Day 10

Day 10  - 10th day in South Africa - Addo to Knysna

 jump to: Day 9 | Day 11


Our Hotel tonight is at Knysna, some 220 miles. It's been raining all night, pretty much, lightening and thundering. But now its just stopped and the suns out - but the waters still there on the road. Mrs K and I decide to wear our waterproof over-trousers and stick with out mesh riding jackets. Big mistake, but before we can get going, my bike needs attention. It wont start. There's not enough juice in the battery. It just goes 'click'. Fortunately mike-the-fixer has a spare Harley battery stashed on his bus, so within 10 or 15 minutes it's swapped out and I'm on my way. I gas up at the one pump station just across the road and we're on our way. Within just a few miles the rain starts, and it's prolonged.

Today's route is heading south down towards Port Elizabeth on R75, via Uitenhage, and pick up 'The Garden Route, heading west. But it's not much of a 'Garden Route' today, unless it's a 'Water Garden Route', as its raining solid all the way.

We do progress, however, and reach Humansdorp for a stop off at about 11:30.
To Gas up, to take an early snack at the service station's Wimpy bar there. Mrs K and I take the opportunity for a partial change of clothing. Because we started without our waterproof jackets, we soon got soaked through to the skin on our top-halfs, many miles back. We leave now wearing our waterproof jackets, windproof fleeces and dry T-shirts. The wet stuff goes into the the Mike-a-bus. Now we're both much more comfortable and the rain eases off slightly. Not for long -it gets worse. The cloud base this morning is very low, in fact in places I can see clouds surrounding the tops of the bridges over the road, and then at times the cloud base meets the road - and that's when it's very difficult to see where you're going, and the problem of having to look through (rather than over) the windscreen is still there of course,

But the journey does end successfully, in that we do arrive safely at the Greywood Hotel in Knysna, arriving at about 3 in the afternoon. Not the best ride of the trip? You can say that again. It's unfortunate because from the brief glimpses that I got in breaks in cloud cove, as me motored over some the high level bridges did promise spectacular scenery if in more favorable conditions. As it happened today, whatever fantastic scenery, mountains and passes I may have passed today, were in oblivion.

I park up the bike in the Hotel's garage and it's off to the room. The cases are delivered and it's time to settle in. My first thing is .. a nice hot shower. After that I'm feeling recovered. Mrs. K and I find ways to get all the wet stuff dry now, but tomorrow is a 'rest day' so I'm sure we'll be able to do what we need.

To be continued.....

note to self: .....
spell check, check/update details, add photos and video links

Knysna, pronounced Nighs-Nah

 jump to: Day 9 | Day 11