A ride to L'Aghulas...

This morning we took a ride down to the southern most point of Africa to catch up with the Long Way Down team... Charlie, Ewan and Claudio. What a laugh we had. In Stanford we had a pitstop to warm up the frozen hands, after getting back on the bikes, the whole Long Way Down team came riding up with about 50 bikes in tow. We joined them and rode through to their next pitstop. Luke, Sandra and I were admiring the dirt on our bikes when Charlie and Ewan joined us, they did of course originally want to do their trip on KTM's... After the small talk and throwing in that we're doing the West Coast of Africa we got them to pose for our groupie picture... Claudio their camera man pulled up shortly after, with his daughter on the back. We had a good chat to him, this guy must have an awesome job, filming and riding around the world on the back of a bike... He had some damage to his bike because as he put it, he had to slam on the brakes after Charlie was doing some showing off on his bike... It all ended well, just a couple of bruises and nothing the Beemer (BMW) could not handle. The ride into L'Aghulas was a laugh, we were the only two KTM's in the BMW brigade, as we got to the southern most point there were about 200 riders lining the road, cheering and taking pictures, we just followed.
On the way home we took a detour via Elim on some dirt roads, had some mud to deal with and a bit of gravel but nothing to put us off... Seems we are getting better at this now! After Sir Lowry's Pass we spotted the convey of riders again, it had now included nearly everyone that was at L'Aghulas. We filed back in and rode through to Woodbridge Island. We had good company along the way, there was a Police vehicle clearing the way upfront and a chopper hovering left or right getting the best shots of us coming into town.
All in all, an awesome day out riding. We did over 500km's today, but on roads like ours and with this sunny weather it's fun. A couple of beers in Camps Bay ended the day nicely.

Visa Solutions...

Visa Solutions is the name of a new company we approached. They came back with the following:
Namibia no visa required

Angola visa is required

DRC visa is required

Congo visa is required

Gabon no visa required

Cameroon visa is required

Nigeria visa is required

Togo visa is required

Benin no visa is required

Ghana visa is required

Ivory Coast visa is required

Mali visa is required

Mauritania visa is required

Senegal no visa is required

Morocco visa is required

To sum it up, we need 11 visa's. I checked my SA passport and have found 14 free pages... a couple will be used up in the meantime so hopefully there will be enough space, otherwise it's back to home affairs... I'm waiting on an email to see how much it will all cost, perhaps we can get some of the visa's along the way. Fancy a bit of heckling at the border...!?!?

Out in Greyton

The first trip. On Saturday morning I clicked the panniers on the bike, all bright and shiny they are! I stuffed them full with the bare necessities and they were full, although I did take two 5l petrol tanks along. Luke and I cruised the N2 past Somerset West and over Sir Lowry's pass towards Caledon. Greyton is a short distance off the highway into the mountains. We came burning into the town, parked our bikes and walked round a little as not to disturb the tranquil peace of place.
Later that afternoon we set off to find some trails. We did. Luke led the way. First was a ride through some water, perhaps 60cm deep and some 6m long... I felt a little hesitant at first Luke powered through, done. So did I... the trail soon faded so we returned the same way, and it's a pitty there is no record of this, as half way through the water I lost direction started ploughing towards the 3m high reeds on the right, water shooting up left and right, I opened the throttle, more water was now entering my helmet and every other opening, I managed to get the bike back on track. Luke was enjoying himself, he had a good laugh... I was soaking wet. Time to get those motocross boots!
After flying along some dirt roads towards Swellendam, we found some track heading up the mountain. There was some hectic muds and deep dongas that nearly chucked us from the bike. We kept it under control, although on the steep decline with a muddy road it was difficult to control the bike. No serious damage to report. Riding these roads with these bikes is awesome, it seems this is what they are made for! The handling is awesome.
Sunday we took some back roads to Franschoek, via Theewaterskloof. The pass is great for cornering, some spots looked a little dodgy as they were damp. Riding on the tar with the KTM 640 comes with loads of vibration. Nothing we cannot handle though!

a new toy...

the panniers arrived... pk received them at his place today. i got wind of it round 19h30, there was not much happening at the laundrette except for my clothes tumbling around so i shot through to paarden eiland and picked them up. beauts! put all the pieces i could together already, like a kid with a new lego set.
the rest i'm gonna have to do when the sun is back out. i wish i could park my bike in my apartment, but there are a couple of tight corners... i don't wanna scratch her! the weather has been terrible for the last couple of days, so the bike has been taking a bit of a beating standing outside.
i'll put some pics up once the panniers are attached and raring to go! keep it real!

the wednesday meeting...

yesterday was another meeting. pk rocked up at my place a couple of minutes early. he was sick and also in a seriously foul mood. luke waltzed in seconds later with all his gear on, looking like he'd just stepped off the catalogue shoot! awesome stuff. pk's mood swung temporarily!
lukas brought us an awesome watertight kit bag to strap to the back of the bike. the gear from germany looks a good buy, especially the boots. i think they need some wearing in though as changing gears seemed a bit difficult... apparently the shower is the place to soften them up...
we stood in the kitchen wolfing down some hot dogs, luke ate the most. we are seriously starved of selection on biker gear in south africa, or at least cape town... the catalogues from europe depict shops full of jackets helmets and every single gadget for a bike.

onto the meeting! we checked out our immunisation card and found that the mad quack from the travel clinic seemed to have forgotten signing us off on the meningitis jab. also something about waiting 6 months before getting the second hepatitis b shot... need to look into that!
the next thing was the visa's. this will be a bit of a headache, we have already touched on the subject, we checked the bradt guide against the info given in the lonely planet and then again against what i got from phoning the embassies in SA. well, typical for africa, we got conflicting results. there are certain places where i just think we need to get the visa before hand. in many countries they say you can get the visa before entering the other, but that also takes time, which we'd rather be spending doing something else... the decision we came to was that we'd re-look the path of using a visa company, which i have once again emailed.
aahh... then there was the small matter of paying for the pannier's.... this huge amount of 6020.00 rand is what separates from having nice shiny aluminium panniers that are lockable, detachable, and can be knocked out in case of a fall or buying/manufacturing something that will just hopefully do the job, like maybe some canvas bags? it's time to decide...
i've redesigned the sticker slightly. when we get the panniers it should fit nicely on either side.

it's a bit of a sluggish time right now. there's still 5 months until we leave, which almost seems like too much, but then there is stuff to do and there's work, which is now going to start getting busy... motivation is a bit low, but it's part of getting this whole thing together. some stuff is fun and easy to do, others just seem like such a schlep. what makes it worthwhile is thinking of the adventure that is coming up... adios!

it's done...

the beast went in for the 5000km service. the lads at eurobikes in woodstock seem to have done a sterling job! the bloke there reckoned he had to stand on a can to keep his balance before he took her out for a test ride after the service... they seemed to have enjoyed tinkering around on the bike a bit too. the service cost was R1199.00. i mention all the costs so that just in case some other soul reads this blog, they will know what they are in for ... there is only so much u can budget for the rest you just gotta see for yourself.
the idea has been put forward to have the starting line on top on signal hill. what the hell, might be fun, especially getting some of our mates and family up there at the crack of dawn to see us off... that's of course if they could be bothered!
i share a picture with you...

a new angle...

i've been thinking, that since we are getting all the gear together, the bikes kitted out and planning the route so carefully... we should try and help in some other way. i think by just doing this whole thing it might just awaken some interest. i'm just throwing ideas around. getting a charity involved would be interesting. organising an evening where we show people the gear, the bikes, what it takes to get this whole thing organised. would people pay a small amount to come and look at the plan, so that money can be collected for a non-profit organisation?
shoot the idea down or give me an idea, i'm pulling at straws... it's not just about rocking up at some hall with the bikes and all the gear. we've actually put in the time to carefully plan this and it's been fun for us, that's the main reason to do it!! so just by doing something fun, there must be a way to get some interest going and be able to make a donation somewhere... could be awesome! lend us your brain!!