Day 3 - The road out

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When we got up this morning everybody was surprisingly chirpy



Pad once again surprised with even more luxuries emerging from his big GS. He takes "roughing it" to a whole different level. Take note - this is a good person to have along on a trip



We hit the road, but not far from the campsite I noticed that no-one was behind me anymore.



I have been one several rides along this road and people regularly come off on this section. Hopefully this was not the case now

It soon became apparent that they did not simply fall behind, so I started riding back. Between trying to look around corners in case they were coming the other way and worrying about what happened I did not concentrate on where I was riding myself. I hit a rock that threw me off course and then subsequently hit a HUGE rock. It hit me with such violence that it threw the whole bike in the air. Luckily I was able to recover but the damage later revealed just how big the impact was:



It seriously bent some thick steel. Luckily this happened after I eventually fitted the bash plate! And it did a sterling job I might ad. No damage to the bike itself at all.

Riding on I came upon this scene: Dr Dirt had a flat front tyre. He has a centre stand, but most of the weight rest on the front so the back had to be weighed down. He had a lot of chirps about this!

The KTM990 Vingerklip:



Dr Dirt proceeded to fix the puncture while Dusty decided to catch some shade:



Eventually the tube was patched and Dr Dirt inflated the tyre, only to find that it deflated again immediately. Now what? It wasn't long before Dr Dirt sheepishly admitted that he forgot to put the valve back! Haha! Luckily this problem was easily remedied and we soon were on our way.
After an hour in the sun the first stop was the 8 Bells Country Inn for some liquid refreshment Some other bikers had the same idea. They had no dust though.



Smelly bikers to the side!



From here it's a small hop back to George passing the Botlierskop Game reserve.





We said our goodbyes to Dr Dirt, Pad & Dusty and Trailblazer and I headed home where, upon arrival, we found beers lying in ice, wine chilled to perfection and the fire burning! How many bikers return from a trip to a reception like this? When I married this girl I struck gold!



The rest of the day was spent (beer in hand) laughing and telling all about the trip we had. And of course it still wasn't finished While the other riders headed home and had to work the next (Monday) morning, I was going to join Trailblazer via the 7 Passes Road towards Kom-se-Pad






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