There has been more than one occasion when I have thought to myself, “this idea ends right here” — the “idea” being the plan to create a mountain bike route from one end of the Drakensberg to the other.
Here we are at the Ndogwana River, about halfway between Kaapsehoop and Badplaas. There appears to be no way through.
The forestry track we have been on has just come to an abrupt end. I don’t remember ever being on a track that did this. Normally they loop back on themselves, taking you around in confusing circles, but this one ends in a rock-strewn field.
We can see a dirt road on the other side of the Ndogwana and know that this is where we need to be. But between us and the road is a steep fall-off to the river and on the other side are steep cliffs.
Animal tracks on the other side of the river offer feint hope. If animals go down to the river to drink at this spot, we can use them to get out of the valley.
We take our bikes a couple of hundred metres down through long grass and rocks to the river. It has been in flood, the debris showing that we would not have had a hope of crossing here if it had been raining.
We cross the knee-deep water and negotiate past the flood debris. Now between us and our road is a thicket of vines and thorns. Animals clearly drink at the river — some of them are large, based on the prints they leave, but how they get through the thick bush is a mystery.
We will have to use willpower to get ourselves, our backpacks and our bikes through. At one point I am stuck in three kinds of thorns. I can’t move backward or forward. The trail ends here, I think.
But here is a path used by small animals, smaller than both me and my bike. It leads, painfully slowly, to what appears to be an old bridle path. There is even an old lemonade bottle or similar, which was discarded long ago by a litterer, perhaps on his way to the goldfields between Kaapsehoop and Barberton.
The path is in bad need of a panga and saw to cut back the growth that now owns it.
Three hours after we came to the end of the forestry track, we are through the bush and on the other side of the river. We can now continue.
We have a change of crew on this trip. Mike is here, putting the finishing touches to his calamari (a round zero) training technique, which he has been honing in preparation for this year’s Freedom Challenge (Pietermaritzburg to Paarl).
We are joined by Lynn, who is fresh off the Epic. She has told a fellow rider about our adventure, who, horrified that we are making virgin tracks across mountains using just maps and a compass, has loaned Lynn a high-end GPS.
It has a colour screen, but, curiously, since we are mountain biking, no tracks or dirt roads, just tar. This can mean that it is telling us we have a really long way to go till we reach our destination (since it is following the tar).
But Lynn spends a lot of time looking into it and trying to tame it to her needs. At one point I hear her say: ‘I am making my own roads.” The GPS tracks look splendid days later back in Jo’burg on Google Earth, but, since we are making a new route, the GPS has its limitations along the way.
Badplaas
I expected to make Chrissiesmeer on our first day, but the going has been so slow that we have to settle for Badplaas, with rump steaks and milkshakes, complete with hundreds and thousands, and a luxuriant swim in the hot springs as consolation.
But the distance we have covered is not shabby, with us having cycled 86km.
The next day is straightforward. We will cycle 60km to Chrissiesmeer along a dirt road. There will be no navigation issues, no thorns and no rivers to cross.
Chrissiesmeer
This town is on our route for two reasons: one is that this was the historic route from Natal to the goldfields; the other is that the place is really interesting, being home to about 300 lakes with splendid bird and frog life.
Lake Chrissie is billed as the country’s largest fresh-water lake, but I think that supporters of Lake Sibaya in KwaZulu-Natal might have something to say about this.
Something strange happens as you climb out of Badplaas up to Chrissiesmeer. The Drakensberg does a vanishing act. The mountains are clearly there as you leave Badplaas, but by the time you get to Chrissiesmeer, they’ve gone. You are up on the escarpment with not a mountain to be seen.
But I have being studying the relief maps for long enough, preparing for the trip, to know what to expect. There is no Drakensberg here. It vanishes for close to 200km before it reappears on the Mpumalanga border with KwaZulu-Natal.
When it reappears it is another mountain, completely distinct from the one we have cycled so far. It has the same name and performs the same role of showing where the escarpment starts, but that is where the similarity ends.
The northern and southern portions of the Drakensberg are entirely separate ranges, not least in age. The one is large and imposing, rising to heights of 3 000m and more above sea level. The other struggles to get to 2 000m. The one is “super-old”; the other rather young in mountain terms. You may think that the impressive southern range is the older because it is higher, but, as books such as James Clarke’s Mountain Odyssey tell us, it is the other way around.
The age difference is shown in that to get from Haenertsberg to Chrissiesmeer we have come across or cycled alongside six rivers: the Mohlapitse; the Oliphants; the Blyde; the Sabie; the Crocodile; and the Komati. The six have in common the fact that they traverse from one side of the berg to the other. From here on south, not a single river will achieve this feat.
