Losper
Race Dog
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2009
- Messages
- 3,258
- Reaction score
- 54
- Location
- Bloemfontein
- Bike
- Honda CRF-1000L Africa Twin
It is usually very very hot this time of the year but a huge cold front moved in over the county and snow was expected over the highest areas of Lesotho. That promised to make our trip very interesting (little did we know what would lay ahead for us).
We were eight bikes:
4x Africa twins (Twister, Rudolph, Chris and myself)
1x 1200GS (Johan)
1x 990 (171Steve)
1x 1190 (Frans)
1x 690 (Cobus)
We entered Lesotho at Peka bridge border post early the Thursday morning. It was rather chilly and we could see the snow on the mountains in the distance.
I had planned an awesome route with technical river crossings and other technical sections but one of the bikes developed a serious fuel leak and that took a lot of time to sort so itforced us to cut a lot of the original route out. At around 10am I received an sms from Semonkong Lodge informing me that the pass between Ramabanta and Semonkong was closed because of heavy snow falls. So I asked myself the question: "Should I tell the group or shall I keep quiet and pushed on and hope for the best", I kept quiet.
We were lucky and had no rain up to 5pm but by then we reached Ramabanta and as we climbed the pass and higlands towards Semonkong we entered a snow storm. We rode in snowfall and at -3degrees for an hour until we reached Semonkong. That night the temperature dropped to -10.
Friday morning was a beautiful sunny day with no wind but very cold and snow every ware. We rode via Qacha's nek and our plan was to sleep at Mohale dam. That meant that we would only be 30km from Bushmens and be able to spectate the Roof the Saturday.
Late that friday afternoon we started the ascend up Matebeng pass. The higher we went the thicker the snow became but we pressed on. At about 70% up the pass the snow and ice was close to 1meter thick and we were forced to turn around. We exit Lesotho at Ramatsilitso and reached Matatielle at8pm that night.
Saturday morning we entered Lesotho at Qacha's neck and rode the new gravel road via Sehonghong and Thaba Theka back to Maseru. We reached Bushmens (where the Roof was hosted) at 4pm Saturday afternoon and needles to say there was no more Roof at that time.
So we did not see any Roof of Africa but we had one of the most enjoyable trips in a long time.
I will let the pictures tell the story.
We were eight bikes:
4x Africa twins (Twister, Rudolph, Chris and myself)
1x 1200GS (Johan)
1x 990 (171Steve)
1x 1190 (Frans)
1x 690 (Cobus)
We entered Lesotho at Peka bridge border post early the Thursday morning. It was rather chilly and we could see the snow on the mountains in the distance.
I had planned an awesome route with technical river crossings and other technical sections but one of the bikes developed a serious fuel leak and that took a lot of time to sort so itforced us to cut a lot of the original route out. At around 10am I received an sms from Semonkong Lodge informing me that the pass between Ramabanta and Semonkong was closed because of heavy snow falls. So I asked myself the question: "Should I tell the group or shall I keep quiet and pushed on and hope for the best", I kept quiet.
We were lucky and had no rain up to 5pm but by then we reached Ramabanta and as we climbed the pass and higlands towards Semonkong we entered a snow storm. We rode in snowfall and at -3degrees for an hour until we reached Semonkong. That night the temperature dropped to -10.
Friday morning was a beautiful sunny day with no wind but very cold and snow every ware. We rode via Qacha's nek and our plan was to sleep at Mohale dam. That meant that we would only be 30km from Bushmens and be able to spectate the Roof the Saturday.
Late that friday afternoon we started the ascend up Matebeng pass. The higher we went the thicker the snow became but we pressed on. At about 70% up the pass the snow and ice was close to 1meter thick and we were forced to turn around. We exit Lesotho at Ramatsilitso and reached Matatielle at8pm that night.
Saturday morning we entered Lesotho at Qacha's neck and rode the new gravel road via Sehonghong and Thaba Theka back to Maseru. We reached Bushmens (where the Roof was hosted) at 4pm Saturday afternoon and needles to say there was no more Roof at that time.
So we did not see any Roof of Africa but we had one of the most enjoyable trips in a long time.
I will let the pictures tell the story.
