Cape L’Agulhas …. It brought back fond memories of another Southern point…. Ushuaia in Patagonia. I think maybe because of the wind and the beautiful coastline. It was a beautiful place. But I was on a mission, and I had to move on. I had made an appointment with Triumph Cape Town to get a service done on Tiggy Moondust. I didn’t really want to stay in Cape Town this time because I am in Beach mode. So, I went to a little place outside called Melkbosstrand, this is a nice little coastal town about 40 Km outside Cape Town. It was gonna be a short run, so I took the coastal route as much as possible. These are scenic routes. Unfortunately, the road was closed just before Cape Town. It had been badly damaged in a flood, and it was still being repaired. I had to go onto the N2 and enter Cape Town that way. It was strange to be back in the city. Heavy traffic and hot. I was really glad of my decision to stay outside of the city. Although in a way I was gonna miss not staying with Jean and Audrey.
A truly amazing little village that I passed through
Melkbosstrand is a place where the cape city people escape to on the weekends, and it gets really busy. It is a small town with a nice beach. It is also a major retirement place for people from the city. There are a lot of Holiday homes here. Also, the Estates. These are walled settlements with security guards. My guest house, for the first nights, was on one of these. The entrance is controlled by a manned gate. You have to put your code in and the boom opens. Or the guard phones through to the people to make sure that they are expecting you. Nothing gets in or out without being controlled. The people that have houses in these places pay for this amenity, but they don’t seem to mind, a sense of security. Personally, I couldn’t handle it.
Sunset at Melkbosstrand
Monday morning I was expected at Triumph Cape Town. It is a short run, but was a long one, in Cape Town morning rush hour. This is really something. The amount of traffic pouring into the city is amazing. Still made it on time. Talked to the service manager Joshua and the workshop foreman Anton. We agreed on full service as the tappet cover gasket was leaking. I was really impressed with the workmanship. I normally have a problem with technicians poking around my bike, but this was really good. Tiggy moondust was hooked up onto the diagnostic unit and got a full checkup. Everything was in order. Joshua offered me a courtesy bike to play around on for the day, one of the new Tiger 900 rally models, but I graciously declined. I wanted to walk around all my old haunts and soak up the atmosphere that is Cape Town. Came at 5 o clock and the bike was not ready. Joshua asked me to come back the following day and lent me a really nice new little tiger 660 sports bike to play with… This I took. Great fun but I would never buy one.
My little flirt with Tiger 660 sport
Tiggy moondust getting the once over
Bloubergstrand beach Cape Town Kitesurfing
Joshua phoned me the next day to tell me when the bike was ready. I have to admit she never looked so good. They washed and polished her free of charge. I also got a few little courtesy extras. All in all, I was happy.
Nicely showered and looking her best… Tiggy moondust
On the way home I had arranged to stop by Jean and Audrey. It felt really good to be there again. I had spent the Christmas holidays with the family there and it brought back great memories. Also, Jean had got his garage together… His Man Cave, and it was brilliant. A well-equipped workshop. He was building a trike and renovating a beach buggy. I had to drag myself away, particularly as he said that I was more than welcome to stay. I really wanted to stay and crawl under the beach buggy and help build the trike. But my visa was running out and I had to get to Namibia so really reluctantly I dragged myself away.
I moved out of that guest house down onto the beach and the main drag. That is more my scene, in among the ordinary people. I now had to start planning and organizing things. This was in between walks on the beach and watching sunsets over the ocean. Gawd Life is a Beach, and I am a real son of a Beach, and I am loving it.
Melkbosstrand beach
I am taking the coastal route up towards Namibia. No real destination in mind just ideas. I have nothing booked. Checked out a few places. I wanted to go to Tietiesbaai…. A headland with a beautiful campsite on the beach. But unfortunately it was full. People with big 4x4s and campers all from the city out for the weekend. I fancied something nice and quiet. Then I happened to pull into a little town called Paternoster and ooooh boy was I hooked. It was beautiful.
Paternoster
Paternoster
It is a little fishing village where the fishermen launch their boats from the beach, straight into the Atlantic ocean, no harbour. They set out to sea at sundown and are back in the morning. It is a fantastic sight to see. Toyota 4x4s, towing trailers with the boats down onto the beach and then two men setting off in each boat out into the Atlantic…. It’s timeless. The trailers are all parked up on the beach and the boats along with the catch are loaded back onto them in the morning and towed back to base wherever that may be. They just appear in a flurry of activity and then disappear also in a flurry of activity leaving just their tyre tracks in the sand to mark their presence.
Toyota 4x4s, towing trailers with the boats down onto the beach
Boat trailers waiting for their boats
The beach returns to its tranquil state with the Atlantic ocean lapping up onto the sand to wash the tyre tracks away. In the daytime people are walking around selling fresh lobster from bags, they walk around the village or stand on the main road. This town is noted for its lobster, and I think also oysters. I have rented an old fisherman’s cottage by the sea….. Like I said Life is a beach and I am a right son of a Beach. This is one of the oldest fishing villages in south Africa. It is characterized by the whitewashed limestone fishermen’s cottages. Some of them date back to the foundation of Paternoster in 1863.
The beach returns to its tranquil state…Paternoster
I have rented an old fisherman’s cottage by the sea
My cottage inside
I wanted to go visit a town called Upington. This is the gateway to the Kalahari desert, it is also referred to by some as the capital of the Kalahari. It also has the longest and densest date palm avenue in the Southern Hemisphere. The avenue is just over 1 km in length and has over 200 date palms planted on it. They were planted in 1935 and the avenue is now a national heritage site.
