoever the owner is I'm terribly sorry I let your bull out the gate.
I continued through the hills and valleys and eventually arrived at Sani Lodge Backpackers after and awesome days riding.
After reading many ride reports about circumnavigating Lesotho, a mate and I decided it was our turn. Once a year we take a week off and do a bike trip together. Last year we spent 6 days riding back from Cape Town, the year before we did Swaziland and Mozambique and this year it was time to do some mountain passes. I did the research by reading other ride reports and then started putting a route together. The plan was to do it in 6 days and complete about 2500km. Of course nothing ever goes to plan. First hiccough was not being able to leave midday Sunday due to work pressure for my riding partner. So on Monday morning (31st of October) we set off from my house in JHB. First stop the garage in Villiers – no issues and next stop Harrismith for juice and breakfast. While we eating Wayne gets some work calls and apparently all is not sorted back home and I can see his mind is not on the trip. He decides to turn back and take care of the business issues. At that point I need to decide if I’m continuing on my own, turn back or do something else.
After all the anticipation, there was no way I was going to turn back. So I decided to take the risk and continue. Only problem was I stuffed up the maps on my GPS. When downloading the latest T4A maps to my Zumo 660 it seems I had over written all the previous maps. I didn’t realise that this was how it worked so here I was about to ride in Natal, FS and E Cape and all I had on the GPS was Northern Cape Maps. What a balls up!
Thank goodness Wayne had a laptop so we attempted to download his T4A maps onto my GPS. That worked but it turned out later his maps were very very old and my routes did not work either. Fortunately, I had printed closeups of most of the route so that was going to have to do.
With the lost time from Sunday it was going to be a long day. Next target was Bezuidenhouts Pass. Going up the pass from the west side was pretty easy but descending on the other side was quite tricky. This pass is very rough – exactly the way I like it. Also, the scenery in this part of the world is just mind blowing at the moment – so green. At one point on the way down I came head to head with a huge heard of cattle – we frightened each other actually - they tried to turn and run in the opposite direction but the herder was having none of that. I quickly stopped to the side and turned off the bike and let them pass. You would have sworn I was an alien from another planet by the way they were trying to avoid me. Some even climbed the mountain to get further away
Then a few kays down the mountain an old bull conned me. I rode up to a normal farm gate and he was just standing nearby mining his own business. I opened the gate and went back to move the bike and he rushed through the damn gate so quickly I could do nothing. Then on the other side he bloody charged me!! So whoever the owner is I'm terribly sorry I let your bull out the gate.
I continued through the hills and valleys and eventually arrived at Sani Lodge Backpackers after and awesome days riding.
