2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
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2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
Stan L Thu 06 Feb 2020, 1:03 am
Colesburg does have a certain charm but its more an overnight stop than a destination. It serves as a launch pad, for the moment you exit Colesburg you enter the magic that is the Karoo.
The Karoo is South Africa’s Outback. It is a semi desert, green for a few weeks in late spring to early summer and bleak khaki the rest of the year. The Karoo is as enchanting an environment as you can imagine. It has a spirit. That spirit may pass you by the first one or two times you visit. But once the Karoo gets into your blood it's there to stay. It's the air, it's the pristineness, it's the harshness and it's the silence. Stop in the Karoo and the silence is palpable. Sweltering hot summer days, chilly winter ones, and night skies you can cut with a knife, so thick are the starry nebulae.
It seems wherever you are in the Karoo you'll be surrounded on both sides by a mile of desert floor, rising into the knolls and mountains that are the fabric of the Karoo.
The magic of the Karoo
Ahead, the highway tends to be ribbon-straight, following the undulations of the land to some extent but, due to much blasting, pretty level on the whole. South Africa may be coming apart in some ways but when it comes to roads this country wins gold. They were expensively built in the past and, thankfully, are being maintained in the present.
From time to time you get lucky. The road signs indicate what we once called reversed curves, a literal translation from the Afrikaans, and triggering high voltage wrist and naughty grins. The road will widen, the climbing side splitting into a climbing lane and an overtaking lane, as the road snakes though mountain passes in the desert.
You ride for miles on straight ribbon, occasionally livened up by mountain passes
Let’s see how she handles them.
With 25, 20 of rake the Bandit is in the conservative band. Add its rather plush springing – the naked one has stiffer fork springs than the S model, BTW – and the Bandit may exude a tough guy image on the surface but in reality it’s a pussycat. If you allow for that and turn in a little early it will reward with a fairly sharp turn, even with its soft ride. The conservative geometry allows some margin for error, making the Bandit quite forgiving if you do happen to get a bit out of shape in mid-turn.
Next, we feel out the right amount of power for turning.
The most brilliant-handling bike I’ve personally ridden is the BMW K1200 S. That’s the one with the transverse motor, not the earlier Flying Brick. The K1200 S is what converted me from Twins to Fours, so it’s relevant.
Two things differentiate the Bandit from the K1200 S:
· Great suspension (K1200 S) vs. adequate suspension (Bandit), and;
· Rev-hungry K1200 S machinery vs. the Bandit’s detuned, torquey-but- not-revvy engine.
The K1200 S rewards being kicked down through the gears and revved into a turning attack. The Bandit just flows through with a lazy twist of the wrist in any gear, including top. That means you’ve got to watch the acceleration. On a widely sweeping bend I once found myself exiting at a hell of a speed. It’s fun, but if anything unexpected happens while you’re exiting a bend at that speed you’re toast.
Putting this to use opens the door to having fun on the Bandit.
I did in the Karoo, and again in the Outeniqua Pass (still to come).
Pass the hamlet of Nouwpoort (“Narrow Gorge”) and the opportunity arrives to test our new-found theory.
At the foot of a pass. The road looks featureless in the camera but is actually beginning to wind.
The road sign indicates a climbing lane, the run-up to those hills and curves carved through the mountains. Lefts are easy; just point and shoot. Rights need more deliberate effort. More than once I found myself apexing early in right handers and having to widen it in mid-turn. It takes time to get used to using Bandit torque, rather than K1200 S style revs, to keep the front pointing in the right direction. At South African speeds, I can’t pretend there weren’t times I was about to start bargaining with The Man Upstairs…
Emerge from the pass and roll on to the next endless straight stretch. The Bandit carries just 19 litres of fuel on board (20 if yours is a carb version). I once ran out of fuel on an occasion so embarrassing it warrants a story on its own. That taught me to keep an eye on those fuel level bars. When it gets down to one bar and the petrol pump icon starts blinking on and off, I slow down to a fuel-conserving rate of knots and count off the kilometres to the next town. The cars and bakkies (utes) I previously overtook now catch up and pass me. I sit upright, left hand on my hip, pretending to be nonchalantly taking in the scenery, silently begging I’ll make it to the next gas station.
On the whole I got high 5 to early 6 litres per 100 km at mild (for South Africa) speeds, rising to the mid or high sixes when the wrist got a bit itchy. Passable figures, but the 19 litre tank limits range. A sport tourer needs a fatter tank.
