Project-Zone

Around Lesotho Trip
Bertrand van der Berg
December 2008
1800km in 5days



This is a solo trip that I did not really plan. I just wanted to get away from the Johannesburg rush. I knew I wanted to ride all the way around Lesotho. I did not book any accommodation in advance and figured that finding accommodation for one person should be easy enough.

Day 1

A tar only leisurely ride following the R59 from Johannesburg past Blockhouse to Parys. From Parys I rode to Bloemfontein via Vredefort, Bothaville, Wesselsbron and Bultfontein. Total mileage for the day was around 480km. It was slow going as my new BMW G650 X-Challenge still had less than 1000km on the clock and as per the manual easy and slow varied riding at low revolutions is necessary to ride in the new engine.

Day 2
 
Rest day due to my bike getting it's first service at Speedbike Bloemfontein.

Day 3
 
I started riding south on the N6 through Reddersburg and Smithfield and then turned off to Zastron. After about 200km and just 10km Before Zastron the rain caught up with me. I decided to pull in to Zastron to get out of the rain or at least find a dry place to kit up with my waterproofs. Pulling into the Shell garage I saw two F800GS bikes also had the same idea. Riaan, Deon, Chandre and Debbie started chatting with me and we soon figured out that we all had pretty much the same route in mind for the next two days. They kindly invited me to ride with them (thanks guys it was awesome riding with such nice and friendly people).



After some map reading it was decided we would all ride together to the Telle Bridge Border Post and then follow the dirt road next to the border (on the South African side) over Lundin's Nek to Rhodes. Then followed kilometer after kilometer of awesome dirt roads and scenery. We stopped at a local shebeen with a beautiful view of the Lesotho mountain kingdom next to ask about the road conditions ahead and was promptly persuaded not to take the direct route to Rhodes, but the scenic option via Tiffendel. Well anyone who has done a multi day trip will know that "scenic route" can be translated as very technical and demanding. We slowed down the pace and concentrated through the section up to Tiffendel. The view from the top is magnificent. We made it to Rhodes just before sunset. My new friends with the F800GS BMW's really impressed me with their riding ability over very technical terrain. Each one with his wife / girlfriend as pillion and panniers and topbox as luggage.



Day 4

We set out to ride from Rhodes to Underberg early in the morning. It started out with beautiful scenery and interesting riding over Naudespas. At Eland's Height without really contemplating the choice Deon just led us up the turn off for Pitseng Pass instead of taking the easier road to Maclear. After some technical riding over very badly rain damaged dirt roads over Pitseng pass and some more great scenery that was complete worth the effort we joined the R56 to Mount Fletcher. We stayed on the R56 to Matatiele to get a well deserved tar ride after all the dirt passes.



Feeling a lot stronger after lunch at Matatiele country club we decided to take the direct dirt road to Swartberg and cut out the long loop over Kokstad. This turned out to be a very nicely maintained dirt road that saved us a lot of time. At Swartberg we took the R617 to Underberg.

Day 5

I rode the approximately 600km from Underberg via Howick and back to Johannesburg solo. My total mileage was around 1800km.

This was defintely a great trip and route. I would just suggest skipping Bloemfontein (I could not as I had to have my bike serviced) and rather stop for the first night in Clarens, Fouriesburg, Ficksburg or even Ladybrand.