Cape Town to Victoria Falls.

I've recently returned from a fantastic trip with friends.

The initial plan was to set off from Cape Town, up to Johannesburg, cross into Botswana, through to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe then up to the Victoria Falls. From there we intended to then cross into Zambia and follow Lake Kariba before dropping back into Harare, Zimbabwe then on to Mutare in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. We would then drop back into South Africa via Beitbridge and make our way back to Cape Town.

It didn't work like that. Within days of setting off we realised we had set ourselves a massive challenge and we didn't have enough time to go through all the places we wanted to. So we cut out Zambia and the Eastern Highlands for a later date, and travelled from Cape Town to Victoria Falls and back over 15 days. We did just under 7000km, travelling on a mixture of gravel and tarred roads.

It really was a brilliant trip and I wish we could have had more time to do it within. We stopped over in guest houses and hotels along the way, finding accommodation as we went along, which made it fun as every evening the race was on to find somewhere for the night.

We travelled from CT to J'burg over two days, mostly on the N1 and on the way back we did it over one week. Prior to this trip, I'd only ever done a few km on gravel on the tour I did last year. This time round, we did loads of gravel roads and I loved it!!. I had no training. It was just a case of a getting on with it.

There was five of us. I was on a lowered 650GS, Bruce, Jerry and Joerg were on 1200s and Jurgen on his 1200 Adventure.

The bikes



The riders

[G]

Lucky git as ever.

[the_lone_wolf]

V. Cool

SA is one of the most beautiful countries I've ever visited, the folks have strong links and we've been over with them a few times - would love to do London to Cape Town

[Mej]

Originally Posted by the_lone_wolf

V. Cool
would love to do London to Cape Town

+1 that would be epic.

Sound like you had a good trip. looks wicked.

would love to see more pics.

[Quiff Wichard]

gosh Mel you really travelling the world. you doin ace aint ya- espesh after that off and now you riding around like Dr Rich and the Lone Wolf. you be with bloomin Ewan Mcregor next

when was this though? cos when we met up at Bala a while back you had short hair..

We set off from Cape Town at 0930 on a Saturday morning. At this point Jerry hadn't joined us as he flew in to J'burg from Spain. On the first day we did 770km and spent the night in a lovely guest house just outside of Colesburg. Getting to the guest house was my first taste of gravel and how I panicked. It was only a kilometre or so.

I came round a corner, saw a muddy patch across my path and immediately stopped.



After much persuasion, I closed my eyes, held my breath and rode across. I stalled as soon as I got across to the other side.

I look back on it now and I can't believe I worried about it. We later travelled on much worse gravel roads.

The guest house was a lovely place, converted stables.



Joerg in his stable.






The next morning, it was another early start for the 650km to Johannesburg.





Just after passing Bloemfontein we noticed a long queue of traffic up ahead. We filtered to the front only to stumble onto the most horrific RTA I have ever witnessed. A multi vehicle pile up involving an HGV, a caravan, a lorry and a couple of other cars. It had obviously only just happened and was very surreal. I wish I could unsee what I saw. It certainly put a damper on our spirits for the rest of the day.

We carried on and stopped stopped in Kroonstad for refreshments and fuel






Road works along the way. At least we could always make our way to the front of the queue.

We stopped at this church to take in the magnificence of the architecture.

This became a recurring theme on the trip, stopping to take pictures of churches.

[the_lone_wolf]

Those bikes look awfully clean, they better get dirtier as the story goes on...

Originally Posted by Quiff Wichard

gosh Mel you really travelling the world. you doin ace aint ya- espesh after that off and now you riding around like Dr Rich and the Lone Wolf. you be with bloomin Ewan Mcregor next

when was this though? cos when we met up at Bala a while back you had short hair..

Just last month.

Originally Posted by the_lone_wolf

Those bikes look awfully clean, they better get dirtier as the story goes on...

They did.

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by melody

They did.