9 January 2011

Well our first two days of riding are behind us.  Our first day we did 725km, very hot and a very long day.  We arrived at Underberg at 6.30 in the evening after having left Grahamstown at 7am so an eleven hour day.  Sore backsides and all very tired.  Yes Sandy I think I must have lost at least 1 kg through sweating!!

We decided to go a different route because of the traffic going through Umtata and so we went via Queenstown, McClear, Mtatiele and then onto Underberg.  The roads were very good for most of the trip with very little traffic and the only piece of gravel road was between  Mtatiele and a very small place called Swartberg.  This section of road was in a shocking state because of all the recent rains, going through a small unexpected driffie I broke the back shock on my bike and seemed to have bent the pannier brackets  because of the heavy load. (Yes, Richard the same shock that I asked you and Ralph to look at the airfield a while ago.)  I would recommend this route to anyone rather than travelling through Umtata, roads are better and scenery fantastic.

We have all agreed that we are going to slow our trip down and enjoy the scenery.  (CJ I hope you are reading this so that you also understand that you must enjoy the trip rather than make a race of it!)  So we took a very slow ride from Underberg to Camperdown to our friends Brian and Brenda at Emoyeni.   We plan on spending the night and trying to get a new shock for the bike and see what is bent from there.  The traffic was heavier but not bad.  Roads once again in good condition and the scenery next to the Drakensberg mountains made the slow riding really worth it. 

These few days in SA have been a good test for our equipment again and to see if we can cull any further luggage again.  Larry’s bike has a small problem of wanting to topple over if put onto the side stand on a level flat area or slopping down.  His bike has a raised suspension and so has made the stand too short, so if we can make the bikes lighter it will definitely help.

We would like to thank all those people who attended our farewell (Thanks Amy and Mom for the help in making it possible at that late stage!) at the Flying Club on Friday night and for those who got up early on Saturday morning to see us off.  Thank you.

Sharon