One day Solo to our Secret campsite in the Baviaans, 200km

Solo Becomes Solo.
It was Wednesday the 29th of August 2012, it also happened to be my birthday - all the more reason to flee to the mountains and fortunately, that was the gift from my wife to me...so, i packed my bags and i left, it's not in my nature to be ungrateful for any form of gift! 

"The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention."

 En route to Gouna. (pronounced: Go-Nah)

Enjoying a Uniondale cup

I then decided to go for some exploring...

X marks the spot

The last time Anton & i discovered this spot and the river was a lot calmer and hardly flowing...but with recent rains, it looks like a lot more fun. The water isn't really deep, but the flow is a lot stronger, so driving up into the river, causes water to jump up, even though i'm going placidly in 1st gear. 
I saw a bend in the river with some minor rapids, which i wanted to avoid, so i decided to climb out to the side, but as soon as my back wheel reached the bank, it just started spinning and i got stuck in a reasonably uncomfortable position. I got off, checked the vibe out and restarted the bike, standing next to it, pushing along...but no success. 

The secret is out...

I then decided to unpack my bags so that i can wrestle with peace!
After a few minutes of struggling, i decided to change my approach and instead of trying to push the bike up over the river wall, i pulled it back into the water and pushed it down stream, to a shallower part...this took about an hour of man power...lots of rocks and slippery terrain, made it quite a work-out!

In the voice of Lion King's Rafiki: "Look harder!"

With all my clothes wet, i decided to do a bit of laundry and lay everything out in the sun to dry. Seeing that i got stuck with a wet bike that no longer wishes to start, i entered super stealth mode and got some leafy branches to break the shine of my bike, seeing that it's right in line with the road, a mere 100m away. It seemed to have done the trick, nobody stopped or noticed me and about 5 cars passed by!

Self Portrait

No Service

My new buddy!

Time for a cup!

 Paranoia will destroy ya! Even though i travel with my firearm, i was seriously just joking around here...it was a blue moon and i couldn't take my star trail photo's so i invented ways to entertain myself! 

 Here you can see my "cable release" in order to take long exposures...i packed the wrong cables for this camera...but my love for low light photography got the better of me!

 The blue moon only gave me 10min of exposure...

Here's a 30sec exposure

All packed, but nowhere to go! The bike started like every other morning, but as soon as i hit the water, it cut out again! So i pushed her out to the road, waited 30min and tried again...She starts, but as soon as i put it in 1st gear and drive 2m, it cuts out...

 After waiting about an hour, a local guy came past and told me about a guy named Nico Smit, about 5km away from here, that might be able to help me. So i decided to push on!

I made some more friends along the way!

It was really hot and i decided to park a bit to chill in the shadow of my bike as the midday sun was beating down...and then i made some more friends...these two horses moved up & down and around me the whole time! 

While i was parking here, a local couple stopped to find out if i needed help...only local people stopped, a couple of cars (obvious holiday makers) just drove past me without the slightest hint that they wish to stop...i guess a dude pushing a loaded bike in the middle of nowhere is quite normal! Anyway, so they stopped and the guy, didn't get his name unfortunately, said that he'd phone Nico Smit for me and ask him to come and fetch me...i also asked his wife, think her name is Gerda, to please phone my wife and tell her that i'm okay & that it's just bike issues, so she need not to worry! They'll only be able to phone when they get home, which is about a 10min drive from where i was, using a landline.
I then waited about an hour for Nico to come, but then decided to push on, seeing that i'm just about 2 or 3km from his farm.

Being in the slow lane, makes it easy to stop and enjoy the surroundings!

And finally, the gate to Nico's farm...

When i got there it was obvious that nobody's home...

So, i played with my two new friends!

It turned out that Nico had gone to George for the day and he only got back after 6pm i think...then we tried to figure out what's wrong with my bike, but Nico said that he's BBC, "born before computers" and we couldn't understand why the bike starts, but cuts out as soon as i drive...at one stage i got to 2nd gear and all felt good, then suddenly, she dies!

I had to come to terms with it, mission failed. So i asked Nico if i could make a phone call home and my brother, Wessel, came to fetch me. He arrived shortly after 23:00pm and we got home just after 03:00am.

 Waiting for the miracle to come!

Crux Australis or more commonly known as the Southern Cross.

When i got home i was obviously a bit disappointed that my faithful bike behaved like this. So i phoned the BMW expert, Guenther Meyer of KTG Motorrad Knysna, for his advice. He gave me a few pointers to check out, which i did and all was good. Initially i thought water came into the bikes exhaust, because while i was pushing it down stream, it tumbled over on top of me, but i managed to keep it from being baptized completely, but thought that some water came into the "dummy" side of the exhaust. So, Anton came around to help me figure out why this beauty is behaving badly and we unscrewed the exhaust and did all kinds of cleaning and inspecting, but no cigar! 

The next day, while Anton was driving, he got a revelation, that there might be water in my fuel...i immediately shot it down, because how would water get in there, i thought to myself. I've been through deeper waters before... Anyway, i checked my bikes manual, a wonderful piece of work to read every now & then! It said that if your spark plugs are wet, you should replace them...initially i didn't think they were that wet, because we checked one of the plugs on Nico's farm...it was a bit dark and we couldn't really tell, but it seemed to be dry...when i checked it thoroughly at home, they were pretty wet indeed. So, Anton got me two new plugs from town and out he came to help me put them in. My dad also joined in. 

Once we've replaced the plugs, the bike starts a bit better and off i went, 1st, 2nd, 3rd...cuts out again...and Anton told me, that if it cuts out now, then we must put all things aside and focus on the tank...because he's sure there's water in the fuel...He was right!!! 

Somehow the water got in from underneath my seat and into the fuel, not really sure why or how, but it did...so we drained the fuel, dried the tank, cleaned the fuel pump, filter and all that goes with that, and put new fuel in...the result: Beautiful!! 

Tip: we heard that it's best to put a lubricant such as Valve Ease into your petrol (about 50ml), just to lube all the places where the water got in...

Special thanks to Guenther Meyer, my dad, Anton & Wessel for helping me fall in love with my Dakar again!