Swaziland you lekker thing

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Gasman

Pack Dog
Joined
Oct 26, 2010
Messages
475
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Location
Johannesburg
Bike
Yamaha XT 660 Z
So Swaziland... I didn’t really know anything about it except for what I heard from one of my friends who took his wife there for a week in December. As days tend to get long and strenuous every now and then at the office, I found myself on Google in search of places to go to with my trusty steed. Henk and I was talking about doing a trip and decided that Swaziland is closer to Jozi than Lesotho and Lesotho will probably be really cold in July. So we booked the Friday off and decided that we should leave early and try and hit the dirt roads of Swaziland as early in the day as possible. I have just fitted my bike out with TKCs and bought a GPS as I tend to get lost within a shopping mall (good thing I did).

Day 1: Ride from Johannesburg to Nisela Lodge, which is on the eastern border of Swaziland. The route was plotted out on the GPS and showed that we had 497km to cover for day one. Nisela is really a great place and I can highly recommend it (more about that later).
Co-ordinates of Nisela lodgeS26°59.306’
S26°59.306’
E031°56.530’
Elevation: 140m  
Johannesburg – 6am in July = slap teef koud. This was my first proper trip (only got the bike in Dec and was studying up until June). So naturally I was as eager as a 12 year old boy who is about to open a scope for the first time.
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Not long afterwards and Henk rocked up ready to go. This is actually happening! Last check and we were off.
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First pit stop was after the first of many toll gates on the N17 to try and defrost our fingers a bit. The small streams next to the highway was frozen just as a reminder as to why we can’t feel our fingers.
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Oh yes, there is a shite load of road works, so don’t expect to get to Ermelo quickly. Luckily we just drove past the traffic to the front everytime, which saved us a lot of time. You really get a proper wake-up call when you come around a corner and discover a bakkie coming straight at you because the dwis on the other side with the Stop/Go sign let the traffic through.
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We stopped for a quick Steers coffee and toasted sandwich somewhere along the way. Got back in the saddle and arrived in Ermelo about an hour or two before lunch. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this building in Ermelo! I thought they must be busy building a casino here. We turned around to have a closer look. This building is massive and looks like the parliament building. Turns out it is Ermelo’s new municipal building.
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Old mode of transport vs new
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At Ermelo we turned off onto the N2 and were on our way to Piet Retief where we stopped at the local Spur for a lekker burger. Onto the Mahamba border post. It is remarkable how friendly the people are literally 30m on the other side of the SA border.

Passports stamped, road tax paid etc. No one even checked our bikes out or asked for their papers, only our passports and a fee to get in.
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8km from the border we hit our first dirt road for the day. We stopped quickly to take everything in and I deflated my tyres a bit as it was sailing over the loose sand/gravel. We still have about 150km left for the day and it is 2:30pm at the moment. I started to wonder if we will make it before sunset as it is winter and Swaziland is a bit more east than Jozi... only time would tell, but it was definitely in the back of my head.
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As we were cruising through the country side I couldn’t stop wondering why you never hear people talking about Swaziland?! How beautiful it is or how friendly the people are... It’s like a hidden gem just a stone through away from Gauteng!!
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Even the condition of the roads surprised me as I was expecting some rough stuff
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The shadows started to stretch over the road and I released we didn’t have a lot of time left for the day
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The scenery is really something to experience
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Now by this time the battery of my GPS was starting to really run low, so we would switch it on, check in how many kms we should turn left or right and then switch it off again. Henk is a much more experienced offroad rider than me, so he would go ahead and then wait at the next turn to check with me how many kms before the next turn off.
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Here he is waiting for me again to advise which road to take
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The sun was taking its last breaths for the day and I saw that we have about another 38kms before we hit the tarmac which is roughly 4kms from our accommodation for the evening. So Henk pushed ahead and was quickly out of my sight. Something that I forgot to mention was that the road was getting worse with every km passing by. The sun was burning bright red in my mirrors and then all of a sudden it was out of sight. Not too worry as we should have about another couple of minutes left of daylight before it is pitch black. As I checked my GPS again to see how many kms are left I hit a patch of really loose rocks that was about 20cm deep. Only thing is, this patch lasted for about 6kms and it didn’t help much that I could start seeing my headlight in the road ahead of me and not much of anything else at that stage. My speed went down dramatically as we have been on the road the whole day and my concentration was starting to fade quickly now. I thought to myself to rather go slow for the last stretch that fark it up in create a proper mess.

After a couple of really close calls I hit the tarmac and still haven’t seen Henk. As I drove past the first Shebeen (roughly 30m on the tarmac) I saw the Africa Twin standing there in all its glory. I pulled up just as the last light left us and had a HUGE smile on my face knowing that we made it and that the first beer is not far away. This is what your face looks like if you ride with a open visor on dirt roads.
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First things first, let’s get a beer man! There are NO words that can explain what a beer taste like after a whole day on the bike (with some close calls along the way).
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After chatting to one of the locals outside the shebeen we left in search or our accommodation for the evening (Nisela Lodge). I did book the place over the internet, so wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. When we got there it exceeded all my expectations! What a great place! We opted for the traditional hut option, which was fairly to cheaply priced at R120 per person.  Quickly through the shower and off to the bar for another beer and something to eat. I was mentally and physically exhausted after the day’s ride and after we had some food in our stomachs, I thought there is no way that I am going to see 7:30pm. We opted for another beer and decided to just have one skuimkop aka Captain Morgan Rum and Coke. It was about that time that we discovered the bonfire outside to ourselves and the words “nog net so enetjie” flowed from our lips about every 15mins. The weather was great! Here we were in the middle of winter and sitting outside with t-shirts and visplakkies. We closed the bar and fell into our courters around 11pm.
This is the inside of our hut and I promise it becomes even more difficult to get through that door after every skuimkop
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What a day! And it feels like we are 10 000kms from the Republic! I fall asleep with a great excitement for tomorrow with a little bit of a worry about the babelas ahead.
 
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