At 6:30 the mobile phone buzzed us awake, after 7 weeks of meetings, bike fixing and general preparation in a few short hours we’d be on the road again. We were anxious and nervous again much like when we’d left the UK 1 year ago. We wished Petra and Christa farewell and grabbed some fuel before waving adios to Cape Town, for a few months at least and picked up the N1 at exactly 9am.

The sense of excitement of what lays ahead hit us instantly and caught us both off guard a little.

The morning started off foggy and cold, it didn’t matter; we were on our way and heading for an overnight stop on our way to Johannesburg to meet up with BMW, Fuji and maybe Continental. The N1 was the only road we’d see all day and will be with us all the way to Jo’burg. Sitting at around 70-80 mph the whole way we stopped only a few times before finally pulling off to find a Motel at Colesberg at GPS: 30 43 E025 04. We’d clocked up 511 very blustery miles but feel great. Night, night.

Side stands got kicked up and plumes of exhaust fumes bellowed, made visible by the freezing air of the early morning. By 8am we were again on the N1 and unusually cold. For the first time in quite a while we flipped the heated handle bar switch in order to get some feeling back in our hands and had plugged the heated waistcoats in. With our fleeces over the waistcoat we’d forgotten what it was like to ride so encumbered with layers.

The N1 reached out before us in a straight line for as far as the eye could see and with each rise we crested there it was again…very long and very straight. This has got to the longest and straightest road that either of us has ever ridden.

By 1pm we needed to stop, the seemingly endless N1 was sending us to sleep so with eyelids feeling heavy we pulled over and slept for 15 minutes. By late afternoon we’d passed Johannesburg. True to form we’d hit North Pretoria in rush hour and resigned ourselves to join the long queues at traffic lights. With Lisa out of sight and several cars back, I pulled away as the lights went green, quite suddenly Lisa concerned voice rang through the Autocom, “Simon, I’ve been hit, Simon I’ve been hit…SHIT!” My immediate panic was quashed. The fact that she was talking to me meant that Lisa was still attached to the bike and probably unhurt.

Lisa was off her bike and talking to the driver of the car, which had rear-ended her when I got to her. The driver’s foot had slipped and she’d driven into the back of Lisa’s bike, causing little damage to the F650 but rather impressively damaging the bonnet, wing and drivers side lights of her Vauxhall. After initially telling Lisa she didn’t speak English, she soon discovered something very similar and in no time was handing over insurance details and driver licence numbers.

Lisa had been lucky and was more pissed off than anything else. With the bike checked over we’d soon rejoined the traffic and some 15 minutes later were being greeted by Amanda at the house.

Lisa writes: This morning Amanda looked after us so well I was worried that Simon would want to stay and be adopted! After breakfast we all jumped into their very large Ford 4x4 and headed off to find the Zambian embassy in Pretoria – one of the reasons we decided to come to Pretoria. Apparently you can get the visa at the border with Botswana but unless you get a 7 day transit visa you pay the same amount and it sometimes takes 3-4 days – don’t’ fancy waiting at a border for that long.

We headed off to the ‘embassy area’ only to find that the Zambian embassy was in a different location from most of the others –. GPS: S25 44.495 E28 12.391 and that it was closed! Typical. Yet another country celebrating ‘Freedom Day’. Ah well – at least we know where it is for tomorrows trek out. The day however, wasn’t wasted…Amanda then took us out for lunch in Pretoria just around the corner from the embassy ‘Cool Runnings’ GPS S25 45.074 E28 14.015 a very relaxed place where the food is good and cheap.

Back into Pretoria to apply for visa

Out at night to see one of Amanda’s sons’ bands….very good. Very late night – we were meant to be getting up at 5am for a trip to a game park ….but I think that’s off till another day as we didn’t get in till 3am!!

A very lazy day – Simon worked on getting comp stuff up to date.

Heine and flown back from the UK this morning and by 9:30am was pulling into the driveway having been picked up by Amanda. 30 minutes late and we’d bee introduced, what a great guy. Heine’s also motorbike crazy and it had been arranged that we’d take a ride up and through the Eastern Transvaal area of SA. 4 ½ hours later and we were enjoying wonderful fast twisty roads in the hills and making our way to an overnight stop at a Hotel known to Heine and Amanda. Being able to ride without our luggage, at speed and being able to really lean the GS’s over was bliss. The roads are smooth and predictableAmanda refused quit adamantly to take any money from us towards the cost of dinner or the Hotel. A great day with good company.

Not sure what to write here, simply because I don’t want to reuse the same words, great, wonderful, brilliant, exciting, etc. But the riding today was all of those. The Eastern Transvaal really is a motorcycling Mecca. Fast long bends one after another, even the camber of the bends is in the right direction.

Wonderful bends aside, I did have a close call today; Approaching a long left hander, doing around 90mph and trying to catch Heine on his Fat boy Harley, a cow made it’s way up onto the road in front of me appearing out of nowhere from the long grass on the side of the road. I managed to swerve to the right and thought I’d managed to miss it…nope! The back of the bike was spat to the right as his head smacked the front; yes the leading face of my pannier. This means I’d missed hitting him with the actual bike by centimetres. That was too close. Inspecting the pannier when we’d finally caught up with Heine at ‘The Potholes’ showed that the impact had completely warped the pannier. Front, sides and the back were all out of shape. I’d been lucky and the cow must have one hell of a headache.

If you’re in this area try and get to an area called ‘Gods Window’. It’s a mountain view point providing stunning views of the escarpment below. You can find ‘Gods Window’ at GPS: S24 52.595 E30 53.284

‘The Pothole’ are a series of large rounded shapes cut into the rock by the fast river, which runs through this valley. Sorry I forget it’s name but the shapes are wonderful and easily accessible as walkways now cross the river providing good viewing points. The Potholes are at GPS: S24 40.366 E30 48.495

Spent the day working on the web site. Amanda took my pannier into a panel beater who knocked it back into shape. Nothing seems too much trouble for these kind people.

We’d set the alarm for 5:30am…unfortunately it went off on time and by 5:40am we’d dragged ourselves up. Meeting Amanda in the kitchen we downed coffee and woke ourselves up.

Amanda was up, sorting out food for the clan and we were waiting for Albert and Alouise who had kindly offered to taxi us around the Pilansberg Game Reserve.

It was a short hour drive to the parks gate and once inside we settled back and took in the views. Within minutes Albert had decided that following the tracks was for amateurs and that he definitely wasn’t. So, with a sharp tug on the wheel we were shooting off into bush scrub and bushes. An hour later and the going was getting difficult and slow. The fact that all four of us had the giggles having not seen a single bloody animal wasn’t helping. Albert was having a hard time concentrating. It was time to head back to the track.

By mid afternoon we still hadn’t seen any of the’ big five’ (Lion, Buffalo, Leopard, Rhino and elephant) but strangely enough the more they eluded us the more persistent we became. Our time wasn’t wasted…graceful giraffe ate nonchalantly metres away as we passed quietly by and Blou Wildebeest took their time crossing road within touching distance. The lead male was feeling defensive and deciding we were a little to close, came our way. Stomping the ground with his hooves and frantically nodding his head to show us his huge horns was part of the show. We got the message and Albert reversed up.

Magical. Elfin-faced Impala timidly watched on from the safety of the scrub but now and again close enough to photograph. We were in our element.By closing time all the ‘big five’ had evaded us but it really didn’t matter we’d thoroughly enjoyed our day.They’ll have to wait till’ the Serengeti.