Lesotho & more South Africa

Lesotho and more South Africa

A special thanks

Well, we finally managed to tear ourselves away from Matatiele despite the best efforts of friends we'd made there to keep us permanently in the bar! We'd like to say thanks to Margaret, Stan and Kev for making us feel so at home, Mike for panel beating our damaged pannier, Dean for his pop trivia and Shaun, Sam, Craig and Nelly for the pool practice!

Also a quick word for Charles at Tommy Jones BMW in Durban for the excellent service and carbon canned loan bike - gotta have one of those 'zorsts'. And finally Eva at Jo'burg BMW for sorting out the 'Savanna suit' saga.

Lesotho

It was good to be back on the bike. Lucy's knee was well on the road to recovery despite 'Dr Goose' removing the stitches with BIC sterilised nail scissors! She didn't have full movement yet and had to lift her straight leg onto the pillion seat using her hands, then slide across behind me. As I'm already on the bike when this takes place, I rely on the grins of passing strangers to tell me how ridiculous this must look!

We rode around to Wepener on the South West border of Lesotho and having coughed up our 4 rand vehicle tax (that's about 30p!), drove over our first border crossing on the bike.

Lesotho is, on the whole, higher than most of surrounding South Africa, a fact made clear by a drop in temperature and the national dress of blankets - round shoulders and waists. We rode towards the centre of the country, which falls just short of 300km wide. The road disappeared off into the Thaka Putsoa mountain range towards Semonkong. We'd heard good things about a Lodge nestling at the end of the road but unfortunately it turned to muddy gravel with 50km still to go. So we turned back.

Despite the closing weather we enjoyed the twisty ride to the Capital, Maseru. The stepped hills were dotted with sheep, cattle and village huts. Here was a rural community that still used cattle to pull their ploughs and many of the farmers rode horses.

The city was busy with pedestrians and rush hour traffic. After so long on the country roads, it seemed odd to be stuck in a traffic jam and having to avoid other drivers rather than stray sheep and cattle. The wind had picked up and was heaving the bike around more than I cared to deal with and a haze of torrential rain was heading our way from the hills. So we stopped at the first accommodation we could find - which happened to be the five-star 'Lesotho Sun' - shame! We enjoyed a night of luxury, sampled the bars, checked out the casino and ate jellyfish in their Chinese restaurant. That and the view from our balcony, over the city, plains and mountains, justified obliterating several days' budget!

The next day was clear and warm. We rode north through Eyateyaneng (that's easy for you to say!), got road-blocked briefly by a friendly local cop and left Lesotho via Butha-Buthe.

Back in South Africa

First stop was the 'Golden Gate' National Park. Many people had told us about how beautiful this area was and it didn't disappoint. The road ran next to a mountain stream winding through the hills and off into the Drakenburg mountains. Our Michelin Map 'green route' took us past lakes and over the high mountain ridge into the Royal Natal National Park. The scenery suddenly took on the appearance of something out of a fairy tale. Late afternoon mist streaked over the mountain ridge and the trees and grassland became a rich, dark green. We half expected to see wizards and goblins pop up from behind the bushes!

Our accommodation for the next two nights was a thatched hut; one of ten clinging to the hillside and looking out over Tugela Gorge with a circle of cliffs behind called the Ampitheatre. As we sat with our sundowners of Amarula and started up the BBQ, we watched the sun go down and felt pretty good about life.

The next day we spent rambling through the hills, under and over numerous waterfalls until we found ourselves, several hours later, back on the road to our lodge, exhausted and with another 5km to go! Thankfully the ranger drove past and took pity on us, so we got a lift back.

The Boer War

After the beauty of the mountains, we headed for Ladysmith to catch up on a bit of history. We were interested in visiting the Boer War memorial at Spioenkop. While looking around for accommodation in the town, we met another biker at the petrol station who took us to a small B&B run by some friends of his. Doug and Margaret live in a thatched cottage with six dogs and four rabbits - which makes for a particularly noisy arrival! Their house is crammed full of furniture dating back to the Boer War and before. Doug had a special interest in clocks, especially cuckoo clocks - although thankfully he didn't bother winding them all up! We have had enough trouble with turtledoves cooing at all times of the day and night, don't think we could have handled cuckoos!

Doug had a small museum in a bunker at the back of his garden. He had spent many years putting together Boer War memorabilia and had quite an impressive collection. He was also a mine of information.

We headed up to Spioenkop to look at the list of soldiers who died on the hill. Goose was trying to find his Great Uncle who had disappeared during the Boer War, but his name wasn't there. It seemed sad to think of how young so many of the soldiers were. With the First World War hot on its heels, the Boer War has always been slightly overshadowed in the history books.

The following day we left for Johannesburg. The journey was rather dull and Jo'burg didn't have a great deal to offer. We spent a couple of days there just to get the bike looked at before heading into Botswana. BMW provided us with their usual excellent customer service and made our stay in Jo'burg a little bit more pleasant!

Photographs

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