Tuesday, 28 June 2011

Day 20 - Leg 1 - Route plan & Leave Durban in rain

This continues the series of my Motorcycle Adventure travels from Durban back to Cape Town which was the fourth goal, over what had now become quite a few weeks. Details of the "http://africa4adventure-motorbiketours.blogspot.com/2011/04/planning-lesotho-expidition.html" whole trip here.

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This is in fact two weeks later and not the next day; it is however the 20th day of the bike ride as such. I had booked a flight returning to Durban from home and was now ready to ride the bike back to Cape Town.

My "planned" route was roughly to head to Port St. Johns in the Transkei (first red dot), then in-land to Queenstown, (2nd dot) then into the Karoo, past Addo and on lots of farm roads to Steytlerville (3rd dot), then to Route 62 and over the Swartberg pass on to Ladismith (4th dot) then do the balance of route R62 back to Cape town.
This was the planned return route - approx 5 days with 4 overnights - loads of backroads 70% tar & 30% dirt because of time constraints
Having managed to do all the flight planning ok, one thing you cannot predict too far in advance is the weather. As it turned out there were two days worth of cold front and rain predicted, with another cold front following 4 days later, so it just had to be done. Not too early the next day I kitted up with my rain gear and set off from a rainy but relatively warm Durban.

Filling up with petrol in Hillcrest I got a picture showing the wet bike
Under shelter ready to brave the rain
Easier to stop on a motorway on the bike - this is me on Spagetti Junction looking at the clouds
Looking inland
An interesting trip ahead with heavy trucks and sub-tropical rain - but starting on motorway so ok.
This is about 50km down the South Coast - Rain still pretty on and off and occasionally heavy
Funny how photos never show the rain as bad as it is when you were actually in the rain and spray?


More motorcycle adventure tours on our list of tour route summaries are available, where we explore these sorts of motorcycle adventure tour routes. Just choose one of our events and reserve yourself a place on one of the future motorcycle adventure safari events.

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