Quartet cancelled to Trio, geared down to Duo - The Baviaans via Steytlerville, 870km circular route.

Spontaneous as we are, we decided to do a short trip through the Baviaans via the Winterhoek road to Steytlerville.  From Steytlerville to Jansenville and then back through Grootrivierpoort to Patensie where we enter into the Baviaans.
We were scheduled to leave 7am on January the 9th, 2014.

My new Mitas EO7 tyre to be tested 

The weather was looking a bit bleak and stormy and all messed up, but we were still keen to face the elements. Early the next morning Jaco phoned to cancel due to the inclement weather as it was still raining. So the three of us, myself, Anton & my younger brother Wessel (aka Wingy) eventually left at 9am!

Lappies, the cock Anton gave me, finding shelter from the rain.

As soon as we left Knysna, we had no rain…classic! You could see that it was threatening to rain the whole time, but we were just lucky. It was beautiful riding weather in fact, no dust, not cold, not warm - just perfect! So we stopped at Angie's G-Spot for Coffee and Wingy - beer!

Some trees had to be removed.

    

 his other…

 Wingy & Anton

From here we pushed on to Uniondale.

 A quick breakfast

Uniondale

 En route to Winterhoek

 Anton set his self-timer and ran for it, but the camera fell one second too early for our group photo!

 The Group photo!

 PEACE!

Anton playing with his torty…

The Winterhoek road was wet and muddy and we loved every moment of it! Here's a short video from the GoPro that was attached to Wingy's Honda CRF450.

 Mount Stewart en route to Jansenville

 Everything seemed to be going well for us up to this point, but a mere 3km outside Jansenville, Wingy's bike came to a dangerous halt at high speed…turns out his 3rd gear disintegrated!! That was the end of the trip for him…we left him in Jansenville with all his buddies and the remaining Duo carried on from there. He had a good time with the local folk and his friends came to pick him up the next day…he also purchased a live sheep!

A look of disgust and unbelief.

 We went back to Steytlerville in the general direction of Grootrivierpoort, where we want to camp for the night. It was a very nice road with lots of little water crossings and some heavy mud and pretty much the highlight of the day for me!

 Hashtag selfie

                                                

 Our Camp Site

 Anton's innovative idea to wind-proof our kitchen.

 Supper with a good cup!

 Panoramic view of Grootrivierpoort.

Soon we'll have to face this crossing…

 No way we can ride our bikes through without getting water into our air intakes!

Anton put that big rock at the waters edge to see how fast the river was getting lower. Turns out to be rather slow.

 Here you can clearly see the deepest part of the river.

After 

After taking some time to chill out and think about our situation, we both agreed that turning around sucks and that we'd rather try and find a way to get across. So, we walked to the other side to the nearby farmer, Tommy, and kindly asked wether he's got some empty 20L drums lying around, in order for us to tie it to our bikes as floating devices. And he did. Adventure forth!!

                                     

Anton now ready to cross!

                                      

After we took Anton's bike across, we noticed that it would be better to have 3 of the 4 drums in front, to make 100% sure that the air intake stays completely dry.

                                               

                                              

Now i'm ready too!

                                       

 

Safely on the other side!

By the time we got back to get my bike across, the river was actually rising at quite a rapid speed, so we were very lucky. The stream was quite strong at the deepest part and any extra depth would've made it really challenging to cross. Here's a short video clip of our crossings. The camera was taped to my helmet and i apologize for looking around too much!! Unfortunately also no sound!

                                         

                                     

                                     

 Lunch is served.

 Anton showed me this cattle/livestock transport mechanism which is located in the Baviaans. Must have been quite an experience!

 The Baviaans didn't have as much water as we expected…all the river crossings were very mild except for one or two that caught us by surprise!!

 The mountain is the same colour as my bike!

                                     

                                    

 Classic sign…but they are frackers!!

 Leopard-friendly liquor store.

                                      

The Campsite! Awesome!!!

 Enjoying a semi-cold one.

 The death of an old shirt…it was a good death!

I'm busy clearing the area for my tent, it was so beautiful there, i got hooked instantly!

 Hanging my tent to dry out a bit

 This little water lizard got chowed by 3 crabs…we just borrowed him for the photo.

 The view from my tent…

Matured T-bones

 Flame grilled

 Doing the dishes

 Fresh river water for coffee

 After playing with the crabs and lizard, Anton started seeing dragons…

Anton's Dragon

Ready to leave…

 Katrina serving us with a good cup of Kloof coffee at Vero's!

 Fresh roosterkoeke

 Kloof coffee with home-made Ginger Nuts!! 

 This road was under water when we started the trip…completely dry after two days.

 As we entered Uniondale, i saw that gravel road that leads to the top of the hill…a local petrol jockey once told me about that road and i've always wanted to ride it…today was the day. After we put some fuel in, we came back to face a pretty steep climb! If you click on the photo, you'll see a red x, that's where i hit a rock and took the wrong line and drove into the bushes and fell over. Anton had to stop and help me pick up the bike and push me in order to get going again, due to the steepness. It was a real challenge, but we made it to the top. It was quite a work-out though!

King of the hill

 Here we are somewhere on the Prince Alfred's pass having lunch with coffee. While we were chilling, a solo mountain biker passed by. We greeted our fellow traveler and he decided to pop in. We offered him some coffee and we started talking about our adventures. Regretfully, no more photo's as my iPhone's battery died and Anton's memory card was full…But William is a friendly German guy who travels through Africa on his mountain bike and was on his way to the Baviaans. After a good chat we parted ways…i'm sure he'll have some interesting stories to tell!! Respect!!

What a legend trip this was!! 

 My cute little helper!

 A thorough clean to restore her beauty!

Wingy's sheep stayed with me for a couple of days before it ended up in the deep freeze.