Mikie
Grey Hound
…. With some not so virgin dogs
Yes I know, the bash was a month ago, and here I am doing my ride report now only. I have been lazy, buy me a beer and I can give more excuses
Trojan – BMW 650 Xchallenge, Jabo - BMW R1200GSA LC, Orko - BMW R1200GSA, Blougat - BMW F800GS, Herman - BMW F800GSA (Not on forum) and myself - BMW R1200GSA set off from Pinehaven on the Thursday morning at 8:30, Trojan had planned the routes and we were looking at about 300km of dirt to Kuruman where we were staying the night.
I was pretty nervous, the non-virgin bash boys have a reputation of taking any dirt road anywhere they go, all good and well but when you’re not that experienced and on a big fat German pig you do get nervous. But we hit the road to Ventersdorp, tar all the way there.
Some guys just can’t live without a memory of their first love, Ewe
Stopped for fuel and out of nowhere a Zamalek ended up in my hand, now being a humble man and not wanting to look ungrateful, I drank it, it tasted like more, but we had a long way to go still
From here we hit the gravel, headed to Ottosdal, The gravel started off nice, and then we started hitting a few hairy patches, but doing what the theory tells you and trying not to soil your pants and you get through ok, I kept the speeds slow, my theory is that if I come off I shouldn’t get hurt and neither will the bike, we can both still go home normally. Most of the guys raced on ahead, but all good, we always wait at the next turn.
See no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil
We passed Brakpan, we deduced that this must be where the real Brakpan sends their aged to die, and we didn’t know that there was another Brakpan. Gravel all the way through Taung and then towards Vryburg, Stopped at Ottosdal for lunch, we found a nice pub in the burbs, the town itself is just plain rubbish.
Somewhere between Ottosdal and Taung we lost Trojan and Blougat, a major fail from them saw them now waiting at the next turn, so when the rest of us got there we guess the route, and we naturally guessed the wrong route, one which scared the living daylights out of me, it was a farm road, with huge piles of thick powdery sand as middle mannetjies, nice clean tracks but looking at the sand I was nervous. I ended up in the lead on this stretch after I passed Jabo who was stopped and I though was taking pictures of us passing, fail, he wasn’t waving at me he was telling me we have taken the wrong route, so he ended up phoning me further down to say that I mustn’t go too far ahead, we are lost.
What do you do when you’re in the middle of nowhere waiting for the others, take photos of course?
The others eventually caught up and had decided that we will just carry on and hopefully meet the two code breakers in Vryburg.
We filled up in Vryburg and found the other 2 there waiting for us.
From there it was tar all the way to Kuruman, my nerves were shot.
The plan was to camp in Kuruman, so we found the municipal caravan park and went to book in, the place looked properly dodgy, but we were tired and just wanted to sit down and have a few drinks
Paid for a camping site and went to chill, now remember this is a municipal site, so obviously not much works anymore, the things that do work wont for too much longer as we witnessed when we rode out to the spar, the gate was closing in front of us so the guard instead of using his remote to stop it and reopen, pushes back against it and forces it back against what it was trying to do. This is Africa after all. Later on when we wanted a shower or a gentleman’s room we are told by the security that the ablutions are broken, but here is a key to your own personal Chalet, you can use the toilet and shower in there, WTF? You pay for a camp site and get a chalet for free too, Makes perfect financial sense to me, after seeing what the chalet looked like inside, I was happy to have slept in my tent.
This is now where Virgin Number 4 met us and also camped with us, JJBotes – BMW R1200GSA
The Municipal braais were so crap that Jabo bought a braai, it was small but it delivered
We ate and drank like king, I retired to bed early leaving the others to more kuiering, Herman provided the evening’s entertainment
I failed at saving my maps, so the best bet I have is to use my google locations map, not perfect but its close
Yes I know, the bash was a month ago, and here I am doing my ride report now only. I have been lazy, buy me a beer and I can give more excuses
Trojan – BMW 650 Xchallenge, Jabo - BMW R1200GSA LC, Orko - BMW R1200GSA, Blougat - BMW F800GS, Herman - BMW F800GSA (Not on forum) and myself - BMW R1200GSA set off from Pinehaven on the Thursday morning at 8:30, Trojan had planned the routes and we were looking at about 300km of dirt to Kuruman where we were staying the night.
I was pretty nervous, the non-virgin bash boys have a reputation of taking any dirt road anywhere they go, all good and well but when you’re not that experienced and on a big fat German pig you do get nervous. But we hit the road to Ventersdorp, tar all the way there.
Some guys just can’t live without a memory of their first love, Ewe
Stopped for fuel and out of nowhere a Zamalek ended up in my hand, now being a humble man and not wanting to look ungrateful, I drank it, it tasted like more, but we had a long way to go still
From here we hit the gravel, headed to Ottosdal, The gravel started off nice, and then we started hitting a few hairy patches, but doing what the theory tells you and trying not to soil your pants and you get through ok, I kept the speeds slow, my theory is that if I come off I shouldn’t get hurt and neither will the bike, we can both still go home normally. Most of the guys raced on ahead, but all good, we always wait at the next turn.
See no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil
We passed Brakpan, we deduced that this must be where the real Brakpan sends their aged to die, and we didn’t know that there was another Brakpan. Gravel all the way through Taung and then towards Vryburg, Stopped at Ottosdal for lunch, we found a nice pub in the burbs, the town itself is just plain rubbish.
Somewhere between Ottosdal and Taung we lost Trojan and Blougat, a major fail from them saw them now waiting at the next turn, so when the rest of us got there we guess the route, and we naturally guessed the wrong route, one which scared the living daylights out of me, it was a farm road, with huge piles of thick powdery sand as middle mannetjies, nice clean tracks but looking at the sand I was nervous. I ended up in the lead on this stretch after I passed Jabo who was stopped and I though was taking pictures of us passing, fail, he wasn’t waving at me he was telling me we have taken the wrong route, so he ended up phoning me further down to say that I mustn’t go too far ahead, we are lost.
What do you do when you’re in the middle of nowhere waiting for the others, take photos of course?
The others eventually caught up and had decided that we will just carry on and hopefully meet the two code breakers in Vryburg.
We filled up in Vryburg and found the other 2 there waiting for us.
From there it was tar all the way to Kuruman, my nerves were shot.
The plan was to camp in Kuruman, so we found the municipal caravan park and went to book in, the place looked properly dodgy, but we were tired and just wanted to sit down and have a few drinks
Paid for a camping site and went to chill, now remember this is a municipal site, so obviously not much works anymore, the things that do work wont for too much longer as we witnessed when we rode out to the spar, the gate was closing in front of us so the guard instead of using his remote to stop it and reopen, pushes back against it and forces it back against what it was trying to do. This is Africa after all. Later on when we wanted a shower or a gentleman’s room we are told by the security that the ablutions are broken, but here is a key to your own personal Chalet, you can use the toilet and shower in there, WTF? You pay for a camp site and get a chalet for free too, Makes perfect financial sense to me, after seeing what the chalet looked like inside, I was happy to have slept in my tent.
This is now where Virgin Number 4 met us and also camped with us, JJBotes – BMW R1200GSA
The Municipal braais were so crap that Jabo bought a braai, it was small but it delivered
We ate and drank like king, I retired to bed early leaving the others to more kuiering, Herman provided the evening’s entertainment
I failed at saving my maps, so the best bet I have is to use my google locations map, not perfect but its close