Upington date palms
We were heading back up into the mountains. I had just loaded the bike and it started to rain. Sky was filled with angry clouds, kinda thought that maybe I should stay and wait it out, but bike was loaded so I set off. Wasn’t long before I was in full wet weather gear. It was bad. Heavy rain coupled with high winds made for an interesting ride. We were passing through some amazing scenery, but I couldn’t see anything for a couple of meters around the bike. I was just kinda hoping that we would run out of it. Another big problem was the trucks. They don’t have any mudguards or mud flaps mounted and the spray that they produced was really bad. Overtaking was a nightmare. Oncoming traffic didn’t all have their lights on, and this coupled with the spray from the trucks, the rain and the high winds made for an interesting time. The road was quiet luckily, but sometimes I was sitting behind the truck for kms at a time and unfortunately the big ore carrying juggernauts were back.
I thought a few times of pulling off the road and holing up for the rest of the day and night but the thought that around the next bend the sun was shining kept me going. We still made good time in a way. Covered a distance of just over 300 Kms. Stopped in a town called Calvinia, I was tired, cold, hungry and soaking wet. The locals were calling it freak weather. Two days before it was 40C, now it was 16c. Nighttime the temperature dropped down to 6C.
The next morning it was 10C when I left and foolishly, I thought that it would be up to 30C within an hour…. Big mistake. It was cold, really cold. I have my tropics riding gear on. That’s pure cordura mesh with body armor at strategic places and a merino wool underlayer. It wasn’t long before I stopped to dress up with more clothes. I was riding in summer gloves, so the heated grips were turned up full and still I was cold. The road was desolate… wilderness, the first bit was called the Namibia route, then we turned off to head up north and it became the Highland Karoo route. Towns were little hamlets far apart. Stopped at a petrol station with a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere, just wind and dust. I swear that I could hear dueling Banjos. I complained of being cold and they all looked at me and said that this was lovely weather, it had been 47c the day before. Freak weather. I learned that there were heavy floods and major rainfall in the Free State and heavy rainfall behind me. Then the weather started to get warmer and soon we were back to the normal 37c. The landscapes were really something else, desert like flatlands with scrublands…. The Karoo.
Highland Karoo
Then the scenery became green and fertile with loads of fruit and vineyards. We were now in the green Kalahari. One really interesting sight was what looked like mini haystacks built on top of electricity poles, there were loads of them all along the way. These were communal nests built by the sociable weaver bird. Some were small and some were really big, housing hundreds of birds. See the like named photo album. Words will never be able to describe these roads, nor will the photos. The roads are unique, not so much for the scenery but for the feeling of riding them. Kms on end and not another soul in sight, just me, Tiggy moondust and my thoughts. No, it is impossible to describe. So, I won’t even try, they are etched into my being. They are only for me.
Weaver birds nest in Kalahari
Kalahari mountains
Then Upington, the gateway to the Kalahari, arrived. It was a sprawling town along the banks of the Orange river. Wide palm tree lined streets with the usual chain store shops. I got a place down on the banks of the river. The Orange river was running fast and was really swollen up. It comes down from the Free State where there were floods. I needed Wi-Fi because I needed to organize things in Namibia and with Susie who was gonna be flying out there in a couple of days. I am down to my last days on my visa, but I am close to the border. Just one more stop the Augrabies Falls National Park.
Orange River
The Augrabies Falls National Park is just outside of Upington. I wanted to stay in the park and soak up the Augrabies Falls. The Khoe-Sān people called it the Aukoerbis which means place of great noise. Believe me, they were right. The Orange river is swollen, and the falls were nothing short of spectacular. The noise was deafening. This is the world’s 6th tallest falls with the Orange river crashing 56 meters down into the gorge and the adjoining bridal veil falls plunging 75 meters. This all creating a thunderous roar, really spectacular. See liked named photo album. It is also rumored that the world’s largest cache of diamonds lies at the bottom of the swirl hole eroded into the granite at the foot of the waterfall where the Orange river goes crashing down, 56 meters, into the bottom of the gorge, forming a large plunge pool. There are walkways and viewpoints at different places along the gorge. The gorge itself is 18 km long and averaging 250 meters deep. The park is also a sanctuary for the endangered giant Aloe tree or Quiver tree or Kokerboom as it is known locally. The San used the leaves of the tree to make the Quivers for their arrows, hence the name Quiver tree. They grow up to 5 meters tall and form a stark contrast to the African sky.
Kalahari, on my way to Augrabies Falls
Augrabies Falls
Doing the tourist pose Augrabies Falls
Quiver tree
Quiver tree
I stopped for one more night in Upington.
Kalahari and the weaver birds
Then left early to cross the border as early as possible. The road to the border the N10 is another road running through desert scrubland…. Flat, hot, and quiet. No petrol stations or stops. Then the Namibian border looms up and it’s time to say Bye Bye to RSA…. The Republic of South Africa and Hallo to Namibia.
Sunset on Orang River , bye bye South Africa
My real time location is Windhoek Namibia. Now it will be…. “And Now For Something Completely Different”. I really mean that, so tune in to the next episode. But first make a nice wee cup of tea, grab a nice packet of biscuits, plop yourself down in your favorite chair and click your way through the like named photo Album on my Facebook page. Facebook photo album: Cape Town to Namibia 12-02-23 to 25-02-23
Hasta la vista amigos