Cape Town to Springbok

Day 1 - 22^nd January 2007

The team left Nick & Yvette’s house in Paarl at about 8.00am, and headed straight for the local Shell petrol station for a complete fill-up of all the bikes. We then headed up the N7 north through stunning countryside. Our first major mechanical challenge occurred when Matthew’s “ruggedised” chain guard managed to fall off.

Fortunately it managed to leave the bike with going via the rear wheel spokes. We finally arrived in Springbok in the Northern Cape at around 4.30pm. Managed to find a garage with welding facilities that were able to weld the chain guard mountings back onto Matthews’ swingarm.

Checked into the Masonic Hotel (yep, no kidding). A unique establishment in that it used jet fighter engines to power it’s air-conditioning units (or sounded like it). Beers on arrival followed by a mighty meat-fest at Tauren Steak Ranch, the first time your humble scribe was defeated by a Fillet steak (it was 550grammes,) Nick, Rennie and Glenn indulged in 750gramme T-Bones!!!!.

550 kms.

The very first "comfort break" In order to ward off "numb-bum" syndrome, we generally stopped the bikes every 100km to keep hydrated and mark territory	Yep, everything is a very long way away!	Masonic Hotel, Springbok At least you are guaranteed a Square meal		Main street We managed to find a workshop that was able to re-weld the brackets for Matthews bike here
The steak house	Chateaubriand