Triptus Interuptus

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Stephan

Race Dog
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,540
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Location
Centurion
Bike
BMW R1200GS
Sunday morning Red and myself headed towards Hills and Dales again to continue exploring and get some more saddle time.

Found a new sign claiming that it is Kareebosrand Conservancy.
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Took the same route that Groenie and myself took the other time towards plot 35 to show Red the sights. This really is a lovely area to ride and recharge.

Red crossing a small stream
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On returning to the turnoff to the bridge we met up with two other riders on scramblers, Robin and Nico. After chatting it became clear that Robin knew the area extremely well, he offered to show us the route from Hills and Dales to Hekpoort, using mainly dirt roads with some tar sections. This suited us well and we set off. But as Droff posted ?The best laid plans of mice and men ?.? As we arrived at the low water bridge that Groenie and Miena Moo took such delight in it was obvious that today it was not the placid stream of their excursion, the water was running quite strongly at close to knee height.

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As we looked on with misgivings as to whether we would tackle this crossing, Robin started crossing. After crossing about a third of the bridge he got swept off the bridge nearly drowning himself and losing the bike as it was swept downstream.

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He managed to hold on to the bike and pick it up again holding on for dear life until Nico and myself could get to him to help recovering the bike. After a bit of a struggle we got the bike back on dry land.

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Then the struggle to get the bike operational again started. First we tried putting the bike in 4 gear and rocked it backwards, with the bike coughing up great big gobs of water out of the exhaust.

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Trying the start the engine soon convinced us that this had not been successful. We decided to remove the plug to dry it. As we did not have an 8 spanner we could not remove the seat but could only remove the 2 front bolts on the seat allowing us to partially lift the seat and fuel tank, enough to get the plug spanner in and remove the plug. The engine was flooded, pressing the starter resulted in more great big gobs of water going everywhere. Dried the plug and replaced it, no joy.

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Repeated the process, plug wet again when we removed it. Eventually we turned the bike upside down after removing the plug again to try and drain all the water.

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No luck, although the plug was firing, the bike would not start. We gave it up as a bad job and Robin got onto Nico?s bike and headed back home to go and fetch the bakkie. We loaded the bike onto the bakkie and strapped it down for the trip back.

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While we were busy with the bike Red saw this sign that had be put up. Seems someone is confused, as far as I know this area is Tshwane not Jo?burg?

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As we started on the way back we saw a surprise visitor heading the other way, with full intent to leave dry land and head for the water. The terrapin had no intention of being stopped and chose the shortest route passing underneath Red?s bike and crossing her boot on his way.

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Robin, Nico and ourselves parted ways after exchanging contact details. The trip to Hekpoort postponed to another day after the Suzuki had had some treatment at the dealership.
 
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