Middelpos

Got capital approval from the higher headquarters in my household for a trip.  It was raining on our farm in the Karoo and it became another excuse for a good trip.

“I really have a need for open spaces,” I said to my husband earlier in the week. We had been booked to go on Donford’s Tankwa trip, but that was cancelled when they were short of the required 30 riders.

“Let’s go anyway,” came the laconic reply.

Rony changing a tyre , Boris and Sean looking on Wuperthal: Jean, Gavin, Sean, Harley Wuperthal : Chris H and Sean Wuperthal: The hero of the trip : Shah Shah had hardly any riding experience before this trip. In fact he can hardly hold up his bike or park it by himself, yet he rode the entire route , including Wuperthal , Eselbank, some very tricky sandy bits, mud etc , and even went down Ganagga Pass in the mud and rain, VERY impressive !

DAY ONE : I’m still half asleep when I leave home around 7 am , but soon wake up when I enter into a hefty skid on the corner of Koeberg and Plattekloof Road, after riding straight into a solid mass of fresh black diesel. Now this is not entirely my fault, the car in front of me had been going so slowly that it was practically going backward. What else has a girl to do, except overtake the car in the corner? , but then leaving me no time to see the Diesel Devil before it grabbed me. Luckily Freak had given me a set of tappet protectors last month which saves the day , as the one protector ( with a bit of help from the handlebars) takes the entire weight of the fall .The lurking Tow Truck driver helps me pick up the bike and tries to convinces me that the bike must rest. I laugh and tell him no it’s a BMW, they fall beautifully. I am soon on my merry way, thanking God, Freak and BMW’s for boxer engine design.

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.

Laas naweek se trippie na Middelpos is voorwaar een van daardie ritte wat ek lank sal onthou. Die groep van 10 bikers was baie eenders in terme van spoed en stoplustigheid. En foto-lustigheid. Opvallend van hierdie rit was dat die voorste ryers by elke afdraai of vurk in die pad gewag het totdat almal weer by is. Die koue en reen aan die begin was niks, vergeleke met die plesier van die lekkerte wat sou volg. Ons het almal dik aangetrek, met reenklere bo-oor alles. My eie reenpak is 'n lae-koste tweestuk van Mr Farmer. Ek het lank droog gebly, maar toe ek daar anderkant Ceres so'n slag opstaan en weer gaan sit - yskoud hier onderlangs! En toe ek my selfoon uit die hempsak uithaal was hy sopnat! Toe het ek geweet Mr Farmer was ook maar net 'n troos. Ek het baie beter gevoel toe van die ander ouens met baie meer fancy reenklere ook sopnat was.

Middelpos- off-tar trip. Aka “A gate too far..” 10th & 11th August 2007 On the 1st August a thread appeared under the ‘Trips and Tours’ page of the BMW Motorcycle Club Cape’s forum. I checked my Outlook calendar entries and saw I had three vessels in Port loading citrus- Maputo, Durban and PE. “Oh, my hat! With citrus volumes starting to peak was this trip possible for me?” Alas, duty calls…and it galls me. Anyway with a slight hole I my budget, dear Liza, dear Liza, I slept on it for a while. I saw the places fill up very quickly and anyway only recognised 2 names……