“Hullo chaps! We are joining the guys from Footpeg Diaries for a ride through the Cederberge and then we are riding back up to GP. Oh – and we’ll be on the new Africa Twins.
Would you lot like to come along?”
Mostly By Glenn Foley
Some pics by Kameraz and Black Moth Photo
Very little thought went into the reply. Permissions from spouses were acquired, diaries were swapped around, clobber was packed and the early, early flight to CT was caught…
We were offloaded at Honda Tygerberg store and given a choice:
2024 Africa twin manual, Big wheel – or the DCT Adventure Sport?
Bigger wheel, more clearance, choice made!
“Brand new tyres”, we were warned, “Take it easy for the first bit”. They weren’t kidding, brand new 70/30 Mitas rubber is not a lot of fun on urban roads that you are not familiar with, but luckily we are tuff!
Pretty soon, the tyres settled and there was more than once that were were happy to have decent traction on the ride, but you need to be aware that any new tyre needs to do heat cycles. They also need to wear in a bit.
We were soon up to speed as we followed our guides up towards the mountains.
I’ll say this: The riders in the Cape are so spoiled when the sun shines. Views for miles, the roads are amazing blah blah blah, yes, we know.
Now pay attention: The beauty about a ride like this is to learn stuff. There’s a test at the end!
Paarl and Wellington whizzed past, up to the foot of Bainskloof where we stopped to refuel. Bainskloof is named after Andrew Geddes Bain who in 1849, with the help of several hundred convict labourers built an 18 kilometre pass through the Limietberg mountains of Wellington. The project was completed in September 1853. “On a clear day you can be the owner of a breathtaking view. Wellington, Paarl, Stellenbosch and even Table Mountain are now within visual reach as the Cape Winelands unfolds below you.” It was a clear day. We were on Africa Twins and life was great!
We regrouped and soon we hit gravel with more spectacular climbs and valleys to match. Mishap struck when this rider shot ahead to get a pic. Side Stand out, hop off…. And the sidestand dug in, pinning the hapless rider under the big girl. Eish! Flopped like a fish crying for help. The burly gent who helped out could barely conceal his grin, and the story got bigger as the weekend progressed…
The contrasts in the Cape are quite bizarre. You are climbing through sweeping mountain roads and passes with views for acres when suddenly, the world goes flat and you are in almost barren scrublands on long flat sandy roads, and how do you describe it? Silence inside your helmet. It’s quite beautiful.
Destination: Tankwa to meet up with the other groups who had ridden in from Gauteng and other places.
Ever been to Tankwa?
Route 355 starts in Ceres and winds past farms and towns, ending in Kleinzee on the upper West coast of South Africa. On the stretch between Ceres and Calvinia, only 5km of this road is tarred, making it the longest gravel road in South Africa. The Tankwa Padstal on Route 355 is where they host the annual AfrikaBurn event. We arrived to see a UFO crashed into the sand dune, half buried cars like Wynkaptein, a 1979 Peugeot 504GR that found his last place of rest at the Tankwa Padstal. It’s an interesting spot and we can confirm: The food is great and the soft drinks are icy. There was a rumble as other bikes on the tour started arriving and pretty soon the group was complete.
We mounted up and headed back towards Katbakkies Pass – more spectacular, marvellous and all that. Katbakkies Pass traces over what was once an old sheep-trekking route over the Skurweberge mountains. It joins the Koue Bokkeveld with the Ceres Karoo and Tankwa Karoo. It was tarred in 1999 and although it’s fairly short, it’s pretty steep and good fun on a bike. We headed for our weekend digs at Cederberg Oasis. What a cool spot! Basic but clean, with an honesty bar!
What? We are not in GP any more!
Yup, write in the book, help yourself and pay when you leave. Man that’s cool! The people who run the place are chilled and friendly, there’s a pool, a huge verandah and it’s just so well located for anyone who wants to explore the Cederberg mountains. Briefing was held on Friday evening, pointers for the following day and lots of laughter around the trips mishaps so far… Very little beats the camaraderie of a bunch of people with shared interests off on an adventure.
Saturday dawned with a not so early start. Bike maintenance and puncture repairs were underway with big smiles all around. Clutch out at nine bells – and we were in for a treat! So often on adventures like this, you can whizz past the really interesting stuff. Just down the road, or so it felt from Oasis, you’ll see the entrance to the Stadsaal Cave. Do yourself a favour, go and have a look. The Footpeg guys arranged that we could take a walkabout. Some of the guys came unstuck on the sandy trail into the caves but all arrived unscathed. It’s beautiful!
