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Blog 6 by Tan: In the Shadow of Moshoehshoe

After entering Losotho we headed straight for Katse Lodge overlooking Katse Dam, where upon entering we were greeted with a glass of fruit juice complete with coloured sugar around the rim, offered up on a silver tray. The sugary drink served to replace the energy expended on the ride in and also to reinforce the point that we had almost certainly arrived somewhere outside our budget. We winced at the cost of $50 per person for their cheapest room, a twin room with shared bathroom in to old dam builders barracks. But having drank their commitment-juice and bought dirt and their lobby we felt obliged to stay. Turns out the price included a pretty excellent 4-course dinner so between that and the views over the dam we couldn’t complain.

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Tan on route to Katse Dam probably stopping for a lolly break

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Views over Katse Dam

The next day we did a tour of Katse Dam which had us taken from the top to the bottom of the wall and all the way into it for a couple of hours for the grand total of $1 each. The dam was pretty impressive to behold at 185m high and 60m thick at its base and Michael seemed to have enjoyed getting an engineering fix.

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Photo of Katse Dam taken before embarking on our $1 tour

It turns out that Lesotho’s biggest industry is water, which it sells to South Africa along with the bulk of the electricity generated. This naturally upsets people a bit and looking at the photos in the blog you’ll get a sense as to why. Lesotho struggles with water shortages and semi-regular droughts. In fact, no water has gone over the dam’s causeway for three years. And if I had a dollar for every time I saw someone traipsing up a mountain with a bucket of water of their head I’d have enough to stay in the fancy rooms at Katse Lodge for month. People complain that the government sells off resources the country needs, pockets a lot of the proceeds and fails to put any of the money back into improving the lives of the locals. That old chestnut. For all the beauty of Lesotho there is no kidding oneself that it would be an easy place to live. Life in Lesotho even from the back of a motorcycle seems bloody hard. The only thing that would make me choose to live life on the land in those mountains would be to escape marauding bands of murderous Zulu, which was, incidentally, the reason why people moved up here in the first place.

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Yet more incredible views

The story they tell in Lesotho goes that the people that went on to form the Basotho nation got sick of being near annihilated by the Zulu who were by all accounts pretty terrifying in a fight. So to the mountains they fled. The leader of the Basotho people was a guy blessed with the inordinately cool name of Moshoeshoe (mo-shweh-shweh). Moshoeshoe wasn’t at all into war and employed the ‘can’t we all just get along’ style of rule. He united the warring clans, giving everyone land and cattle. He was the forgiving type too, even when it came to cannibals who ate his granddad. A Basotho lady told us how, upon catching the anti-social cannibals who dined out on ol’ granddad, he gave them some land and cows and told everyone else to be kind to them and show them how to fit in to a peaceful, not so human consuming kind of society. I suppose that was what he had to do with the cannibal misfits in absence of an island territory like Tasmania to exile them to like the Australians fortunately had.

Our visit to Lesotho coincided with a bit of a military coup type situation that made it apparent that Moshoeshoe’s reported peace loving tendencies were not inherited by the contemporary leaders of the country. But we’ll get to the coup in the next blog.

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Yet another incredible mountain pass

After Katse we travelled the amazing mountain roads to a town called Roma where we stayed for a few days of rest and relaxation. While sadly the roads were all tar they did come with the extra challenge of having no lines or road markers. On dramatic, windy mountain roads like these, it made for some rather abrupt and exciting decelerations around sharp corners overlooking what would be a scenic though guaranteed death.

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Off to see dinosaur footprints with kids from a local community centre

While staying in Roma we met a couple of young German kids who were at the beginning of a year’s stint working at a community centre. Through them we learnt about some of the harshness of modern life in Lesotho. Riding through the country we had seen what seemed to be a disproportionate amount of funeral parlours for a country of it size or any size really. It seemed that at least 1 in 3 businesses outside of the capital were funeral homes (most of the others are liquor stores or taverns) and they were certainly the most impressive looking structures in most places. Death it seems, is big business in Lesotho. The AIDS rate here is approximately 25% which makes it third highest rate of AIDS in Africa with Swaziland and Botswana ahead of it – granting the tiny kingdom a bronze medal in the world’s shittiest contest. It certainly fits with what we were seeing as we rode past small villages. You would see plenty of children and a few older people, especially older women, but the middle generation was conspicuously absent. They have lost an estimated 200,000 people to AIDS related illnesses reducing their population to just 1.8 million. Sad stuff and especially disappointing considering the huge number of NGOs in operation in Lesotho. Lesotho is 80% Christian and it seems this fact has contributed to the large scale of foreign and especially American charities operating in the country. I was told by a guy working there that there are more NGOs per capita in Lesotho than anywhere country in the world. I’d believe it.

