(Ceres/Klein/Great Karoo — written for BIKE SA in 2016)
Every year or so, my loyal SpaceRiders’ client, veteran speedway rider and all-round biker, Adam Schwindt and I set off on an adventure motorcycling trip together. But, having heard he was not that well earlier in the year, I was surprised when he contacted me to say he was “back on the bike again and where are we going this year? This is that story.
After drooling over the new Africa Twin at Canal Walk some weeks back and realising that my bank balance was about R175,000 short of the R 180,000 asking price (fully-loaded) I decided to spend the few thousand I had available on prepping my 1991 Africa Twin XRV750 instead. So, post fitting a new battery, an oil service, two petrol tank leaks being fixed, plus a new chain and front sprocket, I was good to take on the road less travelled once more.
Even though Adam had told me he’d fully recovered and was good to ride rough roads, I planned a Karoo route which kept us within reasonable distance of towns and with a number of escape routes should the going get too tough for him. But as luck would have it; the one stretch of dirt track I hadn’t ridden before — the Klipbankfontein road that joins the Patatrivier road with the R354 to Sutherland — caught all of us out and very nearly sabotaged our entire journey.
“What happened, my love?” I asked Annette after discovering her and the DR650 in a tangle of rocks and handlebars on the side of the aforementioned dirt track.
“Well, after those dogs chased us, I was angry and sped away from them a bit too fast, and then ran out of skill around this corner,” she replied sheepishly.
We picked up the bike and I set to work repairing the windscreen with gaffer tape as best I could and straightening the handguards and mirrors; although only one still had glass in it. After rinsing the leaked petrol off the exhaust manifold and engine, we soon got it started and re-joined Adam who was waiting for us at a road gate a few kilometres away.
I’d selected this 70 km virgin stretch of dirt track, not only because I wanted a change from the Hottentotskloof to Verlatenkloof road, but because I was confident from the two credible map sources I’d consulted that this was a happening through road. But soon after Annette’s fall, the road became more and more of a farm jeep track and it was while passing through a particularly sandy drift that Adam took his first tumble.
Luckily, he coats his venerable frame with more protective plastic than a Star War’s trooper and he was not hurt in the slightest. Yet, after crossing through a concertina fence gate with a classic “bek-slaaner” fastening mechanism, the road deteriorated further and I fell off around a sharp bend while trying to avoid a thorn tree leaning inconsiderately into my path.
With only my ego a little bruised, I was soon back in the saddle. But all our falls had delayed us by at least half-an-hour, and with only about an hour of light left and some 80 km still to do, I was concerned that we were going to have to ride the R354 (when we eventually found it) in the dark. And then Adam unseated himself again after some heavy cobbles won the grab-and-snatch battle with his front wheel on the very next corner.
Yet, a few hundred metres on, I saw a bakkie on the side of the road and a woman standing in the track ahead. Glad to be able to ask her how much further we had to go before reaching the tarred R354, I rode up to meet her.
“Where do you think you are going?” her stentorian voice snarled at me, “This is a private nature reserve and not a through road.”
“And a very good afternoon to you, too, Mrs…?” I replied, taken aback by her unfriendly manner.
“I’m Doctor Thomson,” she fired back at me, “and you’ll have to go back where you came from!”
After explaining to her we saw no private property markings on what the maps indicated as a public road, and that we needed to get to Sutherland before it was dark, she became even more threatening. She would not take on board that not only would we lose our deposit at the Sutherland Hotel and have to modify our itinerary if we turned around; we would also need to ride the already challenging dirt track with the sun directly in our eyes.
But nothing seemed to move the angry old lady. So with the only options being either to leave tyre tracks on her back or to turn around, we gallantly decided on the latter — who said adventure bikers weren’t reasonable and well-mannered people?
(When I returned home and spoke with one of her neighbours, I was assured that she was known for this sort of incongruous behaviour and that she had no right to lock her gates – although we found them unlocked —or block our way forward. Yet, enter at your own risk!)
Luckily, no-one fell on the return trip to the Patatrivier road junction. Yet, by the time we had detoured to Matjiesfontein and consoled ourselves with a beer in the characterful Laird’s Arms, it was well after 7 p.m. I left Adam and Annette chatting at the bar and attempted to turn a bad situation around by enquiring after a bargain booking at reception.
But, I was out of luck, “our tariffs are our tariffs, Sir” hotel staffer, Cindy, told me. I was starting to think my cologne had turned rancid as I my charm offensive seemed to be having no effect on the ladies that day. How I wished my old ‘friend’, the charming hotelier, David Rawdon, was still alive and running the place; I know he would have made a plan for us.
There was nothing for it, but to phone a guest-house I’d stayed at some years back in nearby Laignsburg “Yes, they did have rooms for us, but we needed to get there before 8.30 p.m. as Reception would be closed after that.” Things were going to be alright, I thought; I may have lost *R600 on the Sutherland Hotel deposit, but I’d found us good rooms at reasonable prices and there was a Wimpy where we could grab a steak before hitting the hay. Joy!
*(After ruminating on our tale of woe, Milne of the Sutherland Hotel called me when I got back home and said they’d hold my deposit for future use; now that’s considerate!)
Although it was not as dramatic as the Rooiberg Pass route from Sutherland, riding the dirt track from Koup Station to Merweville the next day, I realised it was still one of my favourite pieces of Zen-dirt track in the Karoo; especially when it’s dry. Although the 80 km track runs through a dry and stony-ridged landscape that’s redolent of the Sinai Desert — it receives less than 150 mm of rain p.a. — it has just enough twists and turns, as well as rises and descents and surface variation, to keep you focused in the moment.
According to the Karoo South Africa website, “the word Koup” used to describe this section of the Karoo, “means caul fat and was so named because the patches of golden veld grasses interspersed by the dark grey-brown ground around Merweville resembles the lacy fat and blood vessels surrounding a sheep’s liver.”
After appreciating the imposing stone façade of the NG Kerk and having had some refreshments, we were about to set-off when Adam fell over in the parking lot. It was one of those inexplicable incidents where one’s boot somehow gets caught between the footbrake and serrated peg and you lose balance. Talk about injustice — he’d been busting for a leak, but had shown respect for the church environs and decided to wait until we got out of town — seems like there’s just no pleasing the Gods some days!
With the smaller tank on Annette’s DR650 we needed to find a petrol station for her to top-up before heading on the back roads to Prince Albert. And although I’m not a huge fan of Shell’s, because of their desire to prick the Karoo full of holes in search of the now non-economic shale gas, the Ultra City at Leeu Gamka was our only option. But, when we got there we discovered the site under construction and there was no petrol to be bought.
While this satisfied my environmental conscience, Annette still needed petrol. And even if we’d decided to do a long detour on the tar to Prince Albert Road, we weren’t confident she would make it. There was only one thing for it: scrounge a syphon pipe and a suitable container from someone and extract some petrol from my Africa Twin.
I found a gentleman on-site who helped with a piece of hosepipe and located a two-litre orange juice bottle in a bin. After my fourth try and a healthy rinse with Saudi Arabian mouthwash, thankfully, the green nectar flowed into our makeshift petrol can. To add insult to injury, a surly, red-eyed vagrant with a hearing problem then started to harass us for money. Starting to lose my sense of humour, I was sorely tempted to light my volatile breath and breathe fire and brimstone on him.
The Kruidfontein Station dirt track into Prince Albert was just the tonic I needed to calm down. 50 km of cathartic riding, through crenelated koppies and ridges; and then a long downhill stretch at the end through olive groves, with the quaint town framed by the majestic Swartberg Mountain range in the distance.
Although I’ve ridden the spectacular Swartberg Pass to Oudtshoorn many times, it was to be a first for both Adam and Annette. Annette went on ahead to take some photos and I fell in behind Adam so I could record his passage on the helmet-cam. We took it slowly and unlike many other times where I’ve been pushed for time and had to race through it, I enjoyed the mellow pace and once again appreciated the low-down torque and balance of my old Africa Twin.
Celebrating the view with the ice-cold Cokes and Sprites we’d bought in Prince Albert, we waxed lyrical about the pleasures of adventure motorcycling through the epically beautiful country we live in. And just as we thought we’d peaked on platitudes, a small bus emptied its load of Dutch tourists out at our view site, and the cycle of oohs and aahs started again.
Our plan was to ride the perennially satisfying back road to Kruisrivier and then continue on the even more engaging and scenic Groenfontein road to our overnight stop in Calitzdorp. But when we got to Kruisrivier, we noticed Annette was missing. With so many twists and turns over the last 5km, Adam told me he hadn’t seen her for a while and I feared the worst.
I raced back as fast as I could, expecting she might have lost it on a particularly precipitous and loose gravel descent some 5-6 km back. But, thankfully, I found her standing next to the downed DR just a kilometre back, shaking her head at herself and giggling. I feared she may be spaced out by the after-effects of concussion, yet she turned out to be fine — another miraculous sparing by her guardian angel. I just hope her ‘learning curve’ has now peaked and she will go into blind corners with more trepidation and less bravado next time out.
Because of this delay, I decided we should give up on the more time-consuming Groenfontein road and take the shorter Red Stone Hills dirt track to the R62 outside Calitzdorp. With its wide surface and serpentine curves leading through the fairy-tale citadels of red enon conglomerate, this detour was certainly no hardship and also meant we had to face less sun in our eyes as we headed west on the tar to Calitzdorp.
