Cederberge - Old Postal route

I've been thinking about doing this route for a long time and finally convinced my friend, Deon, to join. The plan was to reccie the route with lighter bikes before we plunge in with the heavy weights. His two children, Gideon (13) and Marianne (17), joined with an RM80 each (Deon on an XR600 and me on my wife's CRF230). Our route would start at Cederberg Oasis, go North to Wupperthal, right on the Biedouw Valley road, right onto the Postal route, right onto the R355, right onto Katbakkies pass and the right again on the Mount Ceder road closing the loop back to Oasis - 261km in total according to Mapsource. We bargained on 50km/h average = 5 hours riding + 1 hour for lunch and stops = 6 hours. The fuel stops were important too as none of the bikes had the tank capacity to complete the loop. We opted to carry about 22 liters between ourselves, bought an extra 10 liters at Wupperthal and hid another 10 liters in the veld at the start of the gravel on the Mount Ceder road.

Hiding the fuel:


So we pushed off bright and early at 09h00 and reached Wupperthal for our breakfast stop. Deon arranged breakfast at family of one of his business partners in Wupperthal. Bacon + eggs + freshly baked rolls + peach halves + peach jam. We also had a history lesson on the origins of Wupperthal from the lady who hosted us. Seems like up until the sixties it was a German missionary station where after it became a Moravian missionary station.

The house we had breakfast at:


Here we bought 10 liters of fuel and managed to distribute it all between the bikes. The route took us to the Biedouw valley turnoff and about 300m after that the Old Postal route starts with a sharp right into the mountains. This was a steep track initially which flattened off on top of the mountain.

Lots of rooibos farming:


We just kept following the Tracks4Africa route. The road was a mixture of sand, loose rocks and buried rocks. It was sort of difficult to ride, but the scenery was awesome.









After that we hit the R355 South. It was getting late and we gunned it which caused the one 2 stroke to seize. Gideon and I then had to race darkness for 80km back to Oasis to go and fetch the bakkie, while Deon towed Marianne as far as they could. I eventually picked them up with the bakkie close to Mount Ceder where they could not go any further due to nightfall. Back at Oasis Chantel made us the best ribs and steak one could ask for.

Things learnt from the trip:
- 2 strokes are HEAVY on fuel.
- 4 strokes are not.
- Plan for 30km/h avg in stead of 50km/h avg.
- The CRF230 seat can one day be replaced by a softer one made from titanium.
- Kids are tough. Not once did they moan, although I felt like moaning about the bad condition of the roads.
- This was a reccie and now I know not to take the 1150 the Old Postal route.