3 x BMW's and 3 x KTM's on a great 4 day trip in Eastern Cape, Natal and Lesotho

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Losper

Race Dog
Joined
Jun 20, 2009
Messages
3,257
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53
Location
Bloemfontein
Bike
Honda CRF-1000L Africa Twin
A priest, a jeweler, 2 x  businessman and 2 x construction engineers took a great 4 day trip in the Eastern Cape, Natal and Lesotho. It was a gravel route as far as possible, we got onto tar only when there was no alternative.

Thursday, Day1:   392km
We left Bloemfontein at 8.00am and headed in the direction of Dewetsdorp. (Taking the exact route that the singer Mathys Roets took a few months ago when he had his accident.) It has  been raining for 5 days  before but now the sun was shining. At Dewetsdorp we crossed the highway and back on gravel to Wepener. The GPS route showed a crossing over the Mohokare-river but when we got there the low-water crossing was completely covered by an incredibly strong flowing river. We had to take a 5km tar detour. At Wepener we turned left, back on gravel all the way to Zastron.
After we refueled we found a coffee shop and ordered hamburgers. It was the biggest and tastiest hamburger that I have ever encountered in my life. We enjoyed it so much that we spend about an hour at that restaurant.
At 12h30 we left for Telebridge where we turned right onto the stunning gravel road that follows the Teleriver. There are quit a few police vehicles patrolling this road since the river is the border with Lesotho. 55km further we reached the T-junction, left to Tiffendale or right to Rhodes. At this stage it looked like it might start to rain any time but we decided to take the technical Wartrail route up to Tiffendale. It tuned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. This interesting road had lots of water crossings, some easy and other a bit hair-raising but we arrived at Tiffendale-ski resort about an hour later. Would you believe it, there was not a single human being to be seen at Tiffendale. From there we took the extremely steep route down to Rhodes, crossing a few water streams and at 17h30 we arrived at Steepside Guest farm.
The house where we slept was on the other side of a small river. We had to cross the flooding river on a small hanging bridge, scary and interesting. We had a barbeque and the evening and enjoyed the incredible view of the stars in the clear evening sky.

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Friday, Day 2:  382km
After a huge farm breakfast we were on the bikes turning in the direction of Rhodes. On the other side of the Bell’s river we entered the Naude’-neck pass. This is really a stunning pass with interesting turns and incredible views. We made a short detour to the Tenahead hotel en from there continued east. At the top of the pass the mist-clouds moved in and at a stage we could only see about 10meters in front of us. At Elandshoogte we reached a T-junction, the plan was to turn left here in the direction of Mount Fletcher but it had rained so much thru the night that that road was totally impossible to ride, instead we turned right to Maclear. This route was not much better but we had no choice and we took on the 50km of mud and it took us about 2 hours to Maclear.
At Maclear we refueled and decided to take the tar road to Matatiele. On this road we encountered a serious problem. There was a bakkie (with 5 guys in it) that followed us at a distance of 3 to 4 meters behind us at a speed of between 120km/h and 140km/h. We showed him on numerous occasions to pass us but he just stayed on our tails and between us. After about 15minutes of shear terror he passed us and we decided to follow him to BLIKSEM  and DONNER him but he turned of in a very highly populated area and we turned around and continue to Matatiele where we refueled and turned north on the gravel road to Swartberg. This road was a gravel road full of potholes which shook everything loose that was not loose at that stage already. From Swartberg we encountered very light rain and decided to take the tar road to Himeville. We refueled at Himeville and continue on to the Sanipass hotel where we stayed the Friday evening.

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Saterday, Day 3:  266km
Breakfast at 6h30 and on the bikes at 7h15. It was a stunning sunny morning with no wind and no clouds. We arrived at the border post and then we began the accent up Sanipass. I drove Sanipass in 2004 with a 4x4 vehicle and can remember that the road was a beautiful gravel road all the way up but on this occasion it was a totally different story. The pass had lots and lots of rain the previous 2 weeks and a lot of the gravel was washed away and what remained was a road made of millions of loose rocks of different sizes. Anyway, we took it slowly and without any huge difficulty we arrived at the top in around an hour and a half’s time. We had to wait for some traffic on the way up and that slowed us down. It was an incredible experience, the views was just stunning. We spend some time at “the highest bar in Africa” then we were on our way again, traveling north to Mokhotlong where we turned west in the direction of Thaba-Tseka. This road took us over the Menoaneng-pass, a river crossing and Taung where we stopped for “lunch”. From there we continued to the Senqu-river. I was a bit worried that the river would be in flood but is not the case and we crossed the low water bridge and continued the Thaba Tseka were we found a “petrol station” with 93octane lead free petrol. From Thaba Tseka we continued to Mantsoyane. It was with huge disappointment that I saw the next 20km of road being tarred. When I rode this section in March (only 6 months ago) it was a beautiful gravel section but now it became one of the best tar roads in the world. Anyhow 20km further the tar changed, not back to the original nice gravel road but instead into a construction road that was covered by loose rocks for about 40km. It took us over the Pass-of – Jackals and the Cheche-pass were it turned back into tar from the Senqunyane-river. The last 25km to our destination, the Mohale-dam lodge was again a piece
Of the best tar road in the world but luckily it had such nice turns and corners so at least it was interesting.   We checked in to the hotel and enjoyed the Curry-cup final where the Cheetahs almost beat the Blue Bulls.

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Sunday, Day 4:   85km + 225km
At 6h00 we were on the bikes and begun our trip around Mohale dam. This is an 85km gravel route around the dam and personally it is one of the most beautiful areas in Lesotho, especially early in the morning when the sun rises over the water. It took about 2 hours to do the round trip and by 8h15 we were back at the hotel for breakfast. After breakfast we packed our goods and we headed for Maseru. This stunning tar road took us over Blue-Mountain-pass, God-help-me-pass and Bushmens-pass. The border crossing at Maseru took quite some time since the ques on Sundays are always long. We had an uneventful ride to Bloemfontein and by 13h00 and 1500km later we were back home.  

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