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Mick surrounded by enthusiastic children – clearly in his element

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A rare photo of the two of us together and out of motorcycle gear

We joined the Germans for a walk with the kids from the community centre to see some dinosaur footprints which seem to be all over the place in Lesotho. Most of the footprints are said to be about 180 million years old and most of them are just sitting there without any signage or commercialisation. We hiked up to the top of a nearby hill with the kids. One feisty little guy informed Michael that he’d be sitting on Mick’s shoulders for the duration of the hike and Mick, figuring him to be a tenacious fellow, judged compliance as the easier path.

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So children – much cuteness

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Some kind of dinosaur footprint and a little girl with a killer smile

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Another stunning kid

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I didn’t do a single paleontology subject in my geology degree but if I’m not mistaken these are the footprints from a juvenile male Seagullasaurus

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Yep, these were defiantly not made by humans

Earlier in the week we had heard about an enduro race that’s held in Lesotho every year called the Roof of Africa. Turns out the guy who owns the place we were staying is heavily involved in route planning for the race. Ashely’s family had been living in Lesotho for 5 generations and had the admirable passion for growing the country’s profile in tourism terms. He has the idea of building a world-renowned trekking route through Losotho modeled on the Annapurna/Everest base camp like treks of Nepal. An awesome idea.

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Peach blossoms were in bloom all over the place in Lesotho

Seeing our interest in the Roof of Africa he offered to take up along to scout out some of the possible trails for this year’s event. We jumped at the chance to go scope out some of the trails with him. The Roof of Africa (the Roof) is known as one of the most extreme enduro events out there. After checking out some of the routes for this year’s event I am not at all surprised by this. Nasty, steep, never-ending, whole other level of rocky, rocky trails up and down mountain sides. Absolutely gnarly hellish looking stuff. On the right bike and almost certainly in retrospect, it looks like it would be a lot fun. From the looks and sounds of things this year’s event is going to be a killer. It starts 3 December for those interested.

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Hiking up potential Roof of Africa routes – these pics don’t come close to showing how harsh the terrain was

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The route designers had the philosophy that nothing is too hard for the Roof but it could be too prone to bottlenecks

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The guys in charge of the route were encouranged seeing horseshit on the potential routes – employing the philosophy that if a horse can get up the path then some nutter on a bike can make it up there too

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With the routes for the bronze, silver and gold categories for the Roof largely sorted out we made our way back to the car – thoroughly knackered

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Country in desperate need of rain

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Little dudes posing demurely for the camera

Another one of the guys in charge of route finding for the ‘Roof’, Justin, owns a motorbike shop in Mesaru called Cycle Centre. Before continuing our journey through Lesotho we needed to source a new front tyre for Mick and service both the bikes which were at 5000kms. After much too-ing and fro-ing Mick decided on a Mitas E07, which although we’d been satisfied with the E07s on the rear, was a disappointment on the front. With of bike maintenance complete we hit the road in search of more epic views. The south of Lesotho naturally obliged…..

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Mick’s flogged out front tyre a Dunlop 606 all the way from Australia. Funny how my tyre had the same amount of kms but nowhere near the wear – curious-er and curious-er

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Justin and his garage

Blog 5 by Mick: Return to The Mountain Kingdom

We woke more rested but found our room at the Amphitheatre Backpackers had been booked out that morning, so we moved to the campground as we were still in need of some quiet time. We settled in for a couple days of chilling; with me reading, writing blogs, and admiring the views of the Drakensberg with a beer or three, while Tanya was far more disciplined and used the time to do some study. It was a good time to be inside as the westerly wind was hellish and our tent flapped like crazy.

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Setting up camp at Ampithetre Backpackers

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Sunset wasn’t half bad

Some interesting characters materialised, one being an aussie fella, Liam, on a 1981 Yamaha XT500 which he had just bought and wanted to ride throughout Africa. He was also an avid photographer and offered many of the guests a free lesson in nighttime photography as conditions were near ideal; the moon set early and we were in an agricultural area with minimal light pollution.

