Deane's 2009 Motorcycle Trip
South Africa
|
Deane's 2009 Motorcycle Trip South Africa |
|
|
Nov 9, - Panorama Route - to Hazyview Day 3 - 287 Km (178) Miles |
|
Well, our injured rider, Dave, had X-rays and other diagnosis, and wound up finding damaged ligaments, and the doctor said he could not ride motorcycles for a minimum of three weeks! From his pain and the sling that he has to use on his right arm, it is indeed clear that he cannot continue on the motorcycle trip. His wife, Mary, had bad bruises, but fortunately no broken bones. It will take a while for her to heal, also. So the upshot was that David and Mary will fly home early, after riding in the chase van for a couple of days while flight arrangements can be made. The chase van now has two spare motorcycles - just in case. Its a shame, but these things happen. After some further conversations with the SAMA tour company owner, Darryl, the couple made arrangements to come on this same tour next year, to finish the whole tour! Its too bad to have had the accident, but it is admirable that they are looking to next year's ride. Here are some of the "rowdy crew", from left, Mary Apps, Clive Puttock, Lyn Beaufort, and David Apps. Mary and David are from Melbourne, Australia, and Clive and Lyn from the UK.
And two more for the crew, Andy and Rose Barnes, from the UK
And Darryl Berman, the owner of South African Motorcycle Adventures, (SAMA) as our guide, from Pretoria, South Africa.
Try as I might, I couldn't find a photo of Jonathon Berman, Darryl's son, who was our van driver and guide, baggage handler, and electronic Internet guy extraordinaire. It was through Jonathon that I was able to get this information uploaded to the Internet. If it hadn't been for Jonathon, I wouldn't have come close to getting it all together. And last, but not least, Deane
For our ride of the day, we had great motorcycling roads, with good surface and nice sweeping curves. We stopped to see "God's Window", the top of a high mountain with wide views in every direction. Interestingly we saw many tree farms from there. It appears that there are many thousands of acres of tree farms in this part of Africa. Next we stopped at a very large canyon, with some large round rocky cliffs which the Afrikaners called "Roundels". Roundel is their word for "Huts" of the native people who lived here when the Afrikaners came. The size of this canyon is comparable to the "Salt River Canyon" in Arizona. - Its huge!
One more area of interest was to stop at "Bourkes Luck Potholes". This is a series of rounded out river rock "pot holes" that captured gold over the eons, and Bourke was the man who found it. On the subject of lunch for the bikers, Darryl has very good lunches ordered and waiting for the bikers at very interesting places to stop - great planning. |
||
