The next step, plan!! what plan

Bruce ejected this visitor from our room

Me an B at pace

Tomas and ricky, is it a good idea to set off into the desert with this nutter

We should of left SA by now but, Tomas has convinced us the going on the Namib desert run with him and 2 clients is a good idea.

We are taking his 4wheel drive and the trailer with 3 serious dirt bikes to Jo burg on tuesday to pick up his clients,

the bikes are a Cr650 honda, a YZ 450 yam and a 450CCM, I have to drive the support truck but get to ride the bikes half way at the rally.

The Namib run is a famous desert rally held annualy with only 300 entries, we get to ride the really big dunes and hey I will never get the chance to do this again, I,m probably to old now but I quite fancy it and Bruce is going to learn to ride sand!

So it looks like another month in Africa and another 8000km, as we are coming back via cape town, I,m just going to put some more photos on and then we may be out of touch for some time, bye bye folks

Lesotho, the roof of Africa

Wild flowers were beautiful, km after km lining the trail

Helicopter arrives in the morning breaking the tranquility, it was carrying some officials from the TB

The meal

The view from the lodge, pretty good for 6quid a night

These trails can be rode at pace, ahem

We left the Sani pass the next morning and headed off to do another route into Lesotho and we had booked in at the national park lodge at about 3000mt, only problem is you book with the national tourist board and they have no way of telling the lodge you are coming!

When we arrived they had no idea we were coming, the phones dont work and the radio was broke , theres no electric just gas lamps, no beer but we took our own drinks and food, but what a great place.

Bruce and I cooked a meal for Volker and Emile, the first time they had eaten anything cooked by english people, it all got eaten!!

The going up was worth the coming down

Not to far to a beer and Bruce steps the pace up

She,s gettin quite good

The surface leaves aa lot to be desired

Getting up there was pretty hard, coming down it was real scary in places, 1st gear on the back brake and still going to fast

The pics

The top

Twist Isn,t it!!

The view up, hm looks like clouds

About half way up

At the start of the pass, its about to get harder, a lot harder

And the weather closed in, this is at the Sani pass backpackers place

it was bloody hot

Off to the Sani pss

After a few days rest at the spotbackpackers me and Bruce,Volker and Emile set off to ride up to the Sani pass on the Losotho border, its about 250km from Shepstone and we did most of it on the gravel roads

After port st john, we rode back to Shepstown and had a rest for a few days but I had to get tomases clients back home to the backpackers

A few picks of the ride back, me Emile and Volker

The guys we rode with at Port st john

Stunning Angel falls

After a really hard days ride

We met up with a few hard core dirt riders in Port st johns and the guided us on a few really hard trails in the area, we also met up with 2 of tomases clients, Emile and Volker,Tomas runs a company called Motozulu tours and these guys had flown in from Germany for a tour

The puncture, for a change it wasnt me

I had been following Tomas and spotted that his tyre was flat and it looked like rain and we were in the middle of nowhere

The route on

The stylish wetsuit of tomas!!

Tomas , Bruce and myself went off into the mountains to ride to Port st john, A mate of tomases took the proper dirt bikes and Ricky by tar road to the port to meet up with us, here are some pics of the rtide

Port shepstown and on

Arrived at Port Shepstown to meet up with Tomas and his wife Ricky and book in at Spotbackpackers only to find it was fully booked so we rang Tomas up and he said no problem come to the house, so we did , top accomodation for 2 days untill we could get in at the backpackers place.

We serviced the bikes including valve clearances, cam chains new plugs, cleaned the filters, changed the oil

More oribi gorge

Port shepstown, sani pass, lesotho, port st john

Cock up

I have messed up completely and have lost a whole lot of our journey that I posted on the blog, I aint a clue what went wrong, but it aint there, it was about the journey from maputo to hazy view and Swazi land, I will have to do it again but for now I,m doing our time for the last few weeks

some more

some photos, hopefully

A hectic month

Sorry for not coming on here and updating but we have been a bit busy.
Our friends John and Dave arrived from the UK to visit us so we left Maputo and headed north again to a wonderful beach resort at Beline, 180km out of Maputo, its situated on a lagoon that was so warm it was like having a bath, sat in the sun and relaxed.
after a week John went home and Daves wife Clionagh arrived for Daves last week, a great 2weeks folks and it was nice to see some old faces again and thanks john for bringing out my much need spare parts for the bike, the cheese and bacon were appreciated aswell.
After saying goodbye to our guests and a night back in Maputo Bruce and myself headed off to South Africa to meet up with a guy who could help me get some tyres for the bike.
Martin who had contacted me through horizonsunlimited web site had given me the phone No of reaction racing in Nelspruit run by Mark so we arranged that and went to visit Martin at his house thinking that we would be in a cheap hotel nearby.
Not a bit of it , Martin has a cottage in his garden that was ready for us so after a beer or 10 we settled in and met the family properly, Martins wife Sasha made us feel completly at home and the three kids, Ben, Zack and Toby and 7 dogs were great to be around, thanks my friends.

Martin is as daft about bikes as me and two of his lads are already riding MX bikes ,pictures to follow. Martin has quite a few bikes and let me have a ride on his KTM 200cc enduro bike, 2 strokes have obviously come along a bit since my racing days, the power of this bike was awesome, it nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets.
We went out on the second day to pick up marts latest toy a brand new BMW 450 X trail he offered me a ride on that but as it was brand new I declined as the thought of crashing it was to much to bear.
Bruce and I headed off to get our tyres fitted at reaction racing via a rather special route that Mart showed me, the views over the mountains were great, a fantastic days riding.
We sadly had to leave the day after that , a great family and we will keep in touch, once again thanks for everything folks.

I have to go now to cook breakfast but will be back on later to put some Piccies up