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The Milky Way in all its glory

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A fire on a local hill made for spectacular photography

Liam’s XT500 wasn’t running particularly well, at full throttle it was protesting loudly with lots of backfiring. We did a bit of investigation, pulled the plug, checked the air filter and did a couple test rides; it seemed it was running a bit rich so we did a poor-man’s rejet and removed the cover off the airbox. The bike ran better so we assumed we were on the right track.

The following day we figured we better go see what this old XT was capable of, so I plotted a route of interesting looking local tracks on the GPS and off we went. Alarm bells should have rung when we started going through a few farm gates, but I assumed that if the tracks were plotted on the map (in this case the GPS) they must be public access, farm gates or not, much like many station tracks are in Oz. Just leave them like you found them and all is well.

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About to hit some trails on the XT500

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that’s not quite right though. After about half an hour on some really nice trails we ran into a farmer who was very, very confused as to who we were and why we were there. He let us move on once he realised we were dumb tourists and pointed us in the direction of the main road. The magnitude of our folly crystalised as we arrived at the back of a quite high-end accommodation village called Little Switzerland, complete with rows of European style cottages which were just like the cottages in Isle of Wight-(click to read more) and a couple Zebras. We amused the security guards greatly as we appeared from nowhere and exited past the guardhouse and through the boom gates.

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Just gone through a farm gate on the way to Little Switzerland

We pushed on up Oliviershoek Pass and out to Retiefklip, a small memorial for early settlers who travelled through this way from the Free State and down to KwaZulu Natal. The XT was behaving itself and was managing the dirt roads without a problem so we followed a sign out to Retiefpas with a hope of finding an interesting way back down the escarpment. There was a small trail plotted on the GPS but it didn’t seem to join up with the road, but maybe with some investigation we could find a way.

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Bikes at Retiefklip

Unfortunately there was no way down we could see at Retiefpas, which was confirmed by a grumpy farmer at the end of the road. We turned back the way we came, but not long later the XT disappeared from my mirrors. I turned around and found Liam stopped over a large puddle of fluid a few metres after a 200mm high square edged lip where the dirt met the tar. Oh shit, this isn’t good.

Thankfully my initial thought that the bike had cased out and cracked the crank case wasn’t the case at all. Liam had slowed enough to avoid that, but the sharp hit had caused the float mechanism in the carburetor to unhinge and fuel was leaking everywhere. It was starting to get late so we decided to tow the XT home, which was about 25kms away including the descent of Oliviershoek Pass.

We didn’t get home without incident however, at one stage the XT got out of alignment and the DR went over the towrope, wrapping around the rear wheel and snapping. Thankfully no damage was done to the bike, and after cutting the rope from the rear hub, we got underway again and the DR tractored away and lugged the XT home. Liam shouted the beers that night.

We pulled the carb apart the following day and fixed the float, checking the main jet and needle while we were in there. The cause of the rich mixture was found with the needle lifted nearly as high as it could go. Some owners are so damn clever sometimes, especially when it comes to making “power”. We dropped it to the middle of its travel, gave it a clean and had the bike running sweetly again.

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Liam with his carb in bits

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I took the opportunity to reverse my front tyre which was wearing unevenly

That night while everyone was enjoying themselves after dinner, two quite drunk and quite large local farming types turned up (driving, it should be mentioned) and looking for trouble. They unsuccessfully tried to pick a few fights and when asked to leave, robbed one of the vehicles in the carpark after trying to break into some of the rooms. When confronted by the owner of the bakky (ute) which was robbed, they attempted to run him over. Twice. Caught in the act, they raced off and clipped the gate on the way out. With all that excitement, it was time for us to go.

We all hit the road the next day, Liam heading north on his XT and us heading west. We made our way back up to Witsieshoek, where Barbara and Jan, the managers there, remembered us and once again looked after us very well. During our flying visit to the Sentinel with Charlie the week previous, we had decided had to return. We had been told there were some great hikes with chain ladders and we figured we better see them.

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Liam all packed up and heading to Ladysmith on the old girl

We settled in with a few rums, a fantastic steak and caught up with the news. To our great concern, we learned of a coup de etat in progress in Lesotho, which we planned on entering in the next couple days. This was quite worrying, as there were reports of police fighting in the streets with elements of the army who were attempting to overthrow the government.

We had a wonderful nights sleep in the suite that Jan and Barbara had upgraded us to, and made our way up to The Sentinel carpark in the morning. With little real knowledge of where we were actually going, we set off up the trail, which must be said, isn’t particularly well marked. We had left under the assumption that the chain ladders are used to climb The Sentinel itself, but after about one and a half hours of following our nose, and then about 15 minutes or so of backtracking to find the trail to the top of the Sentinel, we realised it doesn’t actually exist. So we carried on, found the chain ladders, and finished the hike at Tugela Falls at the top of the Amphitheatre.