Wind and water have carved caves and tunnels into the rock faces and the views are pretty spectacular. There is bushman art and, something interesting, the walls of the cave are signed by famous peeps. It’s rumoured that the Nationalist Party members met here to plan their 1948 victory which heralded the start of legislated apartheid. In support of this theory the names of some of the Nationalist Party members of the time are evident as graffiti on the walls, notably the name of Dr D. F. Malan, the then leader of the party and the first Nationalist Prime Minister of South Africa. Interesting huh!
Time presses on and we remount and head back to the road – destination: ClanWilliam for refuel.
These are all pics from the Stadsaal caves. If they don’t give you wanderlust we can no longer be friends!
It’s difficult to remember everything on a ride like this, we do live in a beautiful country for sure. There were passes, gravel, paved and partially tarred. There were friendly people at stop-and-goes. Bridges and side roads, man you can wax lyrical, and we need to get back here to see more and to be able to stop longer just to take it all on. The routes led to the banks of the Olifants River which is, quite simply, spectacular… you kinda wished that you’d packed your fishing rod. The river eventually bleeds into the Clanwilliam Dam.
Our route folllowed the Olifants Rivier. A beautiful place to be on an ADV.
The town of Clanwilliam goes back to 1660 when a team of Dutch explorers who were sent out by Jan van Riebeeck first reached the Olifants River. When they entered the valley, they saw a large number of elephants on the riverbank. Jan Danckaert, the Dutch cadet in charge of the party, then named the river. In 1732 the first farm in the Olifants River valley was awarded to Pieter van Zyl. The Town was originally known as Jan Disselsvlei, after Jan Dissel, a local pioneer and a botanist who lived in the Rhenoster Bosch at Piquetbergen. The area first formed part of the district of Stellenbosch, but was declared a sub-district of its own in 1808 by the Earl of Caledon, then Governor of the Cape. On 1 January 1814, Caledon’s successor, Sir John Cradock, renamed the area after his father-in-law, the Earl of Clanwilliam. There you go, you learn stuff when you read about bikes. Lunch was scheduled up the hill near Wuppertal. We headed out along the spectacular tar pass that leads out of ClanWilliam, past the Englishman’s grave and then up into the mountains.
Lieutenant Graham Vinicombe Winchester Clowes of the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders unit was here to stop Boer guerrillas from infiltrating the Cape Colony. He was killed in a skirmish on 30 January 1901.
Eselbank Pass:
There is a signboard that reads “4X4 only” and all sorts of other warnings and our intrepid group headed on up. Don’t ask me where we were, no cooking clue, but man was it gorgeous!
Steeps sandy climbs, liberally interspersed with rocks, sheer drop offs, weird rock formations… It is quite simply breathtaking and a magic ride. The big Africa Twin took it all in its stride. The bike is equally happy creeping along in lower gear as it is blitzing the tar passes.
To be honest everyone looked a bit tired in a good way when we arrived at the Eselbank waterfall.
Ok we are tired of saying this, beautiful, lekker and a welcome break for sure! Boerie rolls sizzled on the braai and the guys dipped bodies into the crystal clear spring water.
Another little gem in the Cape.
The settlement of Eselbank gets its name like this: As told by the local teacher who was told the story by her dad.
The community applied for permission to establish a settlement. The Government agreed, but the people had to sort their own timber in order to put up buildings. An Esel is a mule. A big log of wood is known as a Bank. Two Esels were used to fetch timber in the surrounding mountains. Upon its return, one of the mules simply sat down on the “Bank” that it was lugging, keeled over and died. That’s how EselBank got its name. So now you know!
The guys from Footpeg Diaries put together food and care packs for boys and girls and we went down to drop them off in the village. Very cool!
To close the day off, we needed to make our way from Eselbank, back to the start at the Cederberg Oasis. Imagine kilometres of railway ballast? That’s what the terrain is like leading out of the town. The smaller bikes looked like they were having a lot of fun, while the bigger machines slogged along. I was, perhaps a tad envious of my day 1 assistant who blitzed the trails on the Transalp.
The big Africa Twin took it all in it’s stride, never flustered.
It is fantastic and the sense of achievement among the riders when we arrived back at camp was tangible.
The evening was spent laughing and joking with the bench racing getting ever faster. It was great. A perfect end to a great adventure ride.
Or Was it?
We still needed to get back to GP.
Watch this space, we’ll tell you how that went next week…
Cederberg Oasis, via the via to GP.
