GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - It’s every adventure motorbiker’s dream to ride a beautiful, challenging dirt road. Even better when it’s for the first time.
Chris Davies and Tyson Jopson did that on this spectacular motorbike route through the Overberg, in search of the best dirt route between Cape Town and Mossel Bay.
We were about 15 kilometres off the N2 when we first hit the dirt. If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle on a gravel road for the first time, it’s something you’ll never forget – it feels like roller-skating on marbles. We pulled over to let the tyres down for some extra grip. We’re both experienced off-road riders with our own adventure bikes, but with two very shiny and very borrowed KTMs beneath us, we weren’t taking any chances.
With the tyres at optimal pressure (Chris had, just a few minutes previously, inhaled two pies at Peregrine Farm Stall, so I imagined he wouldn’t need to deflate his too much with all that extra bulk he was now carrying), we wound our way south over the Highlands Pass, climbing ever higher above the Elgin Valley before dropping down onto the tarred R43 which links Hermanus and Botrivier.
We weren’t interested in either. Our aim was to get to Mossel Bay on as much dirt as possible so, suffering a five-kilometre tar zigzag north, we leaned into the first right, crossed the Bot River and turned immediately left onto the loose gravel to Caledon.
Confidence in our dirt-riding abilities came back quickly. Chris had the GPS – a Garmin Montana loaded with Tracks4Africa – and rode ahead, leaving me inside my helmet to think about the Romans.
They weren’t the first to build roads, and they certainly never invented tar. But their legacy to modern travel rings loudest. They circumvented tough or challenging terrain in the interest of expediency, avoiding mountains and cutting through hillsides, and racing their sprung carriages above the earth by a few cobbled centimetres. Of course, as history has shown, we quite liked many of the things the Romans did, and today we race around on raised tarmac in modern air-conditioned carriages cocooned in steel, reducing the outside world to glass-faced vignettes that whoosh by. Our bikes seemed more like chariots: open and bare, kicking up stones beneath our boots and leaving us exposed to the elements above, instant and inescapable.
We reached the entrance to Paardenkloof Estate, turned left and picked our way down a steep, rocky trail where a gate barred the way at the bottom of the valley. In a car, the gate-opening responsibilities are clear-cut – it’s the duty of the one without the wheel in his hand. On a bike, it’s whoever caves first. I looked at Chris, he at me.
I caved, figuring there would be more gates later (there weren’t). Rear wheels spinning, we climbed back up an equally steep, extremely loose track, the trickiest riding of the entire trip, and crested onto a graded farm road through golden fields.
Sheep and wind turbines studded the pastures as we cruised into Caledon from the southwest, by far its prettier side. Rounding the back of Caledon along the railway line, we crossed the N2 and were briefly back on tar before finding a dirt road north, then east along Riviersonderend, through gorgeous orchards and into Greyton.
As the last light hit the Langeberg and Riviersonderend trickled away we pulled in at Oewerzicht’s Uitsig cottages – dusty, hot and delighted. We braaied steaks and drank whisky. Our motorcycles heaved like racehorses and ticked and pinged as the metal cooled and contracted.
Early the next morning we set our sights on breakfast in Napier, crossing back over the N2 and into a network of graded farm roads that crisscross the patchwork of farms in the Overberg. It was harvest time. Bakkies left dusty jet streams as workers piled on and off at unmarked intersections.
Photo: Map, Getaway
Sheep ran from the fences, blue cranes swooped into the air, harvesters coughed into life and bails of rolled grass glistened in the early light like yellow boulders.
It’s easy to forget where things come from cereal from a box, bread from a packet, fruit and vegetables cradled in cling wrap with a price tag. Riding the Overberg farm roads makes you remember. From the N2, the patchwork fields may look like a still-life painting but when you’re riding between them, they’re alive. We passed labourers tinkering with tractors, windmills and countless bleating sheep. We spent the morning exploring these roads, leaning left where we’d leaned right, stopping to take photos and discuss the route.
The best way, we discovered, is to cross the R326 and take the drag south-east to Napier, where we pulled in for a bite at Gunner’s Mess.
After coffee and a chat we headed up through Klipdale and back across the R317, following dirt all the way except for a short kink south on the R319. From the R319 it was east towards Ouplaas, where we were told there was fuel. There was: a two-pump Total at Overberg Agri. Filled up, we continued east, following the road that skirts north of De Hoop Nature Reserve.
The scenery changed. Spiny aloes and coastal scrub replaced manicured farms. The road widened and we opened our throttles, the occasional pothole no match for the bikes’ incredible suspensions. Hurtling down to Malgas, chasing the smell of the sea, we arrived on the banks of the Breede River where the last hand-drawn pontoon in the country ferries vehicles across from 6am to 6pm. We paid our R18 each, parked our bikes as directed and watched the operators walk the length of the pontoon, hooking their chains around the tow cable and dragging us a little further each time. Their slow, steady pace was in stark contrast to our recent, glorious dash.
After disembarking the pontoon we continued on the well-graded R324 to Witsand and pulled in at PiliPili, a harbour-front restaurant below the Breede River Lodge. There we wolfed down pizza, with chat at a minimum, as quiet men pushed a boat out into the drizzling bay.
The R322 leaves Witsand to the north and after a few kilometres, we hooked a right onto a narrow, smooth dirt track towards Vermaaklikheid.
The sky was fast turning dark and by the time we got back on the tar, just before the holiday town of Stilbaai, huge dollops of rain were breaking onto our visors. At the Lappiesbaai Restaurant, it was time to make some decisions, eat some burgers and get our rain gear on.
We pulled raincoats over our jackets and wet-weather pants over our jeans. Layered, like onions, we set off, and almost immediately the sun came out. The Inverroche Distillery, just north of town was a great excuse to stop and lose a few garments, and a few rands too (we each left with a bottle of fynbos-infused gin).
The dirt started again southeast of Inverroche and I rode ahead to test a theory I’d been formulating since we left Cape Town: that the throttle of this motorcycle was directly connected to my face. Every time I twisted it, a smile broke out beneath my visor.
After 20 kilometres a splendid detour forked off to the right: a bumpy farm track, twisting through coastal scrub and forest for a heart-thumping 12 kilometres before re-joining the main track and, very sadly, the tar soon after.
By now the sun was plummeting through the clouds towards the horizon like an egg yolk dripping down a kitchen wall, so we gunned it across the R325 and over the Gourits River to Boggomsbaai, where we’d booked a stay at Strandloper Cottage. As the sun disappeared, we discussed our ride. We’d both seen the same things, but what stuck out for each of us differ. That’s the magic of biking, and together we recalled a day’s riding that felt so much longer than sunrise to sunset.
The next day we had breakfast in Mossel Bay and headed back to Cape Town on the N2. It felt hard and unfriendly, and so very, very straight.
Without it, of course, journeys would take days, but on that asphalt conveyor, the Overberg felt so far away. The patchwork fields stretched away from us, there was no dust, no gravel and everything smelled the same. White lines flashed their official directives below our dirty boots.
Signs pointed south to the places we’d seen and I longed to turn at each of them. In Botrivier, we pulled in at a service station to refuel and the attendant asked if he could wash my screen. ‘No thanks,’ I said. I wasn’t ready to wipe the adventure clean. It’s a beautiful thing, to swap four wheels for two, tar for dirt, and re-imagine a way of travel that’s unsanitised, unpredictable and absolutely exhilarating.