Where Suzuki got it right is in rider comfort. I stand a medium 1,75 m tall but have legs like a grasshopper. For me, any bike's saddle feels too close to the foot pegs. The saddle can be raised a centimetre or two but it makes no real difference. In fact I prefer the lower setting.
Aside from the high footpegs the Bandit is a good fit. At BMW GS school I learnt to stand up on the pegs, and the Bandit’s semi-highrise handlebar allows me to spend a minute at a time standing up on the pegs to take the weight off my rump. Adding the aftermarket lower-fairing also helps. The half-faired Bandit was draughty at South African speeds. The lower-fairing cuts the draught noticeably.
Graaff-Reinet is called the Gem of the Karoo. It’s one of my favourite towns. I almost regret undertaking not to teach you name pronunciations. And Graaff-Reinet knows only two kinds of weather: broiling hot and freezing cold. Now it’s late January and you can fry an egg on the pavement.
Clockwise from top left: Flamboyant tree; quaint Graaff-Reinet homes; Karoo lamb curry; "socially responsible" restaurant
A socially-responsible restaurant provides employment to a category of women who got the short end of the stick in the Apartheid era. Despite the heat I order a curry, then see the table next to me receive a pizza, and suffer pangs of regret. No matter, I’ll anaesthetize them with a glass of red wine… and then get back onto my motorcycle. This is life in South Africa.
Over my curry I gaze onto the town square, dominated by the severe Dutch Reformed Church in whose pews the Calvinistic Afrikaans people have, for generations, gathered to hear the Good Word.
Man and machine replenished, the Bandit is fired up and clunked into gear. It rolls through the town centre and onto the open road. Ahead lie another 400 km of Karoo on today’s schedule.
My luck holds as the partially overcast Karoo sky shields me from what can, and on the return trip will, be severe heat. But for the occasional kilometre of bends the Karoo road runs straight as a die, with the invariable mountain-rimmed desert floor running hypnotically underfoot. I marvel at how painstakingly this remote region’s roads were built, Nary a kilometre goes by without evidence of the blasting that made most of the road level and devoid of climbs and drops. World class highways out in the desert.
Now and then I spot a form on the road, bring the Bandit to a halt, cut the motor and wait for the tortoise to cross. People think, mistakenly, they are being heroes by lifting tortoises and depositing them on the roadside. Wrong. The frightened creature wees itself, losing valuable body fluid. Just stop, wave any approaching traffic to a halt, and let it cross. It will lumber laboriously into the safety of the scrub, just as its ancestors have unhurriedly done for eons.
The mile posts count down the distance to the town of Uitenhage, probably a reference Holland's Hague, harking back to South Africa's Dutch heritage. Uitenhage is home to a massive Volkswagen plant. If you drive a Volkswagen it may have been made here.
Some kilometres before Uitenhage itself, the sign I’ve been looking for comes into view. The Valley Bushveld Country Lodge sign points me to a gravel road leading to the guest farm that is Night 2's stop. The pebble-strewn gravel is slippery enough in the dry; I wouldn’t care to tackle it in rain. Here and there a couple of alarmed waterbuck skip across the track and vanish into the thorny bush as the unfamiliar sight and sound of a motorcycle disturbs their browsing.
A Y-junction is guarded by a high motorized sliding gate, very common in SA. There is a neat wooden notice board alongside the path. Two envelopes are wedged into it, each bearing the name of an anticipated arrival. One is mine. Removing one glove and tearing open the envelope I read the key code for the gate and type it into the gate’s gooseneck-mounted keypad. The gate rumbles aside. I enter and halt, abiding by the injunction to wait for the gate to shut behind me, then ride the final half-kilometre to the lodge itself. Startled warthog stomp out of my way.
I arrive at the lodge. This is my kinda place. It’s as still as an oil painting. Good thing I’m solo; this wouldn’t be my wife’s cuppa. She likes lights and action. My footfalls crunch up the gravel path to the reception where I am greeted by name. No great mystery how he knew; the other guest is a female. The predictable pleasantries and I am shown my room.
As I busy myself unhooking the soft-pannier straps a car rumbles to a halt. Two occupants climb out; He and She. I’m still wearing my armoured vest and Cordura riding pants. The former has a bit of a Star Wars look.
In the ample hall you see in the pic below we get to know one another over gin & tonic. She’s English, he’s French. I muse privately, they used to shoot each other, now they marry each other; a more subtle form of warfare.
