The Venda Chronicles

Part 2 - The Return

The team
After my return from the first trip to Venda I had a couple of dicsussions with some fo my fellow riders at the BMW Motorcycle club in Pretoria. We were fortunate in having a few dedicated GS riders that loved touring and camping with their machines. I discussed the posibility of going back to Venda with my good friends Adriaan Scheepers and Gunther Meyer who were both avid GS'ers. Gunther worked for BMW South Africa's development deparment (on the car side) at the time, Adriaan specialised in long term storage of things - lots of things and big things (He's one of those individuals who gets consulted when things need to be mothballed).
From the initial discussions the idea grew. The team ended up as follows: 3 GS's (Gunther, Adriaan and myself) and one Honda XL650 (Uli - a German colleague of Gunther's who was spending some time at BMW SA).
Sanet and Allie (Adriaan's better half) would ride pillion with myself and Adriaan, Gudrun (Gunther's better half) would be driving the support Landrover. Due to time constraints it was decided to trailer the bikes up to Louis Trichardt with an early morning start in Pretoria. Herklaas would join us in Thohoyandou with "Ou Grote"

The First Venda Group, FLtR. Sanet, Allie, Adriaan, Gudrun, Uli, Gunther

The trip
The bikes were all loaded on the Thursday night and we all headed off early on the Friday morning. We got to Louis Trichardt by about 11 AM and immediately offloaded the bikes and got on the road. The trailers and Adriaan's car was left with a local farmer who was kind enough to offer us a place on his "werf" to store the vehicles. I met Herklaas briefly who gave me un update before we set of. This trip would be quite different to the first one we undertook - Herklaas did a fair amount of homework since the frist trip.

The Landrover with 2 GS's and Uli's XL650

Day one would take us along the southern side of the Soutpansberg, the temperatures on this side of the mountain was much more moderate compared to what we would experienc on day 2 . First we stopped of at Thate Vondo state forest and had a look at Lake Fundudzi in the distance. We then moved on to the Phiphidi Falls just outside Sibasa for lunch. The first night we camped at the Venda tourism board's campground in Thohoyandou. Everyone settled in nicely and we had a relaxing braai. - we madee some "bierbrood" in one of the cast iron pots we dragged along on this trip (it was nice to have the extra capacity of a Landrover for the supplies).

Day two saw us up and going by 7:30 - it gets warm early in the day and you want to be on the road before it warms up too much.

From Thohoyandou we followed the main road towards the Punda Maria in the Kruger National Park (R524). At Madzimu we turned of the main road to fill up the motorcycles with petrol and do a last check before we head of into the bush. We returned to the main road for a couple of kilometers before turning of at KaMhinga. From this point on we would run parallel to the western fence of the Kruger National Park for a short while. After a while we turned west and crossed the Levhuvhu river. A few kilometers down the road we stopped for breakfast and a bit of a rest. Breakfast was prepared on a Cadac Skottelskaar whcih Herklaas was carring around with him on "Ou Grote". The roads thus far consisted mainly of single lane dirt tracks winding through the lower hills of the eastern edge of the Soutpansberg. The riding was at a relaxed pase and we had to break frequently to allow the Landrovers to catch up. By midday the temperatures were in the lower 40's and we had to stop often to replenish body fluids - initially in the form of cold drinks.

Time for a rest and a drink

At Ha Makuya we stopped at the Zimbabwe Restaurant and stocked up on some semi frozen beer from the kerosene powered Fridge.

A further 10 kilometers or sodown the road to Masisi we turned of the main dirtroad and headed down a two track road. This piece was the gem of this trip. We were heading deeper into the bush and further away from any settlements. The going was slow but the coutryside was spectacular, Acacia and Mopani trees with the odd baobab tree in there somewhere. The ground leveled out and we had to traverese a couple of dry riverbeds. The tracks weren't used that often and dissapeared in places which called for some instinct riding. After about 5 kilometers of trodding through the bush we came to the Mutale river. This river crossing required us to go through the Mutale at a drift that had not been used in a while - fortunately Herklaas checked it out on one of his earlier scouting expeditions. We rode the GS's through one by one and the going was slow. The river bed consisted more of large boulders than little rocks which called for caution when riding through. Everyone made it through without any mishaps.


The road after the river crossing. This photograph was taken on a subsequent trip with Herklaas going in
the opposite direction.

From the Mutale river crossing we followed a now even fainter track to Sahole Spa. The roads started to improve as we got closer to Sagole and we stopped a few times along the way for water breaks. We stopped for lunch at Sagole Spa after visiting the Big Tree
.

The roadsign on the way to the Big Tree (for a second time)

From Sagole we followed the back road via Mukovhabale to Shakadza where we topped up the motorcycles one more time. We rode back to Muswodi and headed for the main entrance of the Nwanedzi game reserve at the settlement of Ha Folovhodwe.

At Nwanedzi we encountered then first problems for the whole trip, Gunther had the unfortunate incident of forming a close relationship with a "Kameeldoring" with the rear wheel of his GS. Needles to say that the ensuing affair led to an instant flat tire which had to be fixed.

The next morning's entertainment was provided by the resident troop of baboons and vervet monkeys. We tied the pot used for the previous night's "Pap en sous" with a rope to the rear bumper of the Landrover to prevent them from running of with it. They still attempted to run of with it to the amusement of all in the camp. The baboon managed to pick up sufficient speed with the pot in the one hand when the 10 meters of rope ran out and brought him to an abrupt halt. The scene reminded me of some of the Laurell and Hardey movies.

One greedy baboon, a pot, a rope and a bunch of vervet monkeys

The last day's riding consisted of good quality dirt roads. We started of after breakfast and left the Nwanedzi game reserve at the back gate. We rode past the settlement of Mafukani and stopped for petrol at Tshandama where one of the pump attendants asked for some advice on fixing the rear sprocket on his XR200, we pointed him to the motorcycle dealer in Louis Trichardt and kindly mentioned that welding the chain tensioner to the rear swingarm kind of defeats it's purpose. Less than a kilometer down the road we were repaid for our kind advice with Gunther suffering another flat tire. This time there was no quick fix and the tire had to come of the wheel and the tube had to be fixed (Gunther machined the ridges of his GS's rims to make it easier to break the bead. He also ran tubed tires). After about an hour in the shade of a Mopani tree we managed to get everything back together and headed down the road visiting Tshixwadza, Dzambo, Makuleni, Siloam and rejoined the Wyliespoort - Thohoyandou road at Mandala.

Once on the main road we made for Wyliespoort and back to Louis Trichardt. The last day's riding was easy with exception of the tire change that had to be done. This was a great trip and we planned to come back again. I returned two more times once with a group and once with Herklaas after I purchaes the GS Paris Dakar. The last trip to Venda was done with a large group of people and motorcycles. The trip was based out of Tshipise and was fun with less strain on the participants. The trip Herklaas accompanied me with my other GS was pretty much this trip in reverse. The only complication was the fact that the Mutale river crossing had been washed away. After manhandling the one GS through and getting the exhaust filled up with water it was decided that Herklaas would ride around via Mutale and meet me on the other side while the bike dried out. This was the last time the Mutale rivercrossing was attemlted and I'm pretty sure that it no longer exists - especially after the summer 2000 floods in Southern Africa.

Herklaas with the GS's on a later trip at Mavhambo Restaurant.