Day 1 – Home to Pilgrim’s Rest
430km
We’ve known for a while now that today will start cold. Every day for the past week I kept an eye on the forecast hoping it would go the other way but it did not. What began as the forecast for a cold day turned into a very cold day of -1C.
Well, at least we’re not planning a super early start so we should be OK. Despite a 07h40 start I knew within the first 20km that this was not going to be fun. I’m not a winter person. I don’t know who came up with the idea that we needed to kill every growing thing in sight for 3-4 months of every year but I can say with certainty that it is a shit idea.
I made the mistake of adding the temperature to my trip data on the Zumo. The only thing this contributed to the situation was to remind me that it’s not getting any warmer. It stayed stuck at 0C for what seemed like hours, then move to 1C and 2C made a brief appearance before settling back at 1C. After about 40 minutes of this, my hands were just two lumps of something at the ends of my arms. I was forced to stop, not easy since I could not really find the clutch, to get to life back into them. After 5 minutes of excruciating pain as the blood started returning, we were off again.
Now it can only get better and it did. On the outskirts of Globlersdal we passed thought a small village where they took sex education very serious. This was evident from the bill boards every 500m with the weirdest slogans ever. Things like ‘Take Prick-cautions’ and ‘Men with balls use condoms’.
By the time we got to Groblersdal around 10h30 it was 5C. It felt as if I was cruising down the strip in Cancun during spring break. We stop here for breakfast. It is a neat little town in Limpopo and the thing that catches your attention immediately is abundance of citrus fruit around. Every single car, truck or bakkie we came across was loaded and there are stalls lining the roadside as you enter, and leave town.
After a nice breakfast and some weird looks (Izabel still has her batman onesie on), we left in the direction of Roosenekal. As expected the nice road soon turns into a long row of potholes with the occasional piece of tarmac in between. Throw in a few slow-moving bakkies loaded to the brim with citrus fruits and it becomes a whole different kind of fun. But we are used to this when we leave gravel to venture onto tarmac back roads so we take it in our stride.
There is not much to say about Roosenekal except for the fact that it is a small village that was named after two soldiers who died during battle. But like with all small towns they have a magnificent centerpiece, the local church. Well, this one is not really in the center of town as most are but it is still a very impressive old stone building dating from 1908.
Now we only have Steelpoort and Burgersfort before we turn away onto Casper’s Nek on our way into Pilgrim’s Rest. It is a nice drive through bushveld to the Steelpoort dam when things change drastically. Both towns, just 16km from each other, are mining towns and it is dirty. Chrome and platinum are mined here and it is definitely not a place I would want to live in or visit. But that is all forgotten after we managed to get past all the mining trucks and out of Dodge.
It feels nice when we turn back onto gravel when they opened the boom that leads to Casper’s Nek pass. When approaching the pass from the South the road is lined with citrus groves for the first 16km before reaching the actual start of the pass. We stop for a stretch and liberate a few naartjies.
We are greeted at the foot of the pass by uncle Casper and a huge closed gate. It is with great relief that I find the gate is not locked, that would have meant a long detour via Orighstad.
After saying hello to uncle Casper, the father of Paul Kruger and builder of the pass, we’re on our way. From the looks of it, the pass is not used much. It’s not very technical but is quite rough due to the deep washouts that run across the road. So it is important to choose the right line to keep the momentum up.
I stopped to mount the Go-Pro and snap, the mount broke. Oh well, I suppose it is better now rather than later when we are moving. We were only about 15km from Pilgrim’s Rest when the sun started dipping behind the mountains that surrounded us and the temperature dropped quite a few degrees. We stopped in front of the Royal hotel just past 4 pm.
The Royal Hotel is kept period which means that the rooms are basic but it also meant that they were very cold with their wooden and concrete floors. I was very grateful for the heater they gave us at receptions but found out later that it made more light than heat. After unpacking we went straight to the pub for a double brandy and coke. While sitting outside sipping on our drinks three humongous BMW K1600 GTLs pulled up. Dave, Alwin, and Leor rode up from Jo’burg as part of their long weekend out-ride to Magoebaskloof. Beautiful bikes with every conceivable bell and whistle. We spend the evening in their company having supper and some drinks in the hotel pub.
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