And so the day arrived at last! Rhodes here we come! Phillip on a GSA, Jaco on the Dakar and me on the 800GS left Jeffreysbay at 6h45 on the 26th of December for Hogsback (350km).
We had a big breakfast at the Zuurberg Inn where a big tourbus full of Hollanders was just about to depart. One guy, an ex-biker told me that the 1200GS is the best selling bike in Holland – what a waste of a bike! The light rain had gone by then and I saw the Zuurberg pass for the first time (the previous time it was raining hard!).
We stopped briefly at Ann’s Villa, but did not go into the blacksmith museum.
On the road to the R400 we saw rooibokke, a big likkewaan and a meerkat. We rode the dirt highway R400 to Riebeek Oos. Visarend had originally planned to join us there, but his plans had changed. We followed his recommended scenic route through Kwandwe private game reserve.
We did not see the big five, but did see some waterbuck. The next leg was interesting – we crossed the R67 and then turned left into the Andries Vosloo Kudu Nature Reserve and the Sam Knott Nature Reserve where the Groot Vis and the Koonap join.
The road was interesting and if you want peace and quiet, this is the place! We only saw one 4x4! We stopped at the Double Drift fort – must have been lonely there during the Xhosa wars!:
The Double Drift river crossing had a bit of water and the river was flowing strongly – but only about 20 cm deep. BUT, it was slippery as hell with the algae growing on it. As some wilddogs have mentioned, it was a bit of a lottery. I made it through with one or two moments, stopped and then saw that Jaco was down, with only 10 metres to go! SO close and so far…
I raced back, we picked up the bike and then I made a big mistake…I tried to start the Dakkie! Luckily it would not start and just pushed streams of water out the exhausts.
Flippie suggested that we remove a sparkplug to see if there was water in the engine and after a frantic search for the plug spanner, Flippie removed the plug. The Dakkie was water free! It started immediately when the plug was replaced and while Jaco was riding along with “water jet assistance” for a while, it went very well! The oil was OK too! Flippie and I immediately vowed to buy plug spanners for our bikes as soon as we got home.
Looking for a Coke and a scenic view of the river we turned down to the Mvubu chalets, and it got interesting… the road had a nice 90 deg steep bend with loose rocks that was probably the most technical bit of the the entire trip. Going down was OK, but you had to commit going back up, Flippie was knocked off line but saved it well, stopping dead and getting going again.
Jaco
Flippie
The road to Alice was fine, just lots of animals in the road! The coke we had there was the best late lunch I’ve ever had. While filling up we met a husband and wife team from Witbank who had just joined the dual sport game after riding superbikes. He was riding a Yammie ST and she was on a F800GS. They were staying at the Edge in Hogsback as well and we hooked up at supper and had roaring time swapping bike stories (I’ll remember the story about the Harley in the dam for a long time…) till the staff offered us “complimentary” sherries at 23h to get us out of there…
Very pretty at the Edge…flowers and all…
Day 2 (27 Dec - a public holiday…)
We filled up at Cathcart and took the beautiful gravel road across the Swart Kei to the R61. The plan was to go via the Lubisi dam road to Cala, then Elliot, Ugie, Maclear and Naudes nek pass to Rhodes. By this time it was 12h and 32deg C and yes, the ideal time and place to get a flat front tyre…
We nursed it along with bombs and a can of tyreweld, but finally came to a stop here
Flippie had showed me the special hexagonal tool you need for the GSA and we were both convinced that we needed a similar tool for the 800…Flippie rode off to see if he could get help (it was a public holiday, everything was closed and he ended up riding all the way to Queenstown!!). Meanwhile I talked to a BMW tech who talked me through it and yes, I had the 17 spanner and the 45 torx required, Out came the zigzag and some rocks were collected and the wheel was off. Luckily I had a long tyre lever as well as 2 short ones, and had ridden on until the bead had popped on the TKC80, but to get that casing over the rim was tough… I was scared I would damage the bead and did not lever hard enough. As plan B I gave GlenINK of Elliot a call too and left a message. He was in Rhodes already and offered to arrange help from Queenstown if required. Then Trevor appeared out of the blue. He was home for Christmas, had seen us struggling and came to lend a hand. He had owned a Yammie and was quite handy with a tyre lever. I had dishwashing liquid and that helped, especially when getting the tyre back into the rim. The valve puller was very handy too. The leak was at the base of the valve. It was heavily corroded although the tube was only 2 years old! The spare tube was on when Flippie appeared over the horizon in a cloud of dust wielding tyreweld cans, coke and sarmies. Flippie reminded me to pump the front brake before setting off. And yes, I should have checked the inside of the rim for other possible problems. At this time our Naude’s nek plans were canned and we headed straight to Barkley East. On the beautiful Barkly Pass we had a typical Rhodes welcome – a thunderstorm and hail. We filled up and hit the 60km gravel to Rhodes. After 30kms the heavens opened again, and it was 2nd gear time. We had been warned that it’s very slippery when wet, and it was really slick…Flippie had a royal battle with mothership but kept her upright. We slid into Rhodes at 18h30 and celebrated with Captain Morgan after a hot shower. We had actually passed Glen in the rain on that road and he jokingly enquired via SMS if I was dry or not!!