Lovely bush lodge
They work in Italy. I don’t ask what kind of work, and they don’t volunteer it.
Now here’s something the missus never seems to understand; let’s see if you do. My reckoning is, if they want me to know they’ll tell me, and if they don’t tell me, I don’t ask. But when I recount the story, the missus is certain to ask me. By now I know to make it up. So I’ll say oh, she’s an English teacher and he’s a mechanic. They’re probably nothing of the sort but it staves off that dreaded “why didn’t you just ask?”.
Men would lie 95% less if women asked 95% fewer questions.
In the dining hall, elaborately decorated with wildlife trophies, I am served rich-tasting kudu (buck) venison on a bed of penne pasta with trimmings, aided & abetted by a bowl of red wine.
Cheers
Day 2 will record as the most technically and recreationally successful day of the trip.
Fear not, no dramatic mishap will follow, but I will endure an event that...
Nope, sorry, you'll have to wait for it.
Next: 3rd DAY: DEATH BY EMBARRASSMENT.
Regards
Stan
South Africa
The Karoo is South Africa’s Outback. It is a semi desert, green for a few weeks in late spring to early summer and bleak khaki the rest of the year. The Karoo is as enchanting an environment as you can imagine. It has a spirit. That spirit may pass you by the first one or two times you visit. But once the Karoo gets into your blood it's there to stay. It's the air, it's the pristineness, it's the harshness and it's the silence. Stop in the Karoo and the silence is palpable. Sweltering hot summer days, chilly winter ones, and night skies you can cut with a knife, so thick are the starry nebulae.
It seems wherever you are in the Karoo you'll be surrounded on both sides by a mile of desert floor, rising into the knolls and mountains that are the fabric of the Karoo.
The magic of the Karoo
Ahead, the highway tends to be ribbon-straight, following the undulations of the land to some extent but, due to much blasting, pretty level on the whole. South Africa may be coming apart in some ways but when it comes to roads this country wins gold. They were expensively built in the past and, thankfully, are being maintained in the present.
From time to time you get lucky. The road signs indicate what we once called reversed curves, a literal translation from the Afrikaans, and triggering high voltage wrist and naughty grins. The road will widen, the climbing side splitting into a climbing lane and an overtaking lane, as the road snakes though mountain passes in the desert.
You ride for miles on straight ribbon, occasionally livened up by mountain passes
Let’s see how she handles them.
With 25, 20 of rake the Bandit is in the conservative band. Add its rather plush springing – the naked one has stiffer fork springs than the S model, BTW – and the Bandit may exude a tough guy image on the surface but in reality it’s a pussycat. If you allow for that and turn in a little early it will reward with a fairly sharp turn, even with its soft ride. The conservative geometry allows some margin for error, making the Bandit quite forgiving if you do happen to get a bit out of shape in mid-turn.
Next, we feel out the right amount of power for turning.
The most brilliant-handling bike I’ve personally ridden is the BMW K1200 S. That’s the one with the transverse motor, not the earlier Flying Brick. The K1200 S is what converted me from Twins to Fours, so it’s relevant.
Two things differentiate the Bandit from the K1200 S:
· Great suspension (K1200 S) vs. adequate suspension (Bandit), and;
· Rev-hungry K1200 S machinery vs. the Bandit’s detuned, torquey-but- not-revvy engine.
The K1200 S rewards being kicked down through the gears and revved into a turning attack. The Bandit just flows through with a lazy twist of the wrist in any gear, including top. That means you’ve got to watch the acceleration. On a widely sweeping bend I once found myself exiting at a hell of a speed. It’s fun, but if anything unexpected happens while you’re exiting a bend at that speed you’re toast.
Putting this to use opens the door to having fun on the Bandit.
I did in the Karoo, and again in the Outeniqua Pass (still to come).
Pass the hamlet of Nouwpoort (“Narrow Gorge”) and the opportunity arrives to test our new-found theory.
At the foot of a pass. The road looks featureless in the camera but is actually beginning to wind.
