We covered a total of 4649km. The longest day's ride was on the first day when we went from here to Gonubie, 857km. The shortest stretch was from George to Oudtshoorn and back, 205km.
We climbed from sea level to 1922 m on one occasion.
The most asked question was how fast we rode. We seldom went much over120 km/h, although we went up to 160 km/h in places. Our average fuel comsumption was 20.5 km/ltr.
We saw amazing scenery, from the dry, flat farmlands of the Little Karoo to the lush green hills of Natal. Spectacular valleys, mountain passes and clean, empty beaches. The flowers and plants were numerous and varied and we loved the changing autumn colours of the winelands, after the greenness of the fruit orchards on the way to Cape Town. We saw warthogs, buck, monkeys, baboons, ostriches, donkeys and horses, sheep and goats. Lots of hawks, vulchures, starlings, robins, two pairs of secretary birds, ducks, geese and other water fowl, and many, many birds we couldn't name.
We also had some very amusing moments!
On day one, and knowing it was going to be the longest, we realised an hour into our journey that we had left a gift behind. I've just posted it.
Bruce found out the disadvantage to wearing his great new protective overpants - they zip from hip to feet to cover you and keep you very dry and warm, but stopping for a roadside piddle can be tricky, to say the least
After travelling through the only rain of our journey, we noticed an indicator had broken. The upside to spending a little time making running repairs with duct tape and cable ties was that it gave the rain a chance to blow over.
P.E. was uneventful as far as mishaps go, but we had a good few laughs in George. Bruce and Paul found out that bikes fall over if you wash them on the grass. Bruce also found out that sometimes it's best not to fix what's working, as he tried to improve his repair and blew the replay switch to all the indicators which delayed our trip to Cape Town, because we had to find a mechanic to fix it. He got even grumpier that day after taking a wrong turn and landing up on a dirt road before the Tradouw Pass.
Luckily he didn't have camera on hand when I threw a hissy fit at the garage leaving P.E. I was sure his ear plugs were in the back pack and emptied it on the garage forecourt, only for him to find them in the panier. The same thing happened while looking for his gloves somewhere else.
We got lost trying to find James's new home and ended up in a side street where there appeared to be youngsters handing over things to people quickly through their car windows before the car sped off and another took it's place. We think we may have witnessed drug sales, so we left quickly.
If we have any regrets, it's that we didn't take enough pictures of the people we spent time with. One of our special moments was visiting Bruce's cousin at her retirement home and having her neighbours see us off. They were all in their 80s and said we had made history by bringing a motorbike into the complex. Perhaps next time we'll take them for a ride.
It's a trip we won't forget and we'll soon be planning our next one.
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