ianhogg
Race Dog
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 1,503
- Reaction score
- 20
- Location
- 34 Stanbury Street, Proserpine, QLD
- Bike
- Kawasaki Versys
A New way through: Semonkong/Nthamaha/Ketane River/Mt Moorosi/Ongeluks
When the Chinese built the world’s most magnificent alpine superbike tar road from Seforong to Semonkong it didn’t please everyone. There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth from the adventure bike community that their favourite ride had been tarred. One big cry baby told me he was so upset that he would sell his adventure bike, never return to Lesotho and stick to masturbation. So far he has been good to his word. This is not entirely true, from the magnificent Kings Gorge to Semonkong there are many of the original bridal paths that you can take, enough for “Mountain Man” Iain McDonald to get lost on one of his “shortcuts.” [Shortcut: a device used by Iain to take his fellow riders out of their comfort zone and do some extreme P.T.]
However, climbing from Seforong is not the only way to get into the central range and Semonkong. There is also the approach from Mt Moroosi along the Ketane river. I was told a long time ago that Elmer Symons had found a way down to the Ketane river from Semonkong but that knowledge went to the grave with poor old Elmer and his Dakar attempt. In 2009 after a trip on the top of the range with Greg English I looked at the area on Google Earth and gave it up as a bad job.
Recently I heard Iain and Stuart Joyner talking about it. They had tried to get up to Nthamaha a couple of years ago while riding to the Roof but they were caught in torrential rain and decided to turn back. Later Iain returned solo with his KTM Freeride and worked out a route to the top and back down again. His reservation was that it involved some big rock steps, a certain amount of bulldogging and some horrifying drop-offs from a narrow path high up in the mountain face. We decided that we would try again this year but first Stuart dropped out to do seed planting and then on the day we were to leave it snowed. We wimped out and took Iain’s Landcruiser to Semonkong with the bikes on the back. A very good call! This is the story of the trip in reverse, from Semonkong to RSA. . I’ll post the complete tracks as GDB and KML with the ride in blue and the rest of the Google Earth proposed route in yellow.
Below: GPS of route (GBD for Garmin and KLM for Google Earth)
Pictures of protagonists of the new way:
When the Chinese built the world’s most magnificent alpine superbike tar road from Seforong to Semonkong it didn’t please everyone. There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth from the adventure bike community that their favourite ride had been tarred. One big cry baby told me he was so upset that he would sell his adventure bike, never return to Lesotho and stick to masturbation. So far he has been good to his word. This is not entirely true, from the magnificent Kings Gorge to Semonkong there are many of the original bridal paths that you can take, enough for “Mountain Man” Iain McDonald to get lost on one of his “shortcuts.” [Shortcut: a device used by Iain to take his fellow riders out of their comfort zone and do some extreme P.T.]
However, climbing from Seforong is not the only way to get into the central range and Semonkong. There is also the approach from Mt Moroosi along the Ketane river. I was told a long time ago that Elmer Symons had found a way down to the Ketane river from Semonkong but that knowledge went to the grave with poor old Elmer and his Dakar attempt. In 2009 after a trip on the top of the range with Greg English I looked at the area on Google Earth and gave it up as a bad job.
Recently I heard Iain and Stuart Joyner talking about it. They had tried to get up to Nthamaha a couple of years ago while riding to the Roof but they were caught in torrential rain and decided to turn back. Later Iain returned solo with his KTM Freeride and worked out a route to the top and back down again. His reservation was that it involved some big rock steps, a certain amount of bulldogging and some horrifying drop-offs from a narrow path high up in the mountain face. We decided that we would try again this year but first Stuart dropped out to do seed planting and then on the day we were to leave it snowed. We wimped out and took Iain’s Landcruiser to Semonkong with the bikes on the back. A very good call! This is the story of the trip in reverse, from Semonkong to RSA. . I’ll post the complete tracks as GDB and KML with the ride in blue and the rest of the Google Earth proposed route in yellow.
Below: GPS of route (GBD for Garmin and KLM for Google Earth)
Pictures of protagonists of the new way:
