Adventurer
Gentleman Dog
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 17,108
- Reaction score
- 4
- Location
- Kempen Germany
- Bike
- KTM 1290 Super Adventure
After an unprecedented 33 pages for one topic, the all-important Wild Dog Forum Year End Bash in Baviaanspoort, Peaches and myself finally departed from Johannesburg at 4 am, Friday morning. We met up with Cheese at the Engen Blockstop on the Vereeniging highway, said a quick ?howzit?, and hauled ass for our first quick fuel stop at the KroonVaal One Stop on the highway to Cape Town.
No time for coffee, we refuelled as the sky started showing the first signs of sunrise, back on the highway we sped up to 160-180 kph most of the way to Bloemfontein, about 60 kays out of Bloem, Cheese had to slow down, his onboard computer telling him he would not make Bloem, we made the first fuel stop just outside Bloem with the computer telling him he had 12 kays to go, close shave, we decided to slow down to 150 kph for the rest of the trip, these high speeds were not good for fuel consumption!
After a quick breakfast at BJ?s, we headed off towards Colesburg, our next refuel point. Left at Colesburg, next stop, Graaf Rienet, quick Coke, some more fuel and on to Willowmore, where we met up with 2Deteerpadmoffie, aka Renoster, as they left the one and only hotel in town. The time was now around 2 pm, with almost a 1000 kays behind us we had lunch, stocked up with some munchies, refuelled, and left Willowmore for the first dirt road of the day.
We deflated our tyres at the very welcome sign pointing towards Baviaanspoort. What a pleasure to be on dirt again, after the first 30 odd kays we rode into the first of many kloofs, what awesome scenery, the way the rock surfaces twist and turn as they were formed millions of years ago, a few river crossings, lots of tortoises, and low and behold, who comes thundering out of the distance, Shawn and Marco, Shawn on his newly acquired KTM. After hello?s and introductions we all headed off to the campsite, more rivers, more tortoises and some of the best scenery I have seen in the Eastern Cape.
We arrived at the campsite, pitched our tents and met up with the rest of the Forum ?cyberfreinds? that had arrived before us. The atmosphere was fantastic; we got to know these faces that were previously only nicknames. The festivities went on late into the night, the three of us retired relatively early, we had been on the go for 19 hours.
Saturday greeted us with wonderful sunshine, after a breakfast of coffee and rusks we headed back to the main dirt road in search of more wonders of Baviaans, Peaches rode pillion today, her ribs still recovering from her previous prang a few weeks before, and her not wanting to damage her newly repaired scoot, I am not used to riding this type of terrain with a pillion, but it made the days before, and her not wanting to damage her newly repaired scoot, I am not used to riding this type of terrain with a pillion, so it made the days riding quite interesting. We crossed numerous rivers and a very tight mountain pass, marvelling in the splendour of Baviaans, a place we will definitely re-visit and spend more time exploring.
We stopped at the 300 metre long river stretch and decided we would go no further, Cheese, Fireblade and Peter Stuyvesant elected to carry on towards Patensie, and after hearing of their escapades later that afternoon, I was relieved that we had turned around, pillion was not an option on the route they took.
En route back to camp, we stopped and chatted with various groups that had stopped for a break, it was great to share space with people that have the same passion for this type of adventure.
We had lunch at camp, and spent the rest of the afternoon kuiering, admiring the mechanical skills of Rika and Groenie, repairing the sump of Bojangles? car, listening to the various renditions of the people?s adventures of the day as they arrived back at camp.
That night was the prizegiving, a skaap on the spit, and some serious kuiering late into the night, at around midnight I decided it was time for bed, we had a long haul ahead of us the next day.
Sunday morning we quickly packed, had breakfast and said a reluctant goodbye to our newfound friends.
At 7-30 we left camp and headed back to Willowmore, pumped our tyres, filled the tanks and headed back to Jozi.
The trip back was interesting, after fighting a mother of a crosswind we hit a swarm of locusts about 100 kays from Willowmore, one of which was still trying to climb out of my oil cooler protector when we got to Colesburg! I must have whacked about 40, there were locust body parts all over my bike.
The events of the weekend started taking their toll on us, after refuelling in Bloemfontein, the bikes and ourselves, the latter with Red Bull, energy bars and whatever else we could find, we tackled the last stretch, the last 100 kays or so was done in a mother and father of a Highveld thunderstorm. We arrived at home at 6-45, tired, a bit wet and on an all time high, not from the Red Bull but from sharing a weekend with a fantastic bunch of people in a beautiful part of South Africa, Baviaanspoort.
Our only regrets are that we could not spend more time getting there and back, and that we could not spend more time there, next year we will do it again, but at a more relaxed pace, thanks to all that attended, a special thanks to Bojangles, who will hopefully be there on a motorbike next year, and to KileRSA and Wino, for creating this forum in the first place.
No time for coffee, we refuelled as the sky started showing the first signs of sunrise, back on the highway we sped up to 160-180 kph most of the way to Bloemfontein, about 60 kays out of Bloem, Cheese had to slow down, his onboard computer telling him he would not make Bloem, we made the first fuel stop just outside Bloem with the computer telling him he had 12 kays to go, close shave, we decided to slow down to 150 kph for the rest of the trip, these high speeds were not good for fuel consumption!
After a quick breakfast at BJ?s, we headed off towards Colesburg, our next refuel point. Left at Colesburg, next stop, Graaf Rienet, quick Coke, some more fuel and on to Willowmore, where we met up with 2Deteerpadmoffie, aka Renoster, as they left the one and only hotel in town. The time was now around 2 pm, with almost a 1000 kays behind us we had lunch, stocked up with some munchies, refuelled, and left Willowmore for the first dirt road of the day.
We deflated our tyres at the very welcome sign pointing towards Baviaanspoort. What a pleasure to be on dirt again, after the first 30 odd kays we rode into the first of many kloofs, what awesome scenery, the way the rock surfaces twist and turn as they were formed millions of years ago, a few river crossings, lots of tortoises, and low and behold, who comes thundering out of the distance, Shawn and Marco, Shawn on his newly acquired KTM. After hello?s and introductions we all headed off to the campsite, more rivers, more tortoises and some of the best scenery I have seen in the Eastern Cape.
We arrived at the campsite, pitched our tents and met up with the rest of the Forum ?cyberfreinds? that had arrived before us. The atmosphere was fantastic; we got to know these faces that were previously only nicknames. The festivities went on late into the night, the three of us retired relatively early, we had been on the go for 19 hours.
Saturday greeted us with wonderful sunshine, after a breakfast of coffee and rusks we headed back to the main dirt road in search of more wonders of Baviaans, Peaches rode pillion today, her ribs still recovering from her previous prang a few weeks before, and her not wanting to damage her newly repaired scoot, I am not used to riding this type of terrain with a pillion, but it made the days before, and her not wanting to damage her newly repaired scoot, I am not used to riding this type of terrain with a pillion, so it made the days riding quite interesting. We crossed numerous rivers and a very tight mountain pass, marvelling in the splendour of Baviaans, a place we will definitely re-visit and spend more time exploring.
We stopped at the 300 metre long river stretch and decided we would go no further, Cheese, Fireblade and Peter Stuyvesant elected to carry on towards Patensie, and after hearing of their escapades later that afternoon, I was relieved that we had turned around, pillion was not an option on the route they took.
En route back to camp, we stopped and chatted with various groups that had stopped for a break, it was great to share space with people that have the same passion for this type of adventure.
We had lunch at camp, and spent the rest of the afternoon kuiering, admiring the mechanical skills of Rika and Groenie, repairing the sump of Bojangles? car, listening to the various renditions of the people?s adventures of the day as they arrived back at camp.
That night was the prizegiving, a skaap on the spit, and some serious kuiering late into the night, at around midnight I decided it was time for bed, we had a long haul ahead of us the next day.
Sunday morning we quickly packed, had breakfast and said a reluctant goodbye to our newfound friends.
At 7-30 we left camp and headed back to Willowmore, pumped our tyres, filled the tanks and headed back to Jozi.
The trip back was interesting, after fighting a mother of a crosswind we hit a swarm of locusts about 100 kays from Willowmore, one of which was still trying to climb out of my oil cooler protector when we got to Colesburg! I must have whacked about 40, there were locust body parts all over my bike.
The events of the weekend started taking their toll on us, after refuelling in Bloemfontein, the bikes and ourselves, the latter with Red Bull, energy bars and whatever else we could find, we tackled the last stretch, the last 100 kays or so was done in a mother and father of a Highveld thunderstorm. We arrived at home at 6-45, tired, a bit wet and on an all time high, not from the Red Bull but from sharing a weekend with a fantastic bunch of people in a beautiful part of South Africa, Baviaanspoort.
Our only regrets are that we could not spend more time getting there and back, and that we could not spend more time there, next year we will do it again, but at a more relaxed pace, thanks to all that attended, a special thanks to Bojangles, who will hopefully be there on a motorbike next year, and to KileRSA and Wino, for creating this forum in the first place.
