Rainbow over the Umfolozi

Having anticipated this ride all week, I was NOT about to let the rain dampen my spirits, so I stayed positive and was rewarded with this rainbow as I hit the N2 from Kwambo, on my way to doing a situation report of the conditions on the river....

Date : 2 June 07

Venue : Umfolozi River Bed

Riders : Craig, Debbie, Liam, Shaun, Steven+ JD, Thaven, Aroon

Bikes : Blast-from-the-past (somewhere in there, there's rumoured to be a Yamaha Blaster 200!), Aeon Crossland 180, Aeon Revo 110, Polaris Trailblazer 250, Honda 250 Fourtrax, Yamaha 700R Raptor, Polaris Hawkeye 300 4x2

After a positive sitrep, we assembled the riding troops in the parking lot of the Umfolozi River Protea Hotel, whose staff were very bike-friendly - they even allowed us to use their showers and pool towels before lunch...

Craig and family had ridden this spot one weekend prior to this ride, and he took the lead, giving us the pre-ride briefings, and fording the first few water crossings.

Steven and JD joined us, after being referred by Sully from Honda Empangeni. They rode atop a shiny new Honda 250 Fourtrax, which proved itself VERY capable, through the dune sections, as well as the watery sections - words like UNSTOPPABLE were being bandied around....

JD spent most of the trip pointing out the deepest sections, and Steven obliged by gunning the Honda