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Hiking trail below the sentinel

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And some more

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Tan on a tricky bit, the trails were a bit rough

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Tan on the first chain ladder

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Me on the second chain ladder

We relaxed at the top of the falls for half an hour so enjoying the spectacular view, when a group of young French guys arrived and we got chatting. They had planned on touring Lesotho, but had recently been advised by the French Embassy in Jo’burg to not enter due to the political instability. That night we had a good chat with Barbara and Jan about the situation, and as they seemed not overly concerned by it, we resolved to get some reports a little closer to the action before deciding whether to abandon the Lesotho leg altogether.

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View from the top

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Chilling in the sun

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The walk back down

We dawdled the following morning as we endeavored to get the blog to upload. Reliable internet has become a perennial struggle for us – it was one of the reasons we stayed so long at Amphitheatre Backpackers and left so frustrated, their internet was horrifically slow and hideously expensive. Thankfully Witsieshoek was better and got the job done, and our delay meant we ran into a local fellow who stopped for a cuppa.

We chatted with Mark about Lesotho and he mentioned the “Roof of Africa” Extreme Enduro, a tough offroad motorcycle race through Lesotho’s rocky passes which he had competed in a number of times. Talk of the race peaked our interest, so we checked out the website and found on the ground and up to date Lesotho info and news articles on their facebook and twitter feed. A quick look there confirmed that all was quiet in the capital Meseru and we decided to go have a look at the border the following day.

We left and rode out to the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, the location of the Besotho Cultural Centre. We did a tour there, learnt about Besutho history and culture, dressed up in cow hides and blankets, drank some traditional sorghum beer, ate some sorghum porridge and quite enjoyed the visit, not so much the sorghum.

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Milling sorghum by hand

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Witch doctor can tell your future from some bones for 30 rand. I passed up the opportunity……

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Tan getting dressed up

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Traditional Besotho house interior

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Look, there is a picture of Thomas Jacobson

The ride to Clarens through the NP was stunning, a great road past overhanging cliffs of wonderful oranges and reds, including spotting a herd of Zebra. Clarens was an eye opener, a lovely little town on first sight and very reminiscent of Hanmer Springs in New Zealand with a very touristy village feel. The backpackers we stayed in was an eye opener too. The walls between the toilet cubicles were about waist high giving a quite communal, community feel. And Tan got the fright of her life when she found a fellow traveller sitting in his car checking if his pistol was loaded. Rest assured we slept with the doors and windows locked.

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Lovely views in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Our planned ride the following day was only a few hours so we took the time in the morning to check the bikes over and lube the chains. We found Tan’s bike low on oil and I was in need of more antihistamines. The westerly winds that had started a week earlier were playing havoc with my sinuses and I had quickly consumed our meager stock of medication.

We rode through to Caledonspoort, a major border post in the north west of Lesotho. Everything at the border was functioning as normal so we were happy to enter, however we hit a hiccup when we got to the Lesotho side. Our immigration official was very unhappy that hadn’t gotten stamped out the previous time we left the country through Monantsa Pass. We had been advised by some locals who had used this route previously that when re-entering Lesotho the next all that was needed was an explanation that you had exited stampless through Monantsa and all would be fine.

This is not so.

Our official was a very grumpy lady indeed that we had left this way unstamped and put us in the naughty corner to wait for her boss to return from lunch to decide what to do with us. We pleaded ignorance and begged for forgiveness but weren’t overly concerned, we could always just head back into SA, and settled in for our estimated hour and a half or so of time-out before the big boss would return.

15 minutes later the lady called us back and stamped us through, her patience was a little feebler than ours. Two foreigners camped up in the middle of immigration reading books would be rather annoying I would assume. So we were told to have a good hard think about ourselves and promise to be good next time. We got our visas and made our merry way, returning to the mountain kingdom.

Blog 4 by Mick: The Roof of Africa

We woke still quite stiff and sore from our exploits at KwaGengeshe the day previous, however it was a beautifully sunny and still morning and we were all excited about what was to come. After fueling ourselves and the bikes, we all had a bit of fun and a blat on the rough track to the South African Border Post at the base of Sani Pass. We got our exit stamps and a few envious looks from tourists who were about to make the climb stuffed like cattle into crowded four wheel drives.

