Zimbabwe dirt roads and tracks re-visited (Completed)

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Billbob

Race Dog
Joined
Nov 3, 2006
Messages
614
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0
Location
Johannesburg
Bike
BMW R1200GS
For me this trip started in September. It was born out of frustration, but that is another story. The main thing is that I desperately needed to get into the bush. I am one of those people that have a deep love of the African bushveld, and when the soul needs to re-generate I go into the bush. So after a difficult couple of years I decided it was time for a healing break.
Now the question arose, where too? Namibia, Zambia, Malawi or Mozambique as there is not much real bush left in the good old RSA. One evening whilst sitting gazing vacantly at the TV, I started wondering about the dirt roads and tracks I had travelled on, in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in the 70’s and early 80’s. Are they still there, have they been allowed to degenerate or have they been upgraded with tar? If only Bob would take his galvanized bucket to the bottom of his garden and kick it! What happens if whoever takes over from him is worse?! What a waste, it’s such a lovely country!
Well I guess that is when I decided now is the time to go and re-investigate Zimbabwe and immediately fired up the laptop and Mapsource and the planning stage began. Next was a phone call to a good buddy – Straathond. The conversation went something like,
“Andre, wat mark jy hierdie December?”
Andre – “Weet nie, miskin gaan ek Kaapstad en Weskaap toe. Hoekom?”
Me – “Wel ek het besluit ek gaan Zimbabwe toe.”
After a short silence – Andre – “Wat!!? Fo*k it, ek kom saam! Waneer ry ons?”
That is how it started. Many long hours were spent studying maps, Mapsource, Google earth etc., etc. Bikes were serviced, new tyres fitted. Straathond even bought a new pair of boots!
So a basic rough route was planned. Leave Johannesburg on the morning of the 13th December on tar to Brits then onto dirt to Groblers Bridge, through Botswana to Plumtree, Tsholotsho, Gwaai, up the rail line to Hwanke, Vic Falls, Binga, Kariba, Karoi, Chiwori Wilderness, Harare, Mrewa, Inyanga, Mutari, Birchenough Bridge, Chiredzi, Chikombedzi and Gonarezhou, and then back through Beit Bridge to Johannesburg. Plus minus 5000 klms in sixteen days with about 75 percent on dirt and camping all the way. Every third night in a commercial camp site for a shower and to wash clothes. Nothing was cast in concrete and we would play it by ear as we went.
About three weeks before departure I was contacted by a West Cape Wilddog – Diggerdin, who asked if he could join us. Of course we said, pull in brother! So there would now be three of us, myself, Billbob (1200GS), Andre, Straathond (700 Transalp) and Rob, Diggerdin (1200GS).
Diggerdin left Slaapstad on Saturday morning and arrived at my place early Sunday afternoon. Straathond would meet us early Monday morning at my place. After a few beers and something to eat we were in bed by 22h30. We were up at 05h30 on Monday morning to finish some last minute packing and Straathond arrived with the rain at 07h30. After a quick cup of coffee we were off, in the rain.
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Diggerdin – last minute packing.
The rain was not a good omen, and after a stop at the Wimpy in Brits for breakfast I said to Straathond find us a route to Vaalwater. He headed off followed by Diggerdin with me bringing up the rear. Suddenly I saw that he was turning off left onto the Freeway to Pretoria. No ways I thought, we are not travelling Freeways and toll roads! I caught up to him and said no way no highways on this trip boet, take the next off ramp left. This meant skitting a toll gate and then the next off ramp was Shoshenguve. Eeish, has this place grown since I last went through here. We had reset the GPS’s to “Shortest route” from “Fastest Route”. This proved to be a mistake in the rain. We ended up travelling along some lovely red clay snotty farm roads. I use the term travelling as apposed to riding as we skated, slid, slipped and slithered our way with more than a few off’s. Even one of the local farmers stopped, and when asked where we were going and we said to Botswana and then Zimbabwe he just shook his head and said something to his vrou about our suspect sanity as he drove away.
Just as the GPS was showing a “T” junction coming up we came around a bend to find a dam right across the road. Straathond was into it and just managed to make it through. Diggerdin was close behind but his GS stalled in the middle and he was more than knee deep in the brown/red muddy water. I was going too fast to stop in the slippery mud and out of the corner of my eye saw a foot path along the bank of this dam and aimed for that. I slid and slithered past the 70 mtr dam making the road on the other side, more by luck than skill. By the time I had got off my bike Straathond and Diggerdin were pushing the GS out of the thigh deep dam. I checked the air intake on the bike and it didn’t feel or look as though it had swallowed any water but we gave the bike a bit of time for the electrics to dripdry. I then gave the starter a jab and the motor turned over freely. Great, I cranked the starter and the motor purred into life. Eight hundred mtrs further on we hit the tar road and found a bottle store for our first beer of the trip.
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You can see from Diggerdin’s clothing that the mud monster had had fun with us. None of us had escaped it’s slimy clutches.
Whilst having our well earned refreshments I checked the oil window on Diggerdin’s GS and there was the tell tale cream colour I was expecting. One of the unfortunate results of a stalled hot engine swimming in cold water is that it causes a vacuum and water is sucked up the breather pipe. Ummm, this could be a problem if we didn’t get this contaminated oil changed as soon as possible. It was back to the GPS to see which town was the closest, Vaalwater or BelaBela. It turned out that BelaBela was about twenty klms closer even though it was the wrong way. We needed to find a workshop out of the rain. Those 68 klms seemed to take forever but eventually we arrived and although the first workshop we found was fully booked with cars for service, the owner gave us a place to work and a drain basin for the contaminated oil. On checking the drained oil we could see that there was only a little bit of water with it. The job was finished the motor run and all was clear so off we headed for Vaalwater.
We made it to the first hotel/motel just as the sun was setting. We settled down to a few nice cold beers and then steaks all round. After all this we didn’t feel like looking for the camp ground so tried to talk the manager into letting us either sleep on the patio or camp on the lawn. Eventually we were told that we would have to get the owners permission and that she was a bit of a grumpy person, but good luck. Straathond said he would handle this and went off to chat to the tannie. Diggerdin and I didn’t have much hope that Andre was going to get it right and were trying to prepare ourselves for a midnight ride to find the camp grounds. Eventually Andre arrived and announced that not only could we stay but that she had said that there was an afdak at the back we could used in a fenced off yard. This was the first night of the war of the mosquitoes. Damn rain!!
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