Journey to Rhodes starts:Plan for the day was that Aaklige Attie and Myself ride our machines to Rhodes
Rynhard, Jana and Lizanne tow the Honda 250 behind the Pajero.
FrancoisTz and Natasha tow their bikes behind their Defender.
At Lady grey, we would take the bikes off the trailers, and head over Joubert’s Pass, then come back and get the trailers again and onward to Rhodes.
Plans change...The day started nice and early, and for the first 50km all went according to plan.
I discovered a nasty rattle in my gear box of the GSA, and outside Reddersburg decided to check the filling bolt of the gearbox…
We found a single metal shaving and very low oil…decided to swop the GSA and Honda. GSA would be towed to Rhodes and along the way we would get new oil and flush. Then drain the gearbox, flush it and put new oil…then check to see what happens
Rynhard was tagged into the riding seat of his Honda, and followed his dad on the road the Rhodes.
I took the Pajero driving seat, with the GSA towed behind.
Attie then rode for Aliwal North in order to get his hands on oil for the gearbox.
He made it to Auto Zone 10min before closing time…
Aliwal North had us take some lunch, and one of the guests at the restaurant we had lunch went on to share with us his experiences of the Eastern Cape gravel passes…
He was adamant that if there is a little bit of rain, we will not be able to ride over Bastervoetpad Pass. He was also convinced that the GSA’s were too heavy and won’t be able to handle the pass if it was wet. He was however convinced that the 650 GS and 250 Rally were the only bikes that would be able to make the trip over most of the passes…
After a long explanation of the difficulties and wet conditions of the passes from this informant, I replied to his concerns with:
“Thank you Sir, but you don’t need to try and convince us any further…We are already going to do the pass (Bastervoetpad)”Shortly after this, his wife’s stories became interesting, and he started listening to her more atently and left us to our only conversations.
Due to my bike acting up with the gear box, we decided to skip Joubert’s Pass today, and head to Rhodes and change the Gearbox oil…And here I was all dressed up and driving a cage..
End of tar, and start of Gravel travel:The tar road stopped at Barkly East on the way to Rhodes, and the 2 bikes were already making their way to Rhodes when the 2 towing vehicles went through Barkly East.
FrancoisTz’s GSA was fed up with traveling on the trailer, and we had stop every 10km to either fasten the tie down straps, or replace them as some of them boke.
The gravel road between Barkly East and Rhodes is about 60km, with surfaces changing from compacted, to corrugations and loose gravel. But this road is not too bad if taken at speed, and the road is wide enough to enable you to travel at 60-80km with ease.
The scenery is very beautiful, and it is not necessary to speed past everything.
Soon after coming into Rhodes, we found the Walkerbouts Bar/restaurant and had a couple of cold ones
Side note time:
From the start we did realise that Bastervoetpad pass would be a tricky peace of road, especially with 3 novice riders…
Thus the plan was to keep an eye on the weather, and tackle Bastervoetpad as soon as there are a few dry days in order to bake the trail.
The rest of the passes were not really that reliant on the weather, and the weather forecast had a couple of wet days planned for usRhodes information gathering time:As the Rum was flowing, the locals were interested in our Quest…
Most of the locals were of the opinion that Bastervoetpad should not be attempted this week, but this sounded like loser talk to us…and we kept on asking and talking..
(Finally, we found the right information that we were waiting for)The owner / manager of Walkerbouts was of the opinion that Bastervoetpad is easily doable, and that the right time would be the next day (Sunday 9 December 2018).
According to him, it has been dry for the past few days and thus the route will be dry.
After a few more cold ones, we agreed that the best time would be the coming Sunrise…
Changing Gears:After taping my GSA gearbox oil, and evaluating the oil…it seemed to be that the oil was long overdue for change and no more metal shards were found.
A little flush, and enough oil…the gearbox felt better than ever
All set for early morning departure
And my mood had drastically improved from earlier the day when I had to put my GSA on the trailer
Planned rout for the next day:
• Take road from Rhodes, back towards Barkly East
• Take the Bokspruit / Riflespruit road
• Link up with the 393 road towards Eliot
• Turn onto the Bastervoetpad Pass road, just before Fatcanni Pass
• Bastervoetpad Pass
• Turn onto tar road near Ugie, and ride to Eliot
• Afterwards we could either go via the 393, or Barkly east to Rhodes
No problem!!!! ….. Or maybe the riding Gods may become angry with us 