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Looking up towards Sani Pass

The tight and steep switchbacks towards the top of Sani Pass had worried Tan on our previous flying visit to Sani Top, the weight of the DR’s being a lot to handle at such slow speeds. But to add to the challenge, this time we were fully loaded with all our possessions, and 30 litres of fuel to boot. Lessons had been learnt though and everyone made there way to the top incident free; Tan whooping it up on the intercom as she successfully negotiated the last tricky hairpin and sighted the Lesotho Border Post.

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One of Charie’s photos of me on one of the switchbacks

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Fred near the top in the tight switchbacks.  Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do the gradient justice

We got our stamps and headed for the pub, as you do when arriving at Sani Top. That our watches only read 10am was irrelevant. After some chats, photos and a chocolate infused milk stout (one of those things that has to be tried), we hit the road, or what was left of it after the Chinese road works crew had done their thing. The Chinese are investing in infrastructure all over Africa, generally in exchange for favourable business and trade deals, many involving access and rights to minerals. And here they were at the Roof of Africa destroying the rough and steep tracks that fill the dreams of adventure riders the world over and replacing them with the nightmare that is boring tar.

On that note, there is talk (and apparently has been for quite a while) of sealing Sani Pass from top to bottom. The tourist operators are resisting this development as the state of the pass, and Lesotho’s neglected roads in general, are a tourist attraction in their own right. This sparked a serious discussion among us, should the business operations of a few affect the ease of transportation of many? Submit your answers in 500 words or less.

Anyway, a serious message to advriders: get to Lesotho now, before it is too late.

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Tan enjoying the view from the top

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Some local Besotho boys busting some phat beats

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Young fellow with a homemade fencing wire truck

We motored over Black Mountain Pass; all of our bikes struggling in the thin mountain air above 3000m. The cold weather system that had crossed South Africa a few days previous had left snow on the high peaks that made for spectacular views and some great photo opportunities. On our descent, Fred was forced to turn around and head for home due to work commitments the following day. Unfortunately no amount of peer pressure, emotional manipulation, or encouragement to “chuck a sickie” could sway him.

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Snow over Black Mountain Pass

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Last efforts to convince Fred to stay with the party

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400 needs a push…

We rode on to the first major township of the northern route across Lesotho, Mokhotlong. A remote centre in the north-east of Lesotho, Mokhotlong is full of Besotho in traditional dress of woolen blankets and straw hats, many on horses or donkeys. While everyone we met was friendly and polite, and most kids waved as we rode by, our observations of Mokhotlong suggested the vast majority of business enterprises were Liquor Stores and Taverns set up in roughly made shanties. It seems the vices that ail the poor and disadvantaged are universal the world over.

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The road to Mokhotlong

We stopped for some lunch that arrived at nearly dinner time, our pizza chef by all accounts had a watch set to Africa time minus a few hours, which he had then broken. And then lost. We found some very basic local accommodation and made a plan to hit the road early, our untimely encounter with the worlds most casual pizza chef had meant we hadn’t got as far as we had hoped.

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View from our hut

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Tan went for a ride on Charlie’s XTZ750 and loved it

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All smiles

The sun rose at 7am and we were on the bikes at 7:30, all three motors protesting against starting in the extreme cold much as we had done when the alarm went off half an hour earlier. While the thermometer on our speedo’s is a little unreliable, the reading of -5C that morning as we started riding seemed about right and was confirmed by the thick blanket of frost on our seats.

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…cold…

We hit the road with our heated grips set to “inferno” and headed west. Two and a half hours later, after spending more that 50kms above 3000m and travelling past Lesotho’s only ski field, we stopped for morning tea at Oxbow, a small settlement only 110kms from our start point. Such is the slow nature of travelling in Lesotho, ~50km per hour on a motorbike is normal. In a car it is 30 to 40.

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Section of road above 3000m. Also cold

AfriSki, one of two ski fields in southern Africa, is probably our most sobering sight so far in Africa. A single 700m long, 40m wide, low angle run of man made white slush serviced by one t-bar sent us to a new emotional low. Like a gruesome traffic accident, it was hard to look at, but harder to turn away.

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This is when you know you’re really in the 3rd world…

Past Oxbow the road turns to tar and we had a blast on the winding road that culminated at Moteng Pass. There, I pulled over for a photo opportunity and to regroup our party and was followed in to the lookout by a modern duel-cab ute with some sign writing down the side. “Ahh so, perhaps I was having too much fun through the twisties” was my initial thought.

