NE to NW, Cullinan to Pinehaven the long way round.

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S

shark_za

Guest
Over the last few weeks we have either been riding to the big rock along the canals out NW of JHB/PTA or messing around on the sand roads around Cullinan in the NE.
So for this little trip I thought we could see if we cant join up the NE and NW with a little sand road riding, and I plotted a course in Mapsource.
Some of the area was know, like the sand bits by Cullinan, and then the area around Jericho, but little was known in between.
We were pleasently surprised to find there was some good dirt linking the two areas, give or take the odd tar road liason.

I started out by meeting Welshman at the Samrand Ultra City and we took at quick ride to Cullinan, basically going the shortest most direct route to meet up with the others.
I though it was funny that this was most peoples destination while we were only starting out there.
After a few toasted sarmies (ok everyone else had one, I had a few) we kitted up and hit the road.
We rode past the 4x4 course, past boekenhoutskloof army base and almost up too Babalegi.

Then we got to a sign, eish, would you not turn here?

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I saw some roads shown on the topo maps that were not on the street map and we decided to go and take a look, after almost turning back.
We found this crossed the Pienaars river and this gives me an oppertunity to introduce the other riders.

We had the big guy Welshman on a BMW 1150 GS
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Wino on the unstoppable Transalp
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And funacide riding his BMW 1200 GS
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We joined the route again and then ran into a closed gate, seems like the road is part of a private nature reserve and is not passable.
Just shows you to not trust GPS maps all that much, they should have shown this was dead end.
But we did a quick detour on the tar and linked up to some more dirt on the other side of the N1 at about the vicinity of the Carousel.

This was great fun, dusty (it pays to do the GPS homework, you get to ride out front :) ) with the odd little ditch and donkey to negotiate.

I made the KLR dance like a dirt bike on one section overtaking a Hilux on a road that was only good on one side, power sliding at over 80kph is fun.
I am really happy with the progressive springs in the front of the bike now, it really helps to keep the front under control, it seems to track better, take the knocks better, fantastic.

Here we are having a break and Welshie is fixing his tailbag again, this was the third time it nearly fell off, lucky funacide stopped to see what this strange bag was in the road the first time it actually went flying.
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About here we were getting really hot (11:30) and were also running short on fuel for some of the bikes, so we went to the only garage in the area with petrol in Jericho.
We decided not to goto the rock as we were planning on going to check out the goings on at the think bike day at pinehaven, so raced along past it.
The sand sections by Jericho were nice and soft, not firm and hard like the stuff up to then, made for some concentration and a little bit of WFO to get through.

The scenery was mostly flat with villages along the way, with some curious creatures wondering what these mad bikers were doing in the mid day sun. Did I mention it was getting frikken hot about now.
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We eventually ended up at Pinehaven, with me leading the guys the LWR the mountain instead of the sattelite road, but hey, whats an extra 6km after the few hundred before.

We got there just as the bunch were packing up, in time to see Bucc popping the celebratory champagne (ok, JC le Roux) for a successfull event.

We were late but we bought a few stickers and congratulated them on a job well done.
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We left Pinehaven and I could not rush home to make my sisters birthday party before I stopped and had a cold one with Welshie.
Thanks Wino, Funacide, Welshman, I enjoyed today, got to see another part of the country we live in and its pretty cool.
My GPS log shows I did 370km from my house and back, not bad considering Pinehaven is actually 40km away from me

:headbang: :hello1: :eek:ccasion5:
 
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