Day 3 (28 Dec)
The view from Walkerbouts is stunning…
We rode up to the top of Naude’s Nek and as luck would have it Glen drove by in a car and we met for the first time. He had hurt his knee that morning while riding in a riverbed. Hope it gets well soon Glen!
The pass was great! Good surface and marvelous views! Nice hairpins to keep you awake. Jaco found out that stalling it in 2nd on a hairpin is a sure way to a slow topple…
We turned around and then rode back through Rhodes to ride Lundean’s pass to Tele Bridge. The pass was nice and twisty, and the few rocky bits were fine.
You could see that it would be very slippery when wet and when few drops of rain began to fall we pushed on. In the very last concrete driffie, I started turning right for the next corner, lost the front wheel and found myself going headfirst into the creek..The concrete was covered with algae and slippery as snot…
The crashbar and the helmet did their job!
For the rest of the day we tried to avoid thunderstorms. The road along the river was scenic, but filled with potholes. A taxi pulled off to the side and I nearly fell off the bike laughing as the occupants’ heads went up and down in unison as he hit a string of potholes! Flippie wasn’t keen on a rerun of the Rhodes slide and when we hit tar, went for it (187km/h was his max speed…) and arrived 70 min before us, we followed at a more sedate pace, but still beat the storm by 30 min.
The storm all around us on the way to Rhodes.
We celebrated with the famous Walkerbout pizza’s and the Captain and ….
Day 4 (29 Des)
We headed back to JBay – 640km to go! I checked the front tyre pressure and my mood dived – 1.1bar…used tyreweld again and got it to 2.4 bar – there were very slow bubbles leaking past the valve and we decided to go for it. We took the lovely gravel road along the river back to Elliot.
Flippie rode close to me to give me early warning if the tyre was going flat. I rode gingerly, trying to miss every bump and rock, frustrating… it held though and I had no further problems (it did go down to 1.45 bar after a day at Jbay). Just before Queenstown we hit a mean crosswind and the temperature was 32C. After Queenstown the temperature plummeted to 17C and we were riding through heavy mist on the Nico Malan pass. About 100km before Grahamstown we got rain and it pretty much rained all the way the JBay. We stopped for much needed coffee and burgers in Grahamstown and got to JBay at 17h00. What a great trip and great company too!
We had a big breakfast at the Zuurberg Inn where a big tourbus full of Hollanders was just about to depart. One guy, an ex-biker told me that the 1200GS is the best selling bike in Holland – what a waste of a bike! The light rain had gone by then and I saw the Zuurberg pass for the first time (the previous time it was raining hard!).
We stopped briefly at Ann’s Villa, but did not go into the blacksmith museum.
On the road to the R400 we saw rooibokke, a big likkewaan and a meerkat. We rode the dirt highway R400 to Riebeek Oos. Visarend had originally planned to join us there, but his plans had changed. We followed his recommended scenic route through Kwandwe private game reserve.
We did not see the big five, but did see some waterbuck. The next leg was interesting – we crossed the R67 and then turned left into the Andries Vosloo Kudu Nature Reserve and the Sam Knott Nature Reserve where the Groot Vis and the Koonap join.
The road was interesting and if you want peace and quiet, this is the place! We only saw one 4x4! We stopped at the Double Drift fort – must have been lonely there during the Xhosa wars!:
The Double Drift river crossing had a bit of water and the river was flowing strongly – but only about 20 cm deep. BUT, it was slippery as hell with the algae growing on it. As some wilddogs have mentioned, it was a bit of a lottery. I made it through with one or two moments, stopped and then saw that Jaco was down, with only 10 metres to go! SO close and so far…
I raced back, we picked up the bike and then I made a big mistake…I tried to start the Dakkie! Luckily it would not start and just pushed streams of water out the exhausts.
Flippie suggested that we remove a sparkplug to see if there was water in the engine and after a frantic search for the plug spanner, Flippie removed the plug. The Dakkie was water free! It started immediately when the plug was replaced and while Jaco was riding along with “water jet assistance” for a while, it went very well! The oil was OK too! Flippie and I immediately vowed to buy plug spanners for our bikes as soon as we got home.
Looking for a Coke and a scenic view of the river we turned down to the Mvubu chalets, and it got interesting… the road had a nice 90 deg steep bend with loose rocks that was probably the most technical bit of the the entire trip. Going down was OK, but you had to commit going back up, Flippie was knocked off line but saved it well, stopping dead and getting going again.
