Bike4Africa

Mark Twain once said ““Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” With most quotes by famous people there is a lot more to understand than just the words. As is the case with this blog-story, procrastination is that uneaten frog which I have been stepping over for too long now and I have to do something before the frog becomes inedible. Our December holidays or festive season celebrations were to be held early for some of the normal reasons which families face. Do we spend the time with your or my side of the family? This gave the opportunity to have a Christmas twice, which I think is a great idea and will be seriously be considered in the future. Shortly before ... read more

I use Dropbox and Facebook mainly for anything to do with some motorbike experience. When I started to receive invites from DropBox because they “miss my presence” it was suddenly a stark reminder that a good bike trip was overdue. Although riding solo is not something which stops me easily, it is more fun to have some company and therefore I threw out the gauntlet or invitation to Marius (Colleague and friend) who accepted immediately. Marius immediately started to look for accommodation while I was still thinking about where to go, but at least we narrowed it down to something around Hogsback, 130 km from East London. Things developed fast and soon we were three people with the possibility of one more and the initial one day changed to staying over for two nights. A Promise ... read more

By taking gravel roads as far as possible, this family visit in different parts of the country turned out to be a nice adventure. I always try to learn some lessons when looking back at what I did, and I think this one is: "Adventure is not something which happens to you, it is something you create. Therefore you determine how many adventures you have in life." Wow, this fits perfectly with the following philosophy: "Life is about Relationships and Experiences". Both depends on your self:-) I needed to visit family in Kakamas and Bloemfontein and decided to do it on my old trusted Africa Twin. (Lesson) Your transport choice determines a lot about your trip. If it happens to be a motorcycle in stead of a car it it changes everything except your destination, or ... read more

We left at 06:00 on Saturday morning and wasted no time because the Tracks4Africa planner indicated approximately 09hours of driving from Kei Mouth to Mdumbi. The weather forecast predicted a 60% chance of rain, increasing as the day progressed. I have to congratulate the South Africa weather burro. They were spot-on and we did get a little wet during the last 2 hours of our trip. Here is the address: http://www.weathersa.co.za Shortly after crossing the Kei river with an innovative ferry, we turned off onto the "Wild coast 4wd Trial". There is a small rocky river crossing and thereafter a real rocky challenge, not meant for the bigger adventure motorcycles with small riders. This first obstacle is... read more

Day 14 & 15 – Sodwana, Shelly Beach and East London We now have to drive back in known or at least partially known country and are not looking forward to it after the past days of exploration. We decide to stay off toll-roads and highways as far as possible. Driving the old and now secondary roads was a the best decision we could have made with the available driving time we had to our disposal. We stuck to the N2 up to Richards Bay. Then we took the R102 to Durban. We were happy and surprised with a beautiful and scenic road with acceptable traffic density. It started raining again and by the time we reached the outskirts of Durban it was nasty weather without a doubt. We took to the highway from here and ... read more