Cedarberg circle

On the last weekend in October, we undertook a trip to the Cedarberg. Participants were as follows:

Danie & Kobie Marais - BMW 1200 GSA
Bones Hewitt - BMW 1200 GSA
Gerhard & Deirdre Mitton - BMW 1200 GSA & Honda CRF 230
Jon Fullalove - BMW 1200 GS
Tony Heath - BMW 1150 GSA
Gerhard Maritz - BMW 1100
Robbie Philips - BMW 650 Dakar
Sarel Oberholzer - BMW 650 Dakar

Support crew consisted of Bernard and Adri Kleynhans and Christelle (Sarel's wife) in the VW Kombi with trailer.

Friday evening saw us go as far as Tierkloof aka Planet Karoo in the Tankwa where we set up base at Fort Tankwa. The evening was spent around a huge campfire having a barbeque on the side.

Fort Tankwa










The Villa


The Library



Saturday was to be a long day (350km), so we rose early to be greeted by a beautiful sunrise.

We departed as soon as everyone was ready.

The first stretch of 130km was on a good and fast gravel road. Just before the turn to Uitspankraal, the one tyre on the trailer burst and was promptly shredded to pieces. Deirdre was going to ride her little Honda from here, so after replacing the tyre, and taking the bike off, we were ready to go.

The next stop was the Doring river. On previous occasions, the river had been dry with extremely thick sand on the exits, but we also knew that it floods during winter and weren't sure about what to expect. Getting there, we found the river to be about 40m wide with up to 3 feet of water and lots of submerged rocks. It would not be possible to ride a bike through. We considered our other options of walking the bikes through, or alternatively make use of an old float built on drums that was lying on the bank.

The fact that this exercise would take some time to complete, the Kombi would have to take a detour anyway, and not everyone was in favour of getting wet made us decide to all take the approximately 100km detour. This added quite some time to an already long day and placed additional demands on our supplementary fuel supply carried on the trailer.

Along the way we had some fun on a dry pan.

...and enjoyed stunning views.

We reached Wupperthal more than 2 hours later than originally planned and decided to skip the lunch that was planned, and have take aways from the local shop instead while the bikes with the most urgent needs were refuelled.

After a quick visit to the rock pools and a short drive through the village, we started the ascent out of Wupperthal on our way to Eselbank.

All went well until Robbie had a bit of a mishap on one of the sandy sections leaving both his bike and confidence a little bent. The bike was loaded onto the trailer, and we also used the opportunity to refuel a few more bikes. We had 80litres of fuel available but had to carefully plan the distribution to ensure that all could make it through to the end, another 160km away. At this point even the Kombi was looking a little low on fuel. We could not understand the reason for this, and only later discovered a leak in the fuel tank caused by a flying stone.

From here things went a little faster since we were starting to run out of daylight. Apart from Bones having a little moment in Eselbank due to a lapse in concentration, the rest of the way went without incident. About an hour before dark, we took a decision to split the group. For safety reasons, the Kombi and most of the bikes would take the tar route alternative back to base via Ceres. Since Deirdre's Honda is not road legal, this was not an option to her, so Gerhard, Deirdre took the gravel option with Danie and Kobie kindly backing us up. The excellent lighting of the two adventures created a daylight glow for the little Honda which was going as fast as possible under the circumstances.

After a long day out there all were back at base safely by 21:00. Sarel and Bernard quickly put the gas equipment together and fried some sausage to provide us with hot dogs for supper. No time was wasted as people were heading for bed as fast as they could single file through the shower.

Sunday was a slow start. After breakfast, Tony, Robbie and Jon decided to head straight back home whilst the rest of us opted for the scenic route through Kareekloof. Beautiful scenery combined with a few technical challenges made this route a winner and everyone was in agreement that it was well worth riding. From here we covered the last 26km on tar back to Ceres where the support vehicle was waiting.

After a quick coffee at the Wimpy we were all on our respective ways home. This was yet another great weekend spent in the outdoors, with quite a few lessons learnt. But most importantly great times spent and lasting memories made with friends.

South African West Coast - October 2008

The plan was to take a drive up the West Coast on Saturday, camp on the beach and return home on the Sunday. This time we were going to take the Landie as the dogs were also going along - the main aim being to get away from it all and let the dogs have some fun at the same time.

It was one of the most perfect days that we've ever experienced on the West Coast - hot, no wind and clear skies. We managed to find a fairly quiet beach that stretched about 1 km to each side of us - located at S32.53.730 E17.52.126 and named "Sandbaai" (Sandy Bay).

The camp was set up above the high water mark with a good view of the scenery.

The dogs had lots of fun playing on the beach, chasing sticks and stones that we threw for them, and digging holes. They were exhausted by nightfall.

Nothing beats the feeling of peace and quiet, of being alone out in nature, a stunning sunset with a fire by your feet and dogs lying next to it. Best of all is to be able to share this with the person you love most in life.

The following morning we awoke to an overcast sky. Rain was predicted for later in the day, so we had a warm cup of coffee on the beach after which we broke camp and headed back home the scenic way.

Quick outings like this helps to regenerate the energy required to last another week at the office, and we are very thankful to be able to spend as much time outdoors as we do.