Solo Memorial Ride to Giyani and Back

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alanB

Grey Hound
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
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Location
Johannesburg
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Husqvarna (all models)
Planning and Preparation

In June last year my sister announced that she had donated some money to a small creche in Giyani run by the Catholic church, affiliated to the Holy Rosary School in Edenvale, to sink a borehole as they had no water for the kids.  The borehole had been duly completed and she was going up to attach a small plaque to it in rememberance of our mom, from whom's small estate the money had come from.

I was surprised and embarrassed as I hadn't thought of doing anything similar.  We had discussed jointly donating to various other charitable projects, but I wasnt aware that she had gone ahead with anything.  I resolved to at least help as much as I could with the plaque, as it was too late to contribute financially to this particular project. 

It was exactly the sort of thing our mom would have been involved in, as she had been very active in the Church and was always giving to those less fortunate, even though she never was exactly well off her self.  So I'm sure she would have been very happy with the use of her money.

I also saw the opportunity for a long solo ride on my new bike  :biggrin:

After discussing the practicalities of attaching a small stainless steel plaque to something in the unknown environment of the creche with my brother in law (none of us had ever been there before), plans were duly made and it was arranged that I would meet them both at the side of the road on the way into Giyani on the selected day. 

They had planned to spend the weekend in the Kruger Park and thus we needed to do the deed on Friday morning so they would have time to get to the Punda Maria Gate in time to enter before the cut-off time for their camp, so the whole thing was going to be run on a tight schedule.

I decided that I would leave the day before, and camp in Louis Trichard instead of getting up at 3 am and driving through from Jo'burg as they planned to do.  I would then ride home via the Lowveld and Pilgrims Rest at my own pace over the weekend.

I set about getting some sort solo riding kit together, as I had never done anything like this before.  I packed a few different bags at night in the lounge to see what I could fit into them and tried to decide what I really needed versus what what was nice to have to spend three-four days camping.

I settled on a small tank bag and a 35L day pack on my back. 

I'm not the tallest and have to swing my leg really high just to get it over the back of the 610, leaving scuff marks on the back mudguard as my boot scrapes over the top of it.  There's no way I could get onto the bike if anything is strapped onto the back - which is probably just as well because the sub frame is aluminium and not really made for loading.  Plus I bought the bike because it was light (having got sick and tired of the weight of my old BMW Dakar), and loved its agility and handling - it made no sense to just strap a whole lot of kit onto it, turning the Italian princess into a waddling hippo!

I decided to get a cheap light weight tent from Makro and a sleeping bag that packed up smaller as well, as my existing hiking tent was a bit buggered and both took up too much space.  In the end I didnt like the look of the Makro biking tent and settled on one from Outdoor warehouse (R900), a lot more than what I was intending to spend, but worth the money at least.  Also bought a Packlite sleeping bag, very small and light at a reasonable price. 

This is the route I finally took
map.jpg

 
1225 km over 3 days.

Camped at Louis Trichard Municipal Caravan Park and Pilgrims Rest Caravan Park.

 
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