The road sign indicates a climbing lane, the run-up to those hills and curves carved through the mountains. Lefts are easy; just point and shoot. Rights need more deliberate effort. More than once I found myself apexing early in right handers and having to widen it in mid-turn. It takes time to get used to using Bandit torque, rather than K1200 S style revs, to keep the front pointing in the right direction. At South African speeds, I can’t pretend there weren’t times I was about to start bargaining with The Man Upstairs…
Emerge from the pass and roll on to the next endless straight stretch. The Bandit carries just 19 litres of fuel on board (20 if yours is a carb version). I once ran out of fuel on an occasion so embarrassing it warrants a story on its own. That taught me to keep an eye on those fuel level bars. When it gets down to one bar and the petrol pump icon starts blinking on and off, I slow down to a fuel-conserving rate of knots and count off the kilometres to the next town. The cars and bakkies (utes) I previously overtook now catch up and pass me. I sit upright, left hand on my hip, pretending to be nonchalantly taking in the scenery, silently begging I’ll make it to the next gas station.
On the whole I got high 5 to early 6 litres per 100 km at mild (for South Africa) speeds, rising to the mid or high sixes when the wrist got a bit itchy. Passable figures, but the 19 litre tank limits range. A sport tourer needs a fatter tank.
Where Suzuki got it right is in rider comfort. I stand a medium 1,75 m tall but have legs like a grasshopper. For me, any bike's saddle feels too close to the foot pegs. The saddle can be raised a centimetre or two but it makes no real difference. In fact I prefer the lower setting.
Aside from the high footpegs the Bandit is a good fit. At BMW GS school I learnt to stand up on the pegs, and the Bandit’s semi-highrise handlebar allows me to spend a minute at a time standing up on the pegs to take the weight off my rump. Adding the aftermarket lower-fairing also helps. The half-faired Bandit was draughty at South African speeds. The lower-fairing cuts the draught noticeably.
Graaff-Reinet is called the Gem of the Karoo. It’s one of my favourite towns. I almost regret undertaking not to teach you name pronunciations. And Graaff-Reinet knows only two kinds of weather: broiling hot and freezing cold. Now it’s late January and you can fry an egg on the pavement.
Clockwise from top left: Flamboyant tree; quaint Graaff-Reinet homes; Karoo lamb curry; "socially responsible" restaurant
A socially-responsible restaurant provides employment to a category of women who got the short end of the stick in the Apartheid era. Despite the heat I order a curry, then see the table next to me receive a pizza, and suffer pangs of regret. No matter, I’ll anaesthetize them with a glass of red wine… and then get back onto my motorcycle. This is life in South Africa.
Over my curry I gaze onto the town square, dominated by the severe Dutch Reformed Church in whose pews the Calvinistic Afrikaans people have, for generations, gathered to hear the Good Word.
Man and machine replenished, the Bandit is fired up and clunked into gear. It rolls through the town centre and onto the open road. Ahead lie another 400 km of Karoo on today’s schedule.
My luck holds as the partially overcast Karoo sky shields me from what can, and on the return trip will, be severe heat. But for the occasional kilometre of bends the Karoo road runs straight as a die, with the invariable mountain-rimmed desert floor running hypnotically underfoot. I marvel at how painstakingly this remote region’s roads were built, Nary a kilometre goes by without evidence of the blasting that made most of the road level and devoid of climbs and drops. World class highways out in the desert.
Now and then I spot a form on the road, bring the Bandit to a halt, cut the motor and wait for the tortoise to cross. People think, mistakenly, they are being heroes by lifting tortoises and depositing them on the roadside. Wrong. The frightened creature wees itself, losing valuable body fluid. Just stop, wave any approaching traffic to a halt, and let it cross. It will lumber laboriously into the safety of the scrub, just as its ancestors have unhurriedly done for eons.
The mile posts count down the distance to the town of Uitenhage, probably a reference Holland's Hague, harking back to South Africa's Dutch heritage. Uitenhage is home to a massive Volkswagen plant. If you drive a Volkswagen it may have been made here.
Some kilometres before Uitenhage itself, the sign I’ve been looking for comes into view. The Valley Bushveld Country Lodge sign points me to a gravel road leading to the guest farm that is Night 2's stop. The pebble-strewn gravel is slippery enough in the dry; I wouldn’t care to tackle it in rain. Here and there a couple of alarmed waterbuck skip across the track and vanish into the thorny bush as the unfamiliar sight and sound of a motorcycle disturbs their browsing.
A Y-junction is guarded by a high motorized sliding gate, very common in SA. There is a neat wooden notice board alongside the path. Two envelopes are wedged into it, each bearing the name of an anticipated arrival. One is mine. Removing one glove and tearing open the envelope I read the key code for the gate and type it into the gate’s gooseneck-mounted keypad. The gate rumbles aside. I enter and halt, abiding by the injunction to wait for the gate to shut behind me, then ride the final half-kilometre to the lodge itself. Startled warthog stomp out of my way.
I arrive at the lodge. This is my kinda place. It’s as still as an oil painting. Good thing I’m solo; this wouldn’t be my wife’s cuppa. She likes lights and action. My footfalls crunch up the gravel path to the reception where I am greeted by name. No great mystery how he knew; the other guest is a female. The predictable pleasantries and I am shown my room.
As I busy myself unhooking the soft-pannier straps a car rumbles to a halt. Two occupants climb out; He and She. I’m still wearing my armoured vest and Cordura riding pants. The former has a bit of a Star Wars look.
In the ample hall you see in the pic below we get to know one another over gin & tonic. She’s English, he’s French. I muse privately, they used to shoot each other, now they marry each other; a more subtle form of warfare.
Lovely bush lodge
They work in Italy. I don’t ask what kind of work, and they don’t volunteer it.
Now here’s something the missus never seems to understand; let’s see if you do. My reckoning is, if they want me to know they’ll tell me, and if they don’t tell me, I don’t ask. But when I recount the story, the missus is certain to ask me. By now I know to make it up. So I’ll say oh, she’s an English teacher and he’s a mechanic. They’re probably nothing of the sort but it staves off that dreaded “why didn’t you just ask?”.
Men would lie 95% less if women asked 95% fewer questions.
In the dining hall, elaborately decorated with wildlife trophies, I am served rich-tasting kudu (buck) venison on a bed of penne pasta with trimmings, aided & abetted by a bowl of red wine.
Cheers
Day 2 will record as the most technically and recreationally successful day of the trip.
Fear not, no dramatic mishap will follow, but I will endure an event that...
Nope, sorry, you'll have to wait for it.
Next: 3rd DAY: DEATH BY EMBARRASSMENT.
Regards
Stan
South Africa
Stan L- Posts : 104
Join date : 2020-01-06
Age : 66
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
gus Thu 06 Feb 2020, 7:37 am
Great Read . I must get out more .
gus- Posts : 6176
Join date : 2010-11-23
Age : 73
Location : Cygnet ,Tasmania
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
GSX1100G Thu 06 Feb 2020, 9:46 am
More great pics and info and red wine 
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Suzuki 1250 Bandit - LOVING IT ! !
GSX1100G- Posts : 789
Join date : 2019-11-08
Age : 61
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
paul Thu 06 Feb 2020, 3:53 pm
Great read Stan , and it sounds like a good trip as well . I even needed to stop for a wee break half way through reading it . ( But I suppose I am getting towards that age 
)
I think your wife would be devastated if she knew you had figured out the inner workings of her mind .
)I think your wife would be devastated if she knew you had figured out the inner workings of her mind .
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Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.
paul- Posts : 7738
Join date : 2011-08-19
Age : 71
Location : Morphett Vale Sth. Aust.
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
Chook Thu 06 Feb 2020, 4:03 pm
So it took you longer than 10 minutespaul wrote: I even needed to stop for a wee break half way through reading it . ( But I suppose I am getting towards that age
Chook- Posts : 4088
Join date : 2012-01-20
Age : 59
Location : Suburban Bendigo -
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
paul Thu 06 Feb 2020, 8:47 pm
Chook wrote:So it took you longer than 10 minutespaul wrote: I even needed to stop for a wee break half way through reading it . ( But I suppose I am getting towards that age
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Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.
paul- Posts : 7738
Join date : 2011-08-19
Age : 71
Location : Morphett Vale Sth. Aust.
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
paul Mon 24 Feb 2020, 12:58 am
Funny how things pop up ............I'm reading a book by Ted Simon called Jupiters travels . He traveled 63,000 miles through 54 countries on a motorcycle in the late 70s , and the part I just read speaks of him riding through the Karoo in Sth Africa .
_________________
Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.
paul- Posts : 7738
Join date : 2011-08-19
Age : 71
Location : Morphett Vale Sth. Aust.
Re: 2nd DAY: THROUGH THE KAROO TO THE FARM
Stan L Mon 24 Feb 2020, 4:05 am
Cool!!paul wrote:Funny how things pop up ............I'm reading a book by Ted Simon called Jupiters travels . He traveled 63,000 miles through 54 countries on a motorcycle in the late 70s , and the part I just read speaks of him riding through the Karoo in Sth Africa .
Stan L- Posts : 104
Join date : 2020-01-06
Age : 66
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