Garden Route

Before the trip I had wondered what driving and riding would be like in South Africa. And now, after a week on the road, I had come to the conclusion that it was all rather more civilised than I had anticipated. There wasn’t any hint of chaos, no aggression and, crucially, there wasn’t that much traffic in the first place – which probably explains why it was all so good-natured.

There were a few curiosities worth mentioning, though. The first one that baffled me was the crossroads where everyone faced a stop sign. Four roads come in, and nobody has the right of way. Everyone stops. Even if you can see the side roads are clear, people still slow down (although rarely fully stop). I can’t get my head around them, but they seem to work.

Another was the written signs painted on the road, such as ‘Slow’ and ‘Stop’. Sometimes they were in English, sometimes in Afrikaans, and sometimes in both. You can often figure out the meaning even without full command of the language, but at other times they can confuse you. Theone that got me was the word ‘Robot’ written on the Tarmac in front of me. Robot, eh? Well, apparently that’s the Afrikaans word for traffic lights. So there you go, wait for the robots to go green!

Our destination after Addo was Mount Camdeboo Game Reserve. A privately owned piece of land in a stunning location with a selection of wild animals roaming about. The remote location meant that the last 25km of riding was done on a dirt road. It made a nice change from riding on Tarmac, and this time there were no mountain hairpins to negotiate.

The location of the game reserve really was stunning. An old manor house and a few other buildings surrounding it provided a luxurious olde-worlde setting, complete

The Garden Route is one of the top road trips in the world. It stretches around a section of the Indian Ocean coastline bridging the provinces of Western Cape and Eastern Cape, and reaches north over the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma Mountains. The route includes winding mountain passes, coastal twisties, and long, straight desert roads. These roads connect vineyards, game parks, beaches and cities, offering a rich mixture of quintessentially South African experiences. with high tea being served just as we arrived. I felt more than a little out of place in my dusty riding kit, chomping on a scone in this beautiful old colonial-style house, but nobody batted an eyelid.

With our bellies full it was time to go for another game drive. The animals we spotted today were giraffes, white rhinos, antelopes, elephants, leopard turtles and warthogs.

After yesterday’s game drive it was the giraffes and rhinos that I found most fascinating, not having seen them in the previous reserve.

From wilderness to Wilderness

From Mount Camdeboo Nature Reserve we started to make our way back to Cape Town. The ride took us out of the greenery, and pushed us towards the hot and dry embrace of the Karoo.

The temperature had reached +40°C, there was no shade, we were surrounded by nothingness, and we faced a road that had a 65km long straight with one slight bend in the middle. It was incredible.

The BMW’s cruise control was a very welcome functionality on this road. I think autopilot would have been good too, at least until we hit the flowing Outeniqua Pass into George (we had done it before on the tour, but that seemed like ages ago).

The first goal was our old friend, Wilderness, then we moved on to Cape Agulhas, Africa’s southernmost point. We were now cruising by the coast, and the scenery was very much what you might imagine the Garden Route to be like: lots of fields and woodlands.

A lot of it was quite dry, but given that the country had just suffered one of the worst droughts in a generation, it wasn’t too bad.

This stretch of riding reminded me that overtaking on single carriage roads was made easy by slower vehicles moving over to the wide, hard shoulder as they saw a group of bikes in their mirrors.

After our long ride we reached Cape Agulhas, and I had to admit that I hadn’t realised that Cape Agulhas was where the Atlantic turned into the Indian Ocean – I always thought that was at the Cape of Good Hope. Every day’s a school day!

All change

At the beginning of our trip the tour leader Nigel had suggested that going solo was perfectly fine. We had the option of following the leader or doing our own thing. So far everyone had stayed in the group, so I thought I ought to try and go solo.

It was a bit of a shock to the system to navigate on your own after following someone for over a week, but I was well equipped for the challenge. Motorrad Tours had