Flower Power: Biedouw & Wuppertal

Just by the way, I'll have you know that the flowers were so beautiful that a few hundred pics found their way onto the camera, which made selecting a few for this report very, very difficult. But, one tries...

Gavin and I went with Warren's first trip to the farm Mertenhof in the Biedouw Valley earlier in the year. Loved it, so when the call came to put names down for the same trip but in flower season, ours were pretty much first on the list.

Paid our money, bribed my mom to come and look after Dakar, our 6-month-old puppy, and sat impatiently ticking off the days to the trip.

Then Gav managed to have a fight with his mountain bike.

Well, not so much a fight with his bicycle, as with the steps he was riding at the time (I know my limitations; I was walking). The fall was fine; the landing was not and he ended up with a broken hand. Much unhappiness.

To cut a long story short, Warren said it was okay for Gav to come up by car instead of by bike - happiness back.

Meet Dakar...: Our lovely young Giant Schnauzer, here at 3 months. (Anyone need some landcaping done? He's really good. Cheap rates for club members.)

The Clanwilliam Dam mirroring the mountains: It was the smoothest I had seen the dam in a long time

Refuel stop: Clanwilliam

The flowers were in abundance from the start of the Valley; cars were parked alongside the road with people wandering around, taking photographs.Then we rocked up on the bikes. People stopped looking at the flowers, and looked at the bikes instead.

Field of wild tulips and white daisies

Yellow daisies & pink vygies & orange tulips - at home the colour combinations never look so good

Snotblommetjies: The light yellow flower is called 'snotblommetjie' in Afrikaans, due to its gooey sap

After lunch in Mariette's tea garden at Mertenhof, we all headed off down the Biedouw Valley towards the Doring River to see what the flowers were like.

Off to do some flower watching

Heading out

More riders...

And boy, were there stunning flowers. What was interesting, is how you would find different colour bands - a field of white daisies here, a field of yellow daisies there; purple-pink vygies along the mountains, blue and pink and purple inbetween...

First stop: Field of yellow

Just a nice view: The flowers weren't too bad either

Close-up it gets prettier

The sign at Enjo-Life says it all

Red gazanias add a new colour

Field of white

We then stopped...

...to look at this field

Monet probably would have liked it

Close-up, it again gets prettier

Later we rode up to the plateau: My favourite part of the trip - again

The amazing view from the top

Supper followed, with the obligatory 'strafdoppe', and so to bed - some to camp, others to share rooms in one of the two houses. Early the next morning I went for a walk, meeting up with Charles and Julie who were also out for a stroll, just enjoying the lovely rock formations and early-morning colours.

Early morning on the farm

The 'swem gat' on the farm

Breakfast followed at 08h30, and then a trip to the waterfall.

Breakfast

Breakfast: There was mieliepap, sausage, eggs, juice, coffee, home-made bread, home-made jams - you name it. If you were still hungry, it was through no fault of Mariette's

We used whatever vehicles were available to get everyone to the waterfall...

Barry's bakkie is normally used to transport ... errr... sheep

Beautiful rock pools: At the waterfall

The road between Wuppertal and the Cederberg Oasis is one of my favourites, so after the trip to the waterfall, Noeline and I bid our fond farewells to the rest of the group and set off back home, followed by Gavin with our car.

Cannot wait for the section ahead!

Starting the climb out of Wuppertal

The climb out of Wuppertal is just the best. The road was more rutted than usual, with bigger steps and more loose stones. It was magic.

Then you get to the top of the climb...: And this lovely sandy stretch waits. Yeeeehaaaa!

Noeline styling it...: Oh what fun we had

Such an inviting road

On the whole, the road was in probably the worst condition I have ridden it, with km long sections of very loose gravel "marbles". Oh what fun. 

Oh yes - the flowers were still stunning - now with a lot more fynbos around.

Pretty fynbos near Eselsbank

And off we went again...

Closer to the Cederberg Oasis, whole mountainsides were covered in vygies; just purple as far as the eye could see.

Purple mountains

And another field of yellow: A very different yellow this time

We stopped at the Cederberg Oasis for Chantal's phenomenal toasted sandwiches. We got there a while before Gav got there with the car, and bumped into some riders coming back from the Calvinia Vleisfees. They were very impressed to see two women jolling around on off-road motorbikes all by themselves, doing the Wuppertal stretch nogal. Fortunately they left before Gav got there or we may have had to give up our game.

The gravel road from the Oasis back to Ceres was in stunning condition - smooth as can be, still with vygies covering the mountains. Gerrit said that the flowers in this area were the best they had been in decades, as many of the farmers had stopped grazing livestock close to the road. He hopes that in future years they too will be considered part of the official flower routes.

We refuelled in Ceres, and burned it through Bainskloof, back to Cape Town.

On Monday morning I emailed Noeline: "I really, really don't feel like being at work."

Two seconds later the reply came back: "So, let's go back..."

It was very tempting.