Weekend through the Cederberg

In order to prepare for touring on a bike (and getting used to riding over long distances and rough terrain), I need to do some touring in SA before I go overseas. I did my first trip over Easter weekend with a friend, Lappies, from the lab where I work. Both of use were quite happy to play things by ear, so the plan was simple: Meet up on Friday morning, make our way to south side of the Cederberg (a mountain range which has popular camping & hiking spots) and find a place to camp for the night (no bookings made). Saturday we would exit the Cederberg at the northern side and make our way to Wolseley, where we would watch the rugby (the Sharks were playing a Super14 match) and spend the night. Sunday we would make our way back home.

Ok, so how do you pack a bike? I had no idea :) No I know that less is more, except when it comes to tools. No matter how many tools you take along, if you break down and need that one tool that you forgot at home, you haven’t brought enough tools :) So I packed the tools I thought I might need (including tyre levers, spare inner tubes and some sockets) and enough clothes for any weather (No I don’t pack like a girl, I just know it can get REALLY cold and hot in the Cederberg). I put my 4-man tent (this is the smallest I own), sleeping bag and camping mattress on top of it all. I know when you look at the picture it looks like I’m going away for a month, but this is how we learn :)

So once I finished packing, I met Lappies at Caltex in Merriman ave, Stellenbosch. We filled up our iron steeds, but before we set off, we fitted radios to our helmets. Fine they were the kind you usually use between the rider and pillion (passenger, yes I feel it is my duty to educate you to biking lingo :) ), but they worked fine as long as you are closer then 50m form each other. Even though it was incredibly misty, we decided to start off with coffee in Franschhoek.

During coffee we mapped out a route that would not take up too long to get to the Cederberg, but allow us to enjoy some of the sights that were up on offer. I should mention that the mist disappeared as soon as we got over Helshoogte pass, so it turned out to be a beautiful day. As we left Franschhoek, I wanted to check out the Berg river dam. I heard about it while still at school and wanted to get a look at it.

 

Travelling along the R303, we had an uneventful ride to Wellington, via Paarl. At Wellington we headed up Bainskloof pass. This is one of the most beautiful passes I have seen. Unfortunately I only have photos of the Wellington side, as the Ceres side is quite narrow and not the place you want to stop in the road on a bike. As you exit the pass on the Ceres side, you find the Bush Pub. There we had lunch and watched the Stormers’ game.

From there on to Ceres to fill up, but right after filling (and checking messages from his GF) Lappies noticed that he had lost one of his sandals (it was strapped to his bike and somehow was not secured after the lunch stop). Since the fuel would cost less than replacing the sandal, we went back to look for it.  Fortunately we found it next to the road, fairy long distance from the Bush Pub.

Back on track, we headed back through Ceres up Gydo pass. This where (until last year) they held an annual hill climb. Guys would bring their Porsche’s, Subaru’s, modified BMW’s and even VW Golf’s to see who could be king of the hill. Unfortunately the even has been cancelled after spectators being seriously injured in almost every event! By this time it was getting cold and the wind was picking up a bit.

 

We entered the Cederberg at Op Die Berg and hit our first stretch of gravel road. This was quite an experience as it was my first time riding gravel road. Fortunately my bike made it quite easy for me :) I was amazed to see a piece of tar road! The first lodgings that we came across was Mount Ceder. However, they didn’t have any camping and looked terribly upmarket. So we kept on going.

   

The next place we found (the Oasis), I’d heard about from my boss. He described it as “biker’s paradise”, so I was quite happy to stumble onto it. We got a warm welcome from Gerrit and he fixed us up with a camp site for the night. We also met some bikers (a lot more hard core than us), who were blown away that Lappies’ bike (1979 Suzuki GS450) made it all the way into the Cederberg.

After a good (but COLD) night’s rest, we set off for the main forestry station in the Cederberg. It is called Algeria, no not the country :) The road to Algeria was quite bad and took us longer than expected. Fortunately we had no breakages. On the way is an old water mill that I helped my dad measure up as a child. It was nice to see it was still standing. We got to Algeria by lunch and stopped for some food and a swim.

Exiting the Cederberg, we headed for the N7 and filled up just before Citrusdal. From here on we were back on tar. Of course we had to get some “refreshments” for the game :)

As we had some time we took the long way too Wolseley via Eendkuil, Piketberg, Porterville and Tulbach. Unfortunately the wind picked up which made riding “interesting”. But, we got to Wolseley in one piece and just in time for the rugby.

We kicked off Sunday morning with some mechanic work. Lappies’ bike was gradually losing power as the weekend progressed. So, out came the tools and we adjusted the Suzuki’s timing. This did the trick.

Back on the road we took the R44 to Stellenbosch. We didn’t ride home together, as I had to stop off at Vogelvlei Yacht Club to do some admin and Lappies was on his way to the GF.

So, all in all not a bad first trip with the bike. It definitely helped me to feel more comfortable on the bike and did wonders for my packing (as I only used about 1/3 of the stuff I took along).

I’ve put in a map of where we went. I’m not sure how well it works, but trying to put all these pins in was just too much work. I might just carry a GPS in future and save the path in Google Earth.

I’ve removed most of the pictures, as it causes the blog to take too long to load (and since SA doesn’t have free broadband, this might be a problem for some).