Jaco
Flippie
The road to Alice was fine, just lots of animals in the road! The coke we had there was the best late lunch I’ve ever had. While filling up we met a husband and wife team from Witbank who had just joined the dual sport game after riding superbikes. He was riding a Yammie ST and she was on a F800GS. They were staying at the Edge in Hogsback as well and we hooked up at supper and had roaring time swapping bike stories (I’ll remember the story about the Harley in the dam for a long time…) till the staff offered us “complimentary” sherries at 23h to get us out of there…
Very pretty at the Edge…flowers and all…
Day 2 (27 Dec - a public holiday…)
We filled up at Cathcart and took the beautiful gravel road across the Swart Kei to the R61. The plan was to go via the Lubisi dam road to Cala, then Elliot, Ugie, Maclear and Naudes nek pass to Rhodes. By this time it was 12h and 32deg C and yes, the ideal time and place to get a flat front tyre…
We nursed it along with bombs and a can of tyreweld, but finally came to a stop here
Flippie had showed me the special hexagonal tool you need for the GSA and we were both convinced that we needed a similar tool for the 800…Flippie rode off to see if he could get help (it was a public holiday, everything was closed and he ended up riding all the way to Queenstown!!). Meanwhile I talked to a BMW tech who talked me through it and yes, I had the 17 spanner and the 45 torx required, Out came the zigzag and some rocks were collected and the wheel was off. Luckily I had a long tyre lever as well as 2 short ones, and had ridden on until the bead had popped on the TKC80, but to get that casing over the rim was tough… I was scared I would damage the bead and did not lever hard enough. As plan B I gave GlenINK of Elliot a call too and left a message. He was in Rhodes already and offered to arrange help from Queenstown if required. Then Trevor appeared out of the blue. He was home for Christmas, had seen us struggling and came to lend a hand. He had owned a Yammie and was quite handy with a tyre lever. I had dishwashing liquid and that helped, especially when getting the tyre back into the rim. The valve puller was very handy too. The leak was at the base of the valve. It was heavily corroded although the tube was only 2 years old! The spare tube was on when Flippie appeared over the horizon in a cloud of dust wielding tyreweld cans, coke and sarmies. Flippie reminded me to pump the front brake before setting off. And yes, I should have checked the inside of the rim for other possible problems. At this time our Naude’s nek plans were canned and we headed straight to Barkley East. On the beautiful Barkly Pass we had a typical Rhodes welcome – a thunderstorm and hail. We filled up and hit the 60km gravel to Rhodes. After 30kms the heavens opened again, and it was 2nd gear time. We had been warned that it’s very slippery when wet, and it was really slick…Flippie had a royal battle with mothership but kept her upright. We slid into Rhodes at 18h30 and celebrated with Captain Morgan after a hot shower. We had actually passed Glen in the rain on that road and he jokingly enquired via SMS if I was dry or not!!
Day 3 (28 Dec)
The view from Walkerbouts is stunning…
We rode up to the top of Naude’s Nek and as luck would have it Glen drove by in a car and we met for the first time. He had hurt his knee that morning while riding in a riverbed. Hope it gets well soon Glen!
The pass was great! Good surface and marvelous views! Nice hairpins to keep you awake. Jaco found out that stalling it in 2nd on a hairpin is a sure way to a slow topple…
We turned around and then rode back through Rhodes to ride Lundean’s pass to Tele Bridge. The pass was nice and twisty, and the few rocky bits were fine.
You could see that it would be very slippery when wet and when few drops of rain began to fall we pushed on. In the very last concrete driffie, I started turning right for the next corner, lost the front wheel and found myself going headfirst into the creek..The concrete was covered with algae and slippery as snot…
The crashbar and the helmet did their job!
For the rest of the day we tried to avoid thunderstorms. The road along the river was scenic, but filled with potholes. A taxi pulled off to the side and I nearly fell off the bike laughing as the occupants’ heads went up and down in unison as he hit a string of potholes! Flippie wasn’t keen on a rerun of the Rhodes slide and when we hit tar, went for it (187km/h was his max speed…) and arrived 70 min before us, we followed at a more sedate pace, but still beat the storm by 30 min.
The storm all around us on the way to Rhodes.
We celebrated with the famous Walkerbout pizza’s and the Captain and ….
Day 4 (29 Des)
We headed back to JBay – 640km to go! I checked the front tyre pressure and my mood dived – 1.1bar…used tyreweld again and got it to 2.4 bar – there were very slow bubbles leaking past the valve and we decided to go for it. We took the lovely gravel road along the river back to Elliot.
Flippie rode close to me to give me early warning if the tyre was going flat. I rode gingerly, trying to miss every bump and rock, frustrating… it held though and I had no further problems (it did go down to 1.45 bar after a day at Jbay). Just before Queenstown we hit a mean crosswind and the temperature was 32C. After Queenstown the temperature plummeted to 17C and we were riding through heavy mist on the Nico Malan pass. About 100km before Grahamstown we got rain and it pretty much rained all the way the JBay. We stopped for much needed coffee and burgers in Grahamstown and got to JBay at 17h00. What a great trip and great company too!