Out popped a South African fellow who introduced himself as Gary aka Mr Zog. The week previous I had introduced Tan and myself on South Africa’s adventure riding forum, WildDog.co.za. Mr Zog, who works at a large diamond mine in Lesotho, had given us some on-the-ground information regarding the cold snap that had frozen the highlands for a few days. He had recognized the bikes and stopped for a chat and a few photos of the awesome views of Lesotho’s “lowlands” (their words, not mine) from the pass.

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Gary aka Mr Zog, Tan and I at the top of Moteng Pass looking at the Lowlands

The temperature rose dramatically as we descended to the base of the pass. We turned off the main road towards Monantsa, a remote pass in the northeast corner of Lesotho. The rough dirt road wound along the valley of the Caledon River and made for spectacular views and riding. The saying of the afternoon was definitely “How good is this riding?”; Charlie, Tan and I continued to ask one another in exasperation just incase the ask-er was hallucinating or the ask-ee (I think I just invented a word) was somehow riding with their eyes closed.

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The bottom of Moteng Pass

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The road hugged the side of the valley for many kilometres

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Tan in the Caledon River Valley

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Getting further up the valley

We rode through remote villages that obviously don’t see many tourists; we met many kids with mouths agog, some begging for sweets or money when they came to their senses, but most just waved and smiled and chased the bikes on foot as best they could. The pass itself was very steep and thankfully concreted as it would have been a real handful unsealed. We came to the top and were greeted with fantastic views of South Africa.

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Charlie and one of many small villages.  Some of the grass had dried into a surreal purple colour

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There were a few little creek crossings

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Some rudimentary transportation. And a donkey too… (joking Charlie 🙂 )

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Tan getting to the top of the pass and off the last bit of concrete

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Not half bad view from the top

With no Lesotho Border Post at such a remote pass, we entered straight into South Africa and rode down to the township of Phuthaditjhada where we were greeted with high razor wire fences and litter. We left as quickly as we could refuel the bikes and made our way towards a simple backpackers at the base of the Sentinal, a striking rocky peak in the northern Drakensburg accessed by a paved road, literally paved with pavers, with incredible views.

The backpackers turned out to be more basic, more rudimentary, than simply “simple”. An old brick building of a single dorm with lifting lyno floors, old and sagging bunk beds, many with no mattresses, and a long drop was all that constituted the establishment. But at R65, or less than $7 a night, and with views to kill for we weren’t complaining.

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The Sentinel from the backpackers carpark

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The road to The Sentinal. It was ok……

On the way to the Sentinal, we had ridden past a small mountain resort called Witsieshoek, and we decided to backtrack slightly and enjoy a proper dinner and maybe a soothing ale at the restaurant before crawling into our sleeping bags for the night. Once there we settled in with a Windhoek Draft and got chatting to the managers, Barbara and Jan. They listened to our tale and offered us their hikers hut, complete with actual beds and showers, for the same price as the “backpackers” up the hill. We gleefully accepted and our tired bodies relished the hot showers.

The final episode of our riding escapade with Charlie would be Bezeidenhouts Pass, a little known technical descent down the escarpment that constitutes the border between the Free State and KwaZulu Natal. We got to the pass after riding some lovely farm tracks, some of them eerily reminiscent of Australia; Eucalypt lined dirt roads through brown paddocks.

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Farm roads to Bezeidenhouts Pass

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Tan and I at the top

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Charlie too

Bezeidenhouts Pass is best described as an unmaintained and heavily eroded farm track down the steep escarpment. The top of the pass was very loose but didn’t pose too many problems. At the first major obstacle though, we all had to stop and plan our lines down the considerable drop-off. Negotiating these drop-offs, and there were quite a number of them, took a fair degree of planning and commitment on the loaded up DR’s. The 10km of the descent took about an hour to complete.

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The top of the pass. Rocks and drops for 10km

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Tan negotiating one of the earlier drops

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And another

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Picking lines at one of the more serious obstacles

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Yep, it was a big drop

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Charlie at the top…

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…and bottom

Tan was visibly relieved when we got to the bottom, Bezeidenhouts easily being the toughest riding we have done so far and bloody hard work on the loaded bikes. We finished the days riding a bit after midday at the nearby Amphitheatre Backpackers, however we were denied the right to order lunch until after the uber-intense manager had finished his quite regimented introductory spiel.

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Success! At the bottom with the gate closed behind us

Once granted permission to have some food, we exchanged videos, photos and farewells with Charlie and he hit the road for Howick and his family and we settled in for some well-earned rest.

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