Daytrippers

We have been going for 38days now having started at Beit Bridge as planned and headed through Venda across to Mpumalanga,down to Kaapse Hoop,then to KZN and the battlefields before climbing into Lesotho using ponies to scale a mountain before mtbing down a river to Khatse Dam.Here we were unceremoniously chased out by rains that flooded out Semongkong and made traversing unchartered cattle paths impossible.We baled and resolved to fill in this gap when the snow and cold is replaced by sunshine.Bussing around we picked up the trail at the Tele Bridge border post and sloshed our way through wet New England and Wartrail into the Eastern Cape high plateaux before dropping down to Hofmeyer and then across to Nieu-Bethesda and now we are in Graaff-Reinet.The trail is taking shape nicely and is not always straight forward plotting and riding.Today we rode 30km extra at the 50km mark only to find the road shown on the map to be no longer there and had to re-route back and around to get to Graaff-Reinet.This is where the VW sponsored Amarok double cab is invaluable-otherwise we would still be out there!
David and I have plotted about 2400km and still have 2 weeks to go and a few challenging bits to figure out.It has always been fun and having had the company of a few friends for certain sections,it has helped to keep us fresh.Check out our FB on DaytrippersSA,Spineofthedragon and Davids daily blogs on www.spineofthegragon.co.za

Our vision for a national mountain bike touring route is taking shape nicely and riding is superb.The people we have met along the way are fabulous and supportive and the resultant collaboration will ensure endless touring opportunities for all mountain bikers.
ciao for now
Steve