Is this SA’s toughest route?
Conquer 10 of SA’s highest passes in one go and you’ll join a handful of road trippers to ever have done so. It’s challenging, rewarding – and unbelievable fun, writes TYSON JOPSON
It all started with a poster: Summit 10 of SA’s highest passes and join an elite list of road trippers, it promised. I love a good list almost as much as I love mountain passes. My interest was piqued. ‘ What’s this about then?’ I asked Lee Cronje, the barman at Tiffindell Ski Resort. ‘Is what it says,’ said Lee. You can always count on a barman to keep things short. He handed me a map. On it 10 magnificent squiggles wound up, along and down the Eastern Cape Highlands. I had to ride them... Six months later I’m back. I’ve coaxed Gilbert, my single-cylinder KLR650, up to Lady Grey from Cape Town. I’ve also convinced Andy Biram, founder of The Adventure Academy, to let me join his band of nine riders heading to the highlands from Joburg to conquer those very same squiggles. We all arrive at Mountain View Hotel in Lady Grey in dribs and drabs on a dreary Wednesday afternoon.
‘No okes, I’m serious. My tyre doesn’t feel lekker.’ Veteran bike journalist Howie Stafford is lamenting the state of his rear at the hotel bar. The rest – a motley crew of middle-aged thrill seekers – tell him to relax and drink his wine. He does, grumbling, while Andy tells us what to expect over the next three days. Gravel and good times, in a nutshell. Oh, and some of the toughest driving terrain in the country. ’How tough exactly?’ asks Romeo Giannone. He’s relatively new to adventure biking and his XT1200 isn’t exactly on the light side. ‘Bastervoet’s the big one,’ says Andy. ‘It’s a 4x4 track that’s hella tricky in the dry. If it’s wet, we might not get over it at all.’ Howie slinks even further into his bottle of Cab Sauv, cursing the gods of rubber. The next morning the sky is bright and blue and a gentle breeze pokes its tongue through the windows of the old hotel, tickling the lace curtains until they wriggle with embarrassment. Our first pass, Joubert’s, starts at the town limits and off we go, leaving rooster trails as we gain altitude. At the top, we regroup, take photos (something we’ll do at each summit) and then descend. We’re briefly back on tar before sniffing out a gravel route that takes us to Otto du Plessis Pass and up to a memorial marking its opening in 1959. At the bottom, submarine-grey clouds chase us all the way to Elliot. There, we refuel and then sail up Barkly Pass, arriving at Mountain Shadows Hotel, our overnight stop, just as the heavens open. That night at the bar, under the gaze of a bewildered giraffe taxidermy emerging from one of the walls, we discuss plans. ‘ That was the easy day,’ says Andy. ‘If it carries on raining, we may need to rethink tomorrow.’ The words barely leave his mouth when suddenly there is a damp man standing beneath the giraffe. ‘Oh, this is Kevin [Payne]. He’s joining us for the rest of the ride,’ says Andy. Our posse of 10 becomes 11 and damp Kevin immediately has everyone in stitches with the story of how he left Joburg that morning; like a scalded cat, at half-past-clock, with just his bike and big-screen TV – the spoils of an ill-considered ultimatum issued by his girlfriend. As the beers flow, so do the stories. Everyone’s got one and soon we
‘The words barely leave his lips when suddenly there is a damp man standing beneath the giraffe’
‘But my god if this isn’t the most fun I’ve had on a soggy day since I was six years old’
feel familiar as old friends. Howie’s at the bottom of a bottle of wine bewailing his tyre, Philip has me hooked with the tale of the time he rode a Harley across America, and the rigours of tomorrow are all but forgotten. And, for some reason, nobody asks Kevin what he did with his TV. The following morning songololos and snails creep up the soaked mountainsides but the sky is clear and so we all head for Bastervoetpad. Except Romeo. He’s not keen for a morning of mudslinging and takes a detour to our next overnight stop. And what a morning of mudslinging it is. We slip over smooth rocks and slide into mudbaths like drunk elephants, everyone just managing to keep their machines rubber-side down. Except William Slement. He’s landed his GS1200 in a rut. And himself on his butt. He’s up in no time and I’m laughing inside my helmet – it could just as easily have been me, but my god if this isn’t the most fun I’ve had on a soggy day since I was six years old, building mud forts for my green army men. We reach the top of Bastervoetpad, muddy and delighted, then fly down the logging roads to Ugie between pine trees so high we can’t see the sky. One would not expect the world’s tastiest toasted chicken mayo to come from a small town in the Eastern Cape. But at the Cock and the Cat in Ugie, Sheldon, Howie and I tuck into a trio of buttery toasteds that taste like a warrior’s reward. From Ugie we skip across tar to Maclear and then negotiate the nasty calcrete mess that takes us over Potrivier Pass and then up the magnificent Naude’s Nek Pass to Tenahead Mountain Lodge. Up here it’s lush and green and the berg flora is putting on a show – red-hot pokers lift their necks above the wild grasses and everlastings dance in the alpine breeze.
We stop for a quick cup of coffee and don our rain gear – it’s a wet dash along the Tiffindell-Tenahead Traverse, which tracks the high-altitude fence line between South Africa and Lesotho all the way to Tiffindell Ski Resort. There we learn that Romeo had some navigation issues (rubbish at reading Google Maps, basically) and ended up riding the last two tricky passes anyway. It’s cause for celebration. And so that is exactly what we do. The next morning great yolks of gold seep through a plate of egg-white clouds dangling above the resort. Real food is not far behind, bacon, two types of sausages, hash browns. It’s an almighty feast, and we’re going to need it. Above us a formidable 4x4 track zigzags alongside the ski slope and then climbs to the highest motorable summit in South Africa – Ben MacDhui. At 3 001 metres, it’s higher than Sani Pass. For some, the idea of hauling a big adventure bike to the top after breakfast is too much, so they ride the traverses and walk the rest of the way. The rest of us have more pride than brains and nobble our steeds to the summit, with varying states of grace. Most graceful of all is Philip, who executes a spectacular dismount on the last climb and barrel rolls back down. He’s fine. So is his 690 Enduro. We right him and send him up again. Success! With a fresh sense of achievement strapped to our bike racks, we all descend Carlisleshoekspruit Pass to Rhodes and then follow the Bell River along the valley before heading back into the mountains. We stop for lunch and a luggage drop at Reedsdell Country Guest Farm in Wartrail before taking on the final two passes. Volunteershoek first, a crafty little climb that catches some off guard. Not Chris Isted, owner of Reedsdell, who’s hauled out his 990 Adventure to join the last blast. He sails up the pass and I give chase and together we race, Dakar-style, to the top. It’s wild fun. At the summit we turn around and head back through Wartrail and up the final pass, Lundin’s Nek, just in time to see the sun disappear into Lesotho. We spend our last night around a braai at Reedsdell, tired and happy. It’s been an unbelievable three days. These passes demand guts and grit. But for those who dare, what they give back is a road trip that will live longer in memory than any other. Oh, and as it turns out, Howie’s tyre was just fine. But we all knew that anyway.