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.

We are planning an overnight ride to the “Engelsman se Berge” near Clanwilliam for the weekend of 11 to 12 June 2011. Warren and Natalie Ellwood will be your hosts for this weekend trip to what has been voted one of the top 10 4x4 campsites in South Africa for the last five years. This off road ride will suit riders of all levels.

Trip Report – Cederberg

This past weekend (10-12/12/2010) a friend of mine, Jan, on an 800GS, his wife, Annemie, in the backup Toyota Hilux and myself on my Dakar took to the Cederberg mountains for a little weekend getaway. Unfortunately my wife could not make it due to work requirements.

Every now and I open up the BMW forum in anticipation of a trip report of this last weekend’s outing to Gifberg... just so I can say thanks for another great weekend of riding, but alas... Warren has not posted anything yet, and I’m getting restless...

I've loved riding in the Cederberg since the 1st time I was there, which wasn't much more than a year ago... So any opportunity to do so with some friends is always grabbed with both hands.

Was going to have a ride all by my lonesome but during the organizing of the Baviaans tour this coming Easter weekend Mandi indicates she’s not going to go along, she hasn’t got the skill, she will keep people up, bla bla bla! She’s done the introduction course and I say, but practice! Ja maar oom, mense het nie die geduld om saam met my te ry, vir my te wag of the wys hoe nie! :-( Friday at four in the afternoon I pick up my student for the weekend at the Klapmuts intersection, has to be back in Stellenbosh at Sunday lunch for a birthday party! Onto the N1, over Du Toit’s kloof and through Slanghoek to Ceres over the Gydo pass into the direction of the Cederberg Oasis. Mandi takes the tar sections in her stride and we end up at the spot where the black stuff turns into gravel!

The round trip from Cape Town to Wupperthal is usually done over a weekend with an overnight stop somewhere in the Cedarberg. How appropriate then, to do the trip on the longest day of the year with Geoff Russell on a route that seemed to include all the interesting dirt this side of Wupperthal. There are those who say you wouldn't need to stop overnight if you weren't carrying all that camping gear. So we traveled light and fast, rising around 5am, and getting home at 8pm. The longest day. ===Swartland Engen 1-Stop : 06h45=== Rendezvous for breakfast and 7h30 departure. I had managed to convince Shaded Alan to meet me en route at 6h15 (he had wanted to meet an hour earlier - I think he may have confused the Swartland 1-Stop with the one at Langebaan Lagoon :-)

Another great trip to the West Coast with Geoff and Noelene, and Anna Marie and Neels our calm and dependable back-up/ and sadly sometimes,ambulance team. Jurg se Kaya; West Coast West Coast Riding...........Sand!!! West Coast For me it was my 2nd, with Charles and Jacques who were along with me on the first,it brought back good memories and the best was to see how much our sand riding had improved,( there was much scope for improvement)

BACKGROUND PHASE 1 It all started at Freak’s birthday bash with a comment by Hermanator that a visit to his relatives for lunch at the Docks might be a good idea. Freak immediately rushed off and acquired an attractive pillion candidate from a nearby table and Neil and I agreed that keeping the Sunday breakfast run tradition going would be a good call. PHASE 2 Neil did some debating and philosophising and then came up with a counter proposal to do “a bit of a longer trip” on dirt, and skip the meal that would require increasing the pre-load of his GS for the return trip.

Yet again another fantastically planned off-road trip. Andy & I were unexpectedly privileged to join the wonderful group of people Johann and Tanya Rossouw have brought together. As usual, there were a few new people, as some of the usuals could not join us - understandably, in this hectic time galloping on towards Christmas. Our group of 13 bikes & 18 people: 1200GSA - Johann & Tanya Rossouw (JR) 1200GS - HD Rossouw (HD) 1200GS - Ernst Bester 1150GS - Johan & Linda Burger 1150GS - Brendan Buurman 1150GS - Danie Malan (GeelKameel) 1150GSA - Ian Steyn 1150GSA - Andy Connell (Andyman)