Strandfontien weekend, 5 Plastics and a Bike

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MellowJo

Race Dog
Joined
Oct 8, 2007
Messages
1,871
Reaction score
15
Location
Melkbos
Bike
BMW R1200GS
14/15 March 2009

It was time for a little weekend trip to Strandfontein on the West Coast. It was to be the first “father-and-son” trip for AndSon(‘94 650 Funduro) and me.

RideaLot and Joyride decided to do the trip with their XR500s (did they have a plan?) while Niekie was on his XT. Wouter was on his, now well protected, Transalp. (btw, I call any tricycle, less than 1 litre, a plastic, hence the name of the post) :pot:

It was going to be hot on the West Coast, so we decided to be off early. Rendezvous was at 7am in Durbanville. AndSon and I had to get up early to get from Melkbos to Durbanville.

001Sunrise.jpg


From Durbanville we rode north on the old Malmesbury road. Halfway to Malmesbury we turned west, crossed the N7 and went past Chatsworth. Here we left the tar road and got onto a railway service track (tweespoor) which we followed all the way to Darling. Great fun, with a few water crossings and a mega ditch at the entrance to Darling. Thanks to the guys for warning the later riders of this obstacle!!  >:D
AndSon nearly bought some prime Darling real estate, seen from behind by dad (who could slow down in time). At least we could warn Wouter.

Evita’s Peron was closed, but we found a nice place to brekkie. Even met some of the local bikers

002Breakfast.jpg


Wouter decided to proceed to Elandsbay via better roads (read tar) while the rest of us proceeded from Darling going North towards Moreesburg via gravel. This road was quite corrugated and not a pleasure. From Moreesburg we went West again towards Sanddrift, where we would cross the Bergriver.

003BergriverBreak.jpg


While fiddling with his cellphone, AndSon’s phone decided to commit suicide. It jumped from his tankbag, onto the bridge and eventually into the (roaring  :eek:) Bergriver below. Was he expecting a call from work ?

004cellphone.jpg


At least he tried to recover it ...

0045Whereisit.jpg


From Sandrift we proceeded north, climbed up Kapteinskloof and over the ridge towards Redelinghuis. Just before we got to the main road (tar) between Piketberg and Elandsbay, we turned left (West) to stay on gravel. When we stopped for a regroup, Ridealot turned up with AndSon’s wallet, which he also disposed of in the last stretch. The chucking of a cellphone we could understand, but losing your wallet looked a little suspicious. What’s cooking young man ?

Anyway, just before Redelinghuis, we turned north on the Aurora/Redelinghuis highway (gravel, and undergoing major repairs). We landed behind a construction truck. Joyride, Niekie and AndSon got past while the truck was going slowly uphill, but Ridealot and me got to it when it started to pick up speed going downhill. The road was one sand and dustbowl. The light breeze was pushing the dust cloud to the right, leaving us zero visibility. Quite a scary experience to pass with Zero visibility on a sub-standard road. (I will add the link to a bit of video later)
At Elandsbay we regrouped, Wouter joined us and we filled with Fuel and Booze.

005FuelandBooze.jpg


From Elands it was a breeze on the gravel Toll road running parallel to the railway to Lambertsbay where we had lunch.
After lunch we carried on the Toll road to Doringbay and eventually to Strandfontein where we made camp. Some people really battled to figure out their tents.  >:D

006PitchTent.jpg


After pitching tents, we decided to go for a sunset cruise to the Olifantsriver mouth.

007SunsetCruise.jpg


008sunset.jpg


009Patterns.jpg


010footprints-1.jpg


After a walkaround at the river mouth we started to make our way back to camp. Unfortunately Niekie landed in a ditch with a hot exhaust on his exposed leg, ouch!!.

011BacktoCamp-1.jpg


At camp we were met by Christo, our local supplier, who brought along wood, meat, ice and some more to drink. After a good meal we were out for the count.

During the night we were woken by flashes around our tents (nope, not lightning, camera flashes) From the loud voices we determined that a group of intoxicated exhibitionist women were taking pictures with our bikes as backdrop. Wouter encouraged them “not to be ashamed, take off some more”. After realising that we were awake, they disappeared and left our bikes in peace.

Next morning we had to wait a while for the tents to dry (from the dew and fog!) and we had a huge breakfast at Christo’s. We then proceeded towards Donkinsbay, a road none of us travel on before.

009Sand_Wouter.jpg


Needless to say, this was quite a learning experience for some of the less experienced riders in the group. We eventually got back to the toll road unscathed and drove past Elands towards Aurora, a little town none of us have seen before.

013XRs-1.jpg


014Aurora-1.jpg


Here the group split up into three pairs each going home via different routes.
I caught AndSon in full flight  ....

015AndSoninFullFlight-2.jpg


Thanks a mil guys, this was a great little trip with lots of excitement.
 
Top