After weeks of wrestling with bureaucracy and logistics, arriving in Cape Town seemed like an end in itself instead of the beginning of what hopefully will be a fascinating, engaging, educational, perhaps even exciting, motorcycle road trip through Africa.
Cape Town immediately qualified for the first 2 adjectives. What a great place and the weather was unseasonably hot. The locals explained that we had only just missed several days of heavy rain and winds to be succeeded by clear blue sky, temperatures in the low 20’s and beautiful orange sunrises.
We ate well, slept well and enjoyed friendly interest wherever we went. This city was beginning to feel like home after only a few days.
Recovering the bikes from the shipper was straightforward. Screens and mirrors refitted, some duct tape deployed to attach the BMW indicator, and we were off to the nearest petrol station to fill up – the first of many to come. We then made our way through the Saturday morning traffic to Motorcycle City on Voortrekker Road. The BMW had been booked in for new chain and sprockets to be fitted with the workshop closing at 1pm. We had agreed to arrive early but didn’t get there until 11:30ish. I was anticipating a grumpy reception and an instruction to return on Monday. Not a bit of it. Gus in parts wasn’t fazed and Greg the owner simply wheeled the bike down to the basement workshop. 40 minutes later the job was complete with the mechanic asking Andrew to sit on the bike with luggage to ensure the chain was tensioned correctly. All done with a friendly and obliging attitude.
On Sunday we had a day of “faffing” about with bits and bobs, luggage, fitting electrical charging points for our phones, GPS and intercoms but we did manage to finish in enough time to play the tourist on Table Top Mountain. Absolutely stunning! The cable car ride to the top should terrify you as the car swings in towards the cliff face seemingly for an unavoidable collision but of course it lifts up into the docking bay smoothly and without incident as it has done several thousand times before.
We had to break away from the gravitational pull of Cape Town. So on Monday we checked out of the very comfortable Blue Sky B&B and decided to head South for an official start to the journey from Cape Point.
Clear skies and comfortable temperatures defied the norm – something that later the same day we would be grateful to have more of! After taking the obligatory pictures at Cape Point, feeding the confident unafraid birds with our lunch and chatting to some very friendly Welsh Zoology students who were studying baboons, we headed North. First stop was Stellenbosch to pick up a pair of motorcycle trousers that I had ordered while in the UK. This meant going to the large BMW Motorrad dealer where the staff were very helpful. One of the customers struck up a conversation with James while I was changing and it turned out he had a wealth of knowledge on our intended destinations. He pointed out towns and locations of interest on the map so we now had a few recommendations to aim for in Namibia.
We had previously decided that we were going to do no detailed route planning, going instead with a broad brush general direction of travel, the detail being worked out the night before. This meant we could change our plans at no notice.
Following the advice from the guy in the BMW dealership, we headed towards Towies River. It was 3pm and the GPS showed we were 85 miles away. It gets dark around 5:30pm. The initial flush of enthusiasm waned as I realised we would be arriving in the dark to a strange town with no accommodation pre-booked. Another route choice had to be made. A Toll road would cut 10 miles off the distance or we could take the old road. I made a snap decision to avoid the straight, enclosed Toll road in the hope that accommodation would be more likely on the old road. This was one of my better decisions as the road snaked up into the Cedarburg mountains giving beautiful views and really engaging riding. As we got higher the temperature dropped markedly. We needed to find somewhere to stay and on cue an out of season fishing lodge appeared with a vacant chalet.
In contrast to our time in Cape Town the mountain lodge was cold and it made us want to head North. The route plan for the next day served that purpose. More stunning roads through the mountains had me momentarily thinking that a big road bike would have been perfect but suddenly and without warning the road to Citrusdale turned to gravel. The CCMs came into their own. James who was leading, by virtue of his GPS being the only working one, barely slowed down. Gradually his dust cloud disappeared as Andrew and I took it a lot easier for this initial introduction to “gravel” as the locals all called untarred roads.
This was a really good days riding. Beautiful roads through the mountains with a chance to try out our off road abilities finishing in a workman like town called Clanwilliam where we found a hotel with a walled in carpark. Just as we were preparing to move our bikes out of sight from the road a couple of “meaty” trail bikes thudded by. I just managed to see the riders flash a look into the car park. Their engines slowed and the sounds of a U turn were obvious. Sure enough they both rumbled into the car park to say hello as you tend to do when you see other overland motorcycle travellers. That’s how we met Michael and Roger, two guys in their mid 60’s riding KTM 690s who had started from Addis Ababa in April. The astonishing thing about this is that I already knew of them from MotoFreight, the logistics company we had used to airfreight the bikes to Cape Town. What were the chances that our paths would cross like this? Anyway we had a good natter and they were both very helpful in making suggestions for our intended route as they has just covered most of it heading South. It was great to see them and I hope they finish their journey to Cape Town in style.
Off to Namibia next. We hear great things about it. Watch this space!
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