Friday morning and the wait is over! Ready or not, EC bash here we come!
I met up with Mr & Mrs Tok-tokkie in George and we promptly proceeded to Montagu Pass.
A few photo stops here and there. It was a crisp winters day.
While taking these photos at Amanda’s Grave a vehicle pulled up and said our friend’s suspension broke. Damn
We thought Tok-tokkie stopped for a photo. It didn’t look good… 
The bolt holding the back suspension up had snapped. I rode back to George to get new bolts and phoned LGF to tell him that we wont make the rendezvous point at Avontuur at 10 'o clock.
The bolts were cheap so I took 4. You never know – it might snap again. This is not the first Bee-Em I've ridden with that had rear suspension problems. Some bush repairs and we were on our way again.
I had to stop every so often to warm my hands on the exhaust and warm up with some OBS. Heated grips seemed like a mighty fine idea right about here.
Eventually we caught up with LGF in Kareedouw.
LGF had plotted a gravel route through the mountains that would take us all the way to the bash. Surely between his map and Tok-tokkie’s GPS nothing could go wrong?
EC has some scenic routes!
Every so often LGF and Tok-tokkie would stop and make sure we were still on the right road (or so I thought). Mrs. Tok-tokkie and I were just along for the ride.
The gate had LGF a little perplexed. Out came the map again. Straight ahead!
The road deteriorated and deteriorated. Surely a “road” or “route” that had black wattle trees growing in it is not used often?
Out came the maps again…
Hey! Where did the road go?
Trees growing in a road is one thing, but fences across it? To this date every ride I’ve been on that had a GPS in the group we got lost on.
Turn around. Let’s go ask a farmer somewhere.
Eventually we made it to Patensie…
and the bash campsite.
And so festivities commenced
If I may concentrate on the bikes for a while: I liked the mix of bikes on this bash. Apart from the normal bikes you always see there were some interesting specimens. The Verseys in the photo above even rode into Baviaans all the way to Smitskraal. Well done!
A Tiger:
New KLR
One lucky bugger had this fantastic TransAlp 700 – with off-road tyres!
Also notice the X-Country ridden by my neighbor.
Suzuki Freewind:
Suzuki was very well represented with lots of DRZ’s (5 I think), the freewind, a 1000cc Strom, two 250 Djebels and two DR Big’s.
This one had a mishap on the way here. Check out the damage on the tank. Eish.
This magnificent tricked out XR650.
Funduro:
DRZ400:
I also spotted a TransAlp 400 and a R80GS. Pics of those later.
The camp setup was nice. We had very late nights and very cold mornings, but we enjoyed every moment of it.
And of course we had to get a group shot. This was quite impressive. I got some video footage too.
When we woke each morning everything was full of ice. Some rumours had the minimum temp during the night pegged at –4 and –5 respectively.
TransAlp 400:
The last day I woke up feeling really ill. I must have picked up some bug or something. I was feeling really weak and my concentration levels were way down so I decided to just hit the tar and get home. Still took some photos though.
The sundial in Hankey:
Saartjie Baardman’s grave:
Scenery one the way home:
On the way back I was becoming a danger to myself. I would ride and suddenly “come to” not knowing how I covered x amount of km’s. Or I would suddenly realize that I was going excessively fast or slow, having ridden like that for a while without realizing it.
I bumped into Bobnob (fellow forum member) at Stormsrivier and he rode with me all the way to George. Thanks mate!
Thanks to the organizers - the Bash was great! It was cool the meet all the new people and put some faces to the names. When is the next one?
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Very nice and enjoyable read. Next EC WD Bash will be in May 2009. Venue still not finalized.
ReplyDeleteWatty