Day 1 - Katse to MohaleThe rendezvous point for the trip was Katse lodge, where we converged day before from different directions. I have been in Lesotho already for a week exploring eastern Drakensberg escarpment, so I had relatively short commute from Maloraneng lodge in the valley below Letseng mine to Katse, where I arrived in the early afternoon.
The other three were coming together from Joburg. Given the age of some of the participants with associated insomnia, it wasn’t entirely surprising that we start receiving Whatsapp messages at 3:00 am about how they are going to start at 7:00 am sharp from Joburg or some such. So when nobody arrived by 6:00 pm I started to worry a bit. By 7:00 pm I have finally received message that they are in Fouriesburg - quite an achievement, considering it is about 330 km from Joburg, they probably went through Durban or something. When they still didn’t arrive by 10:00 pm I started to worry, that all that worrying is not good for my health and rather went to sleep.
I was glad to see in the morning that they eventually made it - apparently the Mitsubishi something they arrived in was overheating going over Lesotho passes and they had to stop frequently. Anyway, they were here, geared up and after breakfast we set-off (the cars were parked for the trip at the Katse lodge).
The plan for the day was to follow cattle tracks over the mountains to the Mohale dam for a sleepover at Mohale lodge, basically crossing from Malibiamatso river valley (the river flowing into and out of Katse dam) to Senqunyane river valley (the river flowing to and out of Mohale dam). The route had 3 distinct parts: first climbing from the Katse dam at about 2200m altitude to the top of the ridge between the two valleys at about 2900m, then following the top of the ridge for 10-15 km across to the Senqunyane valley, and last descending down to Senqunyane valley and following the river all the way to the Mohale dam & lodge.
We set-off on the dirt road following the south shore of Katse dam and after about 10 km turned onto rough double track heading up the valley first through a village and later on the open slopes above the village:
Soon we scaled the first ridge and the main much higher ridge we had to ride up came to sight. I knew from my prior rides that getting up on this ridge, especially up the top part was the most difficult bit for the day, and warned the others. The main ridge is on the top right of the following image and you can clearly see the cattle tracks we were to follow up there:
Getting to the set off point for the climp up the ridge on the other side of the valley:
Greg waiting at the bottom of the valley at the start of the main ascent - the cattle tracks will quide us up, thugh we will avoid them initially and use them only at the steepest top part:
As I've done it before, I went first to show the others the best route IMO. The approach was easy - gun it up along the cattle tracks more or less straight up as high as one dares to (the slope became more steep at the top, plus there were rocks and holes in the slope so one had to watch what he is doing otherwise cartwheel became very real option with all the 500 power at the rear wheel), and then drop into the cattle tracks that zig zag through the toughest top part.
I've made my dash as far as I dared and then stopped to take picture of the others. Greg gunnig it up:
Bertie climbing up in less flamboyant style:
Everybody made it to the first base without much drama:
Here Greg decided to do his own thing and instead of following the sensible advice of elders (I'm few years older), he just wanted to gun it up the slope to the right. Despite inauspicious start (seeing his straight away even before he set-off) he persevered - and lost naturally:
He made it quite far (he is somewhere in that picture), but eventually had to come back and follow the wise ones:
Tony scaling the next steeper section up the ridge in style watched by Greg and local herdboy:
Where we regrouped for the next section - the toughest one:
Bertie struggled a bit, but pushed on. Unforunatelly at this point he is about to flip the bike which ended up on top of him.
I didn't take picture of the aftermath as this didn't look like laughing matter even to the cynical bastards like us and Tony and I rushed in to pick the bike off Bertie. I was really worried that he might have broken leg or both as the bike seemed to drop full force on them, but per usual Bertie just stood up and said he is fine. He was a bit rattled and his mood fouled for few moments before he rebounded and agreed to continue provided we ride his bike to the top of this bloody ridge.
It was quite a wake up call as a broken leg would stop the trip right there and more importantly trying to get Bertie with broken leg off that mountain would be a logistical nightmare, probably involving helicopter. So I was greatly relieved that there were no broken bones. As an X-ray month later shown, Bertie actually did break a leg there - fibula in his left leg. As I was told when I broke mine, that is considered just a flesh wound, and Bertie manage to grow his one back together even without knowing it is broken. As you can see it seems more or less mended by now:
So the broken leg seems to be kind of tradition on these group rides of ours as I broke mine on our ride together in Swaziland. The only difference really was that when I broke mine (together with tibia) I laid in a dirt right where I fell and cried like a bitch until they Voltarened me to the lepricorn dimension and then transported me in complicated logistical operation involving two different ambulances in two different countries to a hospital, while Bertie may have lost it for a minute and use few expletives, after which he calmed down walked to the top of the ridge, sat on his bike and continued with the ride. Apart from that it was more or less the same...
Topic: Lesotho Boogie Woogie (Read 9554 times)