The Port Wine Guest House was every bit as tranquil and elegant as its website had suggested. Chugging back ice-cold Windhoek lights on the spacious vine-covered veranda outside our rooms, we spoke little and sighed volubly as the amber liquid washed away the trials and tribulations of the day, and, of course, the petrol taste that had haunted me since Leeu-Gamka.
Getting to dinner that night proved a lengthy process. Adam’s steel toe-joint and hip-replacement had been aggravated by his earlier tumbles and the “ten-minute” walk to Zamani’s Grill took us much longer. When we eventually got there, I placed my order and went back to the guest house and fetched the Africa Twin to lift Adam and Annette, separately, on the return journey.
Having worked up a thirst and healthy appetite, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal — thanks Adam, unquestionably the best ostrich fillet I’ve ever had — and the local Calitzdorp Cellar’s Shiraz went down singing hymns, too. It was a balmy night in Calitzdorp and the smell of jasmine, roses and lavender was heavy in the air when we rode down the fecund avenues on our way back to our guest house.
My original plan for our last day’s ride, was to follow the sometimes challenging Rooiberg Pass to Vanwyksdorp; but we decided rather to sleep in a bit, take the faster Huis Rivier’s Pass to Ladismith and then re-join our planned dirt track route to Brandrivier. It was the right decision. Not only did it give us time to enjoy a late and leisurely five-star breakfast in our guest-house’s baronial dining-room, we could ease into the day’s ride on the gentle curves and engaging switchbacks of one of the best tar-riding passes in the Cape.
“Ignorance is contagious, Psoriasis is not,” we wrote for a medical client of our ad-agency many years back. I was thinking of this after meeting the friendly members of the Stonecutters 133 Motorcycle Club at the petrol station in Ladismith. In asking them if their club’s name had anything to do with Freemasonry, I uncovered that it had, and that their members were allied to various chapters in the Western Cape.
So why align ignorance with Freemasonry? Because the general perception promoted by films and other myth-makers is that freemasonry involves strange rituals; even a link with the occult, where nothing could be further from the truth as I learned when I buzzed into www.freemasons.co.za. while waiting for Annette who had gone shopping for sunglasses.
“Freemasonry aims to promote Friendship, Morality, and Brotherly Love among its members. It is, by definition, a fraternity; comprised of men from every race, religion, opinion, and background who are brought together as Brothers to develop and strengthen the bonds of friendship.”
On the rolling dirt track to Vanwyksdorp, with its talcum-powder-like dust surface, I chuckled to myself as I ruminated again on the vagaries of human perceptions and remembered another trite truism about ignorance: “Never ass-ume anything about someone or something, as it’s bound to make an ‘ass’ out of you and an ‘ass’ out of ‘me.’”
Undoubtedly the most enjoyable piece of dirt track we rode that day, before heading back home to Bot River on the R62 and N2, was the last 10 km detour through the hamlet of Brandrivier, past Klein Doornrivier. The twisty and narrow dirt track led us through thick bush, cultivated fields, through farmyards and eventually took us past a delightful old ruin whose faded blue front door cried out to us: “Buy me and renovate me!”
Ah, the power of dreams; generously fuelled by the meditative state produced when Zen- dirt-tracking.
The route and travel notes:
Day 1: Bot River to Laignsburg: via Van Der Stel’s Pass, Montagu, Ouberg Pass, Touws River, Pienaarspoort, Klipbankfontein road (two-thirds and then turned around), Patatrivier road, Matjiesfontein and Laignsburg. Distance Day 1: 440 km, 325 km (74 %) on dirt
Day 2: Laignsburg to Calitzdorp: via N1 to Koup Station, Merweville, Leeu Gamka, Kruidfontein, Prince Albert, Swartberg Pass and Kruisrivier. Distance Day 2: 354 km, 224 km (63%) on dirt.
Day 3: Calitzdorp to Bot River: via Huis Rivier Pass, Ladismith, Vanwyksdorp, Brandrivier, Barrydale, Suurbraak, Swellendam, Riviersonderend and Caledon. Distance Day 3: 388 km, 203 km (52%) on dirt
Total distance travelled: 1182 kilometres over 3 days riding — about 752 km (64%) on dirt roads.
Experience required: Beginner to moderate experience required (Klipbankfontein Road).
Best time of year to go: April to September.
Route highlights: Pienaarspoort outside Touws River, Klipbankfontein road; Koup Station to Merweville; Kruidfontein Station to Prince Albert, Swartberg Pass, the Kruisrivier road and the Brandrivier detour through the farmlands.
What I’d do differently next time: Insist on my right of way on a public through road!
What it cost us: Accom. : R800 each - 2 nights. Petrol, food, drinks etc.: R 1,250 ea. Total: R 2,050
Accommodation notes: Herambi Guest house in Laignsburg: 023 551 1947 and Port Wine guest house in Calitzdorp: 044 213 3131.