We have a long day planned for our third day, all the way to Rohr’s, a guest farm near Piet Retief. On this stretch we cycle close to the source of the Vaal River. While all the rivers we have seen on this journey so far flow into the Indian Ocean, the Vaal is the first that flows right across the country, after joining the Orange, to the Atlantic.
Near its source the Vaal runs into dams. In the distance we see a power station. A bit later in the day we’ll be in the coal belt, which produces the coal for these power stations. This is a dirt road running south of Panbelt. Giant trucks, with trailers, trundle along this road every five minutes. The road is cambered and at speed the trucks start to move in a sideways action. We get off the road quickly and head into the forest.
Just before Panbult we come across a farmhouse, more or less in the middle of nowhere. We ask for water and find a thriving taxidermy business. Hannelien Hattingh is happy to show us around.
It is all quite amazing really. The dead animals come in and are skinned and boned. The bones are boiled clean and the hides are salted. A form is made to hold the skin and horns and a paint job is applied to recreate the creature as close as possible to what it looked like in life.
The process, which in the case of an eland can take seven months to complete, costs R3 200.
If the abundance of all this dead DNA becomes too much, there is Tinker, a very much alive meerkat, who charms us while we keep our distance, as he has a tendency to bite strangers.
We are starting to run out of daylight hours and, not 100% sure where our overnight accommodation is, we take a wrong turn and end up on the N2, about 40km from where we need to be.
Since we’re touring and have already cycled 110km, there is only one thing to do: reach for the nearest bakkie. Such is the hospitality of farmers that someone stops within five minutes and loads up three bikes and bikers and delivers us to our destination.
Rohr’s
This is the Rohr’s guest house. The country here is very German. The Rohrs, who are fourth generation German South Africans, run a meticulous guest house about 17km west of Piet Retief. The place is comfortable and the food and views are excellent.
Our next stop is Luneberg, a hamlet established in the 1860s, about 50km south of the Rohr’s. Most of the road leading to Luneberg is tar, which we always try to avoid.
I have read of a volcanic crater in the area and am given the name of Horst Filter, who knows about all things Luneberg. Filter tells me that the crater is not volcanic, but after some discussion and to-ing and fro-ing we feel confident enough to make our way through the crater to Filter’s farm, where accommodation has been arranged.
The crater may not be volcanic, but it is spectacular. It is huge at 65 000ha. You are completely surrounded by mountains, the only exit being in the south where the crater is drained by a stream.
Luneberg
We sup that night with Horst and his wife Rona. Luneberg was established by one of Horst’s forebears, a missionary. The family live in a farmhouse built in the 1880s and run a fly-fishing safari business, River Hunter, which specialises in fishing for indigenous species on a catch-and-release basis.
Luneberg is not much bigger now than when it was started. There is a German school which would easily fit in in Bavaria, a general store, an excellent butchery and not much else.
If Luneberg is as big as it was 100 years ago, it suits the locals: ‘We like it that way,” Horst tells me.
Lynn, who has a scientist’s mind and likes things to be predictable and knowable, has been struggling a little, it has to be said, with the concept of our trip. We have studied the map. We solicit the best advice we can locally, but then, in cases, deliberately ignore it.
We do this because our informants have never done what we are doing: going through this terrain on mountain bikes. You can likewise ask motorists for directions, but they go on tar and can’t carry their vehicles over locked gates and little-used cattle track. They also can’t follow tracks shown on maps as no more than a line of dots —
We follow the Phongola River towards Wakkerstroom. We are on farm roads. A gate is chained shut. Which way? asks Lynn. Which way does your GPS show? I reply. We climb over the gate and carry on in the direction the compass (and GPS) wants us to follow.
Wakkerstroom
The valley gets wider and wider; we are using a pass cut for cattle to exit. We take a dirt road to Wakkerstroom, which like Chrisiessemeer, is a birder’s paradise.
This trip will end here. We are guests at Toadhall, a B&B. Also overnighting here is Steve, an American, who flies around the world on a mission to see every single species of the 9 000 birds that inhabit the planet.
South Africa is home to about 400 of these birds and Wakkerstroom is an ideal spot to see many of them. With good lodges, restaurants, coffee and food shops, it is also the perfect place to end a five-day bike trip.
We hitch to Volksrust, where we are booked on a Greyhound back to Jo’burg. This is convenient transport as you simply slip your bike into the hold and three hours later you are back home.
But Mike is in a hurry and hires a minibus taxi for us and our bikes.
There is much to think about on the way back. It has been a splendid trip along the Drakensberg, even if for a day or two there was not a mountain to be seen anywhere.
Accommodation
Kaapsehoop: www.kaapsehoop.com
Badplaas: www.foreverbadplaas.co.za
Chrissiesmeer: www.chrissiesmeer.co.za
Rohrs: Adri Rohrs, 082 634 8914
Luneberg: Horst Filter 034 995 0017
Wakkerstroom: www.wakkerstroom.co.za