Mpumalanga 26-28 June 2009

I feel like taking a trip down to Pilgrims Rest then on to Magoebaskloof and back during 26-28 June 09. I am thinking of sticking to dirt roads quite a bit (easy GS riding). So far I was thinking of overnighting in Pilgrims on Friday night and the Saturday night in Magoebaskloof. I am battling to find someone to ride with. Anybody from this forum keen perhaps? Please mail me at laubcher@lantic.net or cell 0829031971.

With reference to the above planned trip, I (on a 1200gs)eventually found a willing riding buddy in Cobus on a 650 GS. We started Saturday morning 0800 from Pretoria. We followed the N4 to Middelburg just to get out of the city. In Middelburg we turned onto the Stoffberg road (R555). +/- 12 km out of Middelburg, we turned of onto the Selons river road and then followed this very good dirt road to Stoffberg. From Stoffberg we continued on the R555 for +/- 2km before turning right to Dullstroom (Just past the SAPS). Another good quality dirt road. From Dullstroom we followed the R540 to Lydenburg and then the R533 to Pilgrims Rest. From T Junction just before Pilgrim's we turned left onto the dirt road towards Burkes Luck, following the Blyde river. +/- 5 km before joining the R532, we turned left towards Branddraai. This is a truly scenic dirt road all the way to the R36, just before the echo caves. We then continued on the R36 towards Tzaneen. Time was cathing us and we proceeded straight towards the Magoebaskloof Hotel via the Magoebaskloof Pass. The Magoebaskloof is very bike friendly and offers great service.

On Sunday morning, we were left undecided as to our next route back to Pretoria. We felt like something diffrent and decided to try and cross the Wolkberg mountain on a path past The Downs. Its a dirt path from Ofcolaco to the reserve gate, then tarr road which runs through the Legalameetse Reserve to The Downs. We followed the Georges valley road and the took the dirt Agatha road past the Coach House to Ofcolaco (R36). Just past Ofcolaco, we turned right onto a dirt road towards The Downs. From The Downs, the road detoriated to a "tweespoorpaatjie" with plenty of rocks which kept us sweating for 16 km of loose rocks and amazing scenary. It was a most memorable ride. We eventually reached Zeekoegat on the Southern side of the Wolkberg Mountains. From then it became tedious navigating locals with wheelbarrows, goats, donkeys, taxis and the odd windgat in his 4x4 all the way to Burgersfort. Time was again cathing us so we took the easy way out via Stoffberg, Middelburg and then home.

The whole ride covered about 1100 kms in two days with some very nice tarr passes and wonderful dirt roads.

Loopy... I hope you took pictures - especially on that 16km 2-spoor rocky section!

Sharkie, "do" get ideas now

Where are the pics - woudl love to see them as most of the roads done is somewhat out of bounds for ther LT.

The Downs, which I believe is also called the Orrie Baragwanath pass is probably one of the best dirt passes I have ever done!!!. Is the pass now open?

Previously we had to seriously negotiate with the guard at the gate to let us through the reserve. The Club has done three trips that I know of over the pass and due to the admission problems, we started to give it a miss.

I took some pictures, not a lot though - will post it as soon as I got this "foto emmer" sorted. It was in deed the Orrie Baragwanath Pass. It took some negotiating with the Nature Conservation receptionist at the Ofcolaco gate. We convinced her that our bike are more like cars and that we are realy tourists passing through. The guy at the gate on the other side was rather suprised though. It can see it will become tedious trying to negotiate passing through on a regular basis.

Here are some of the pics taken of this ride!