Chilling in Paul Roux pics now added****

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user 5710

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So wanted to get the F*&K out of doge for the Easter Weekend as the Migration down to the coast was in full swing. Problem was where to go to escape the masses ??? Scrolling through Mapsource I stumble upon this little town called Paul Roux in between Bethlehem and Senekal and it looked perfect. Contact the Rosenhof B&B and they have space. Brilliant and what made it even better was the R240 pppn including breakfast so I book for 2 nights. Scroll over the map in more detail and there are just hundreds of D roads and tracks in the area for us to explore so I create 10 diff legs to ride around and save them to the GPS. 1 day before we are ready to depart I do my usual long range weather forcasting using 4 diff sites to make sure I get a fairly accurate forcast and its all clear with a 30% chance of Thunder showers for Saturday evening (my oh my how wrong could they have been). Bike packed on Thursday night left pannier mine,right pannier my better half, topbox has tools , rain gear , jackets, tanbag has wallets, cell phones , camera etc etc and we are ready to roll early Friday morning. Friday miring we get up and its an Awesome morning in Hillcrest (This time of the year the weather in Durban is really great). We kit up wheel my 800GS out the garage do Final checks and we ready to roll (There is just something  :drif: about a D/S bike when its packed and ready for a trip specially mine  :biggrin:). Fire her up and begin our little journey. We ride up the N3 to Notingham road and take our first "dirt leg" of the trip. Clearly the midlands must have had rain during the night cause after 100m of dirt I thought Eish this probably wasn't a good Idea. Snot and mud was what we had for 15km. Slipping and sliding was the order of the morning and having the OEM Battlewing tyres on my bike did not help :eek:! So I make a beeline for the tar to get back on Terrafer-ma. We bypass the Toll Road and head up the back of Escourt to join the N3 further down the road. Back on the N3 we decide to stop at the Escourt Ultra City to top up the tank and have a little stretch. The Ultra city on the opposite side of the highway was testimony as to why I wanted to get out of the city. It was flipping packed with people and cars :eek: I forgot to mention that is was a very chilly 8 Deg and for us Durban peeps that's flipping cold! Full up the bike and off we head to our 2nd dirt leg and  Weavers near Winterton for breakfast. Start our 2nd dirt leg and it was prestine dirt road riding. Very little dust and just brilliant scenery. No mud and snot on the main road but go off line and it would be all she wrote. Drakensberg clay is notorious for being very very slippery. We complete the 30 odd km of dirt and join the main road to weavers and have a lekker breakfast. We head out after breakfast and start our 3rd dirt leg between Winterton and Bergville and my word was that the opposite of the last dirt road. Mud,Clay water puddles and freshly laid crusher towards the end made for a very stressful yet highly entertaining 30 odd km. The lack of pics on off road sections was because I was not stopping but believe me it was kark. We eventually join the R74 and head up Oliviers Hoek pass. That was great until we get to the Stop Go road works. People stay way. The road is f%$rked. They are busy resurfacing and its mayhem at the moment. Why they do not ban heavies from using that route I do not know. Eventually we get passed all the hazards and continue onto Clarence. The bike is going excellent. With pillion,full lugage we were cruising in some sections at 160KPH + gps speed. Fuel consumption on these 800,s is excellent  :thumleft: and the comfort seat worth every penny :thumleft: On the side of the road I could see that there had been alot of rain around so I decided not to attempt any more dirt today! Ride through Golden gate and it is in prestine condition. Stop take a few pics and meet a couple other guys on bike trips as well. Arrive in Clarence and as you can imagine it is possitively packed! You would have thought the BMW gathering was being held there. There were BMW,s everywhere a couple KTM,s ,Harley's etc etc. Stop at the Grouse pub on the corner and and have a beer and chill out watching all the coming and goings. There were plenty guys on DS bikes and I think that many of them were dogs but we never swopped forum names but still greeted and chated  :thumleft: :thumleft: Paul Roux was only another 70 odd km away so we took it slow. Stopped at Ash River outflow and for the first time since I had visited it had no water flowing. Very unusual but interesting to see it empty. We arrive at Paul Roux and pull into the "Local Pub" called the Rock. Very lekker pub. Friendly,Cold beers and very reasonable. Definitely worth a stop if you in the area :thumleft: After a couple drinks we ride into the B&B and were pleasantly surprised. Well kept,clean and friendly owners but beware take cash cause credit card machines and ATMs do not exist. We unpack our stuff and stroll around the place and it is a really old town and was exactly what I hoped it would be. Quiet,peaceful and a real "you outhere" kind of a feeling. We head back to the Rock for dinner and the food was excellent. The locals all start arriving shortly after we had dinner and we could see that a big opskop was about to happen so we decided to hit the hay instead as we had planned a whole days riding the next day. Well that is where the weekend from a riding point of view ended! We woke up Saturday morning to a very grey drizzly morning and then as if somebody opened a tap the rain started and it positively chucked it down. It poured and poured and poured. I wish I could get a job as a weather forecaster! Riding was definitely not going to happen now but fortunately we were meeting family on there way from JHB so they fetched us in the cage and  it was off to Clarence we went and spent the whole day in the pub from 10:30 till 20:00 that night watching rugby and drinking beer by the fire. The rain did not stop and got worse! Hail,Lightning wind it was horrible and respect to all those that were riding in it and there were a few. It actually turned out to be a good day in the end pity we couldn't do the routes I had planned but hey there is always next time. The rest of the weekend was uneventful and fortunately the weather cleared for the ride home on Sunday. Paul Roux is highly re-comended as a pit stop on your travels. Accommodation is good and there is plenty riding around the area. It was was my first long trip on the 800GS and let me just say what an absolute pleasure it was to ride this bike. It was faultless in all conditions and believe me we had all conditions :thumleft: Will post the pics I have in minute :thumleft:
 
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