Brian lead us into Cape Town to the Harley dealer where we intended to pickup a couple of shirts to document where we have been. But it was not to be as they were sold out of everything except small and XX large, seems there has been a run on them for Christmas. From there we headed to Table Mountain for a cable car ride to the top, 1160 M. From the top we could see across Cape Town. Then down the mountain and ride along the coast roads and back to Brian and Marganne’s. Cape Town is a beautiful city and would be fun to explore if one had the time.

From the bottom looking up at Table Mountain

From near the top, in cable car, looking down

Cape Town from top of Table Mountain

Ride along the coast, road is cut under cliff

Beach, looked like a good place to swim

Ready to ride off from good friends, Maybe somewhere we meet again

All good things must come to an end and we pulled away from the generous hospitality and friends. Headed north to Loeriefotein, where Christoffel and Elzan’s house is. Chris worked in the USA for a custom harvester a few years ago and had contacted me wanting to talk to Americans again. They have a beautiful house, (Elzan had studied interior design) but it is small so we planned on setting up the tent on the lawn but Chris’s Mother was sure that it would be too cold so we slept at their house next door. Chris raises sheep on two farms, one for the winter and one in the summer. They then live about in the middle. We were kind of getting use to being spoiled but left their house the next morning in a drizzel of rain, not normal for here I am told. Back over a real neat pass, (see pictures) and to N7. There was a shorter way on dirt roads but we were told the corrugations (aka washborads) were bad.

Grapes north of Cape Town

Harvested grain fields

Cattle

Straw bales in the field

You find some neat signs as you travel the world, this one kind of says it all in picture form

We have seen many of these wild Ostrich

Worlds largest collection of windmills, see it in Loeriesfontein

They have these Braai grills built in we could use one of these at home

Beginning motorcycle training at the proper age

We traveled north on N7 and made the Namibia boarder by 4:30. We needed to do some bill paying and stuff on internet so stayed in a classy place near the boarder rather than going west 12k to a campground. It was “self catering” means you cook your own food. So with a run to a small store we set up the stove and had good meal. Not as good as we had become accustom to but met the need. Cooked up eggs, potatoes and ham for breakfast the next morning and headed into Namibia.

The steep climb at m/l 10%

Along the way

Another along the way

no shortage of rock

Breakfast by chef Robert

Both South Africa and Namibia were very efficient and quick in getting us through and the Carnet stamped out and in. Only a short way north we turned off on a gravel road heading for Fish River Canyon. After a 145k on gravel/sand road I was exhausted as we reached the Canon Road House. A little about the road, it looked good but had from one half inch to two inches of sand and was very “squirrely”. This is my first experience with this type of road. The rule is when you hit sand to “look up, speed up and stand up”. Two riders on an overloaded GS 1200 make the stand up part not doable but the look up and speed up carried us through with out mishap. The trick was to slow down on the good spots so that if you hit sand you had power to speed up and pull the front tire up out of the sand while you picked a path out about 100 to 200 yard.

Entering the park

Martha fixing lunch on the road

the sandy road, up to two inches of sand in spots

more road

and more road

lots of rock and not much growing

Back to the Road House, after 145k on a gravel/sand/dirt road, some rather brutal corrugations, I did not expect to find a place like this. I had a great time in the old road houses of Australia and expected much the same here. What we found was a class place decorated with old cars and signs. We camped out back with excellent facilities except still no picnic table. For dinner we had escargot and chicken schnitzel. The next evening Martha had ostrich and I had oryx steak.

At Roadhouse

Vegetation management

I think we need one of these on the farm

I think this is a Whezzer, anyone know for sure

Our campsite at the roadhose

Springbox next to the camp site

The next day we rode to the Fish River Canyon about 30 k from the Road house. It is the second largest canyon (after Grand Canyon, US) in the world. Glad we were early as it soon got quite hot. We walked along the rim to a small lookout point where there was a rock outhouse that could withstand anything. Day hikes down into the canyon are not allowed but they do offer 80 k guided hikes that take several days.

Fish River Canyon,

Just so you all don't think we had it to easy, for dinner we had to eat in the garage next to this Chevy

From the Roadhouse we headed north for 137 k to N7 then east to Luderitz. There was an area of cattle ranches (stations) and fairly good range pasture, (our cows would just lay down and die if we asked them to eat the dry grass). As we descended to Luderitz the cross wind was at least 100k and blowing sand across the road. The Patagonia has nothing on the wind here which twisted around the hills and could hit from either side.

Made it out and stopped here to air tires back up for tar roads

After all that gravel/sand/dirt this looked good

Eland standing on the railroad tracks

Sand blowing across the road

Just as we came into Luderitz we passed motorcycle stopped so we asked if he knew a good place to stay. We ended up at “Kratzplatz” a small place run by a biker, we have a frige, stove and wifi, looked like a good spot to stay a couple of days and update the blog.

Luderitz was founded by the Germans (they controlled the area till the end of WW1). The German influence is seen in the buildings and people. It is a town that shuts down for the weekend, stores were already closed at 3:45 on Sat. They did open up for a bit on Sunday but I could not buy beer, another dry day. Plan to head back to N1 and north from here or may take some of the dirt roads north if I can get an idea as to there condition.