My objective, once I had crossed the border into South Africa was to head to Bloemfontein to start the next part of my African Adventure, traveling over 1000 miles down to Cape Town off road with some friends that I had met previously on another motorbike adventure in Cambodia. Unfortunately I ended up leaving the luxurious Kinross B&B in Gaborone,Botswana later than expected, which meant that to reach Bloemfontein by early evening was not going to be possible, so I decided to head to Vryburg and split the journey into two.
Crossing the border from Botswana to South Africa was the quickest border crossing so far and resulted in me being on the South African roads within 20 mins. Unfortunately the roads continued along a similar theme already experience riding through Africa, long and straight, so arriving into Vryburg couldn’t have come sooner.
I had prebooked my evening accommodation at the Safari Lodge in Vryburg, but
trying to find the lodge proved to be quite a challenge as my Sat Nav would not recognise the address. After about 15 mins of riding around aimlessly, I found myself heading out of town, so turned the bike around but as I did so I could see a man step out into the middle of the road about 200 yards in front of me. It was clear he wanted me to pull over.
At first I thought he must be a policeman, so started to slow down, but as I got closer I realised that he was a local accompanied by several other men who also appeared from a side street. I immediately thought that this guy did not have a genuine intention, so accelerated the bike towards him. He jumped out of the way, shouting and screaming at me. I found out later that I had been riding through the most dangerous part of Vryburg where gangs regularly hijack and rob cars, so it became clear I had done the right thing by not stopping.
Later that evening after Finally finding my accommodation, I ventured into town for dinner. As I arrived at the restaurant the parking attendant asked if all my luggage was locked on my bike. When I asked why he was asking, he told me that if it wasn’t locked it would be there when I returned. At that point I did think that if I was on future visits to South Africa I would definitely be giving Vryburg a miss.
The next morning I made my way to Bloemfontein to meet my friends, taking a few days rest before starting our 1000 mile off road trip through some of the best known motorcycle routes through South Africa.
My Yamaha T700 had now completed just over 5,000 miles and the tyres were looking very worn. The bike definitely needed servicing and fortunately my friends put me in touch with the local Yamaha dealer and although the Yamaha T700 had yet to be released in South Africa, Salleys Yamaha still managed to carry out the service and fit 2 new tyres with a days notice. They did a great job preparing my bike for the next stage in my African Adventure.
After 2 days of socialising that included a great day riding enduro bikes, we were ready to start the 1000 mile off road trip down to Cape Town. My three traveling companions were experienced Adventure bike riders on KTM 790’s and a KTM 990, so this was going to be exciting or should I say challenging trip for me!
Here we go.....
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