Unodewaal
Pack Dog
We're (girlfriend and I) planning a ride from Wolmaranstad down to Cape Town.
We have 7 days to do the trip in - leaving Wolmaranstad (there for a family thing) on the Sunday and we need to be back in Cape Town on Saturday evening. This means we have a full week that we can explore parts of South Africa. The main goal is to get into Die Hel - we'd like to sleep over there and then shoot out the next. We're thinking of adding in the KM's in the first few days so that we can have some time to spend in the Western Cape regions.
The route we have planned so far is:
My considerations are:
I'm a fairly experienced rider when I'm riding solo, but this will be the first long distance trip and combined technical riding with a pillion.
Some of the distances are quite far apart, and I know 400km on a bike is very different to 400km in a car.
I'm pretty confident we'd be able to do the last part of the trip from Die Hel quite comfortably, but I have a concern about Baviaanskloof - the thread seems to be pretty OK regarding rainfall at the moment, but it could change and I wonder if it would be advisable to do this with a pillion. We're doing it from Willowmore, sleeping over just before the 4x4 section and then heading through to sleep in Wilderness the next day.
I'm riding a BMW F800GS with soft luggage and will probably put on 50/50 tyres (currently have Mitas E-07 that I'm really happy with, but could change to Battlewings)
Any suggestions of places to stay along the way? We'd like to sleep in areas close to the markers, but we're not set on them. We will have our camping gear with us as well so we can camp if need be.
Here's the Google Maps route we're thinking of doing:
We have 7 days to do the trip in - leaving Wolmaranstad (there for a family thing) on the Sunday and we need to be back in Cape Town on Saturday evening. This means we have a full week that we can explore parts of South Africa. The main goal is to get into Die Hel - we'd like to sleep over there and then shoot out the next. We're thinking of adding in the KM's in the first few days so that we can have some time to spend in the Western Cape regions.
The route we have planned so far is:
- Sunday: Wolmaranstad to Aliwal North: 464KM
- Monday: Aliwal North - Nieu-Bethesda: 300KM
- Tuesday: Nieu-Bethesda - Baviaanskloof - 338KM
- Wednesday: Baviaanskloof - Wilderness - 356KM
- Thursday: Wilderness - Die Hel - 174KM
- Friday: Die Hel - Montague - 303 KM
- Saturday: Montague - Cape Town - 185KM
My considerations are:
I'm a fairly experienced rider when I'm riding solo, but this will be the first long distance trip and combined technical riding with a pillion.
Some of the distances are quite far apart, and I know 400km on a bike is very different to 400km in a car.
I'm pretty confident we'd be able to do the last part of the trip from Die Hel quite comfortably, but I have a concern about Baviaanskloof - the thread seems to be pretty OK regarding rainfall at the moment, but it could change and I wonder if it would be advisable to do this with a pillion. We're doing it from Willowmore, sleeping over just before the 4x4 section and then heading through to sleep in Wilderness the next day.
I'm riding a BMW F800GS with soft luggage and will probably put on 50/50 tyres (currently have Mitas E-07 that I'm really happy with, but could change to Battlewings)
Any suggestions of places to stay along the way? We'd like to sleep in areas close to the markers, but we're not set on them. We will have our camping gear with us as well so we can camp if need be.
Here's the Google Maps route we're thinking of doing:
