Archive of BMW Motorrad Club Cape (2006 - 2019)

On Monday the 1^st March, in the soft light of the rising sun, I was threading my way through the early morning peak traffic to meet another three riders who had been attracted to the same folly.  This was to ride through all of SA’s nine Provinces.

When I asked my dear wife what she wanted to do for her 40th birthday the answer was "get away from it all to a beautiful place". Believe it or not, but in the dry and dusty Northern Cape that need not be too far away - although some will say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I was considering a few venues, but none ticked all the boxes, especially as we would prefer to do it on the bikes. It should not be too far, we only had the Friday to Sunday. It must include dust roads- riding tar in our part of the world can be boring and we anyway prefer the less travelled roads- but the roads should not be too taxing as our last gravel travel on the bikes were over the New Year-break. Also I was still recovering from a broken ankle (not bike related) and did not know how the ankle would stand up to the rough stuff.

Every year I do a solo trip. In 2008, I went around South Africa in 8 days, covering 6992 km's, and never get to submit a trip report. This year, I wanted to go around Lake Malawi, but my family protested so hard that I reduced my trip and ended up doing it as far as the South of Zambia. I started of with Day one on Friday the 18th of September at only about 10:30, because everything that was left for the last minute started to eat my time. I was heading for either Bushwhacked on the banks of the Orange River at Vioolsdrift or the Farm of Hans Eberhard in the Karasburg District, depending on what time I get to Vioolsdrift. Gideon van den Heever told me about the Martini Henry Barrels that is drilled into the rocks about 30 Km’s before Springbok, and I stopped to have a look, because it has an interesting story to it. Apparently, the Barrels where drilled into the rock face during the Anglo Boer war, by British Soldiers that confiscated these rifles from the Boers to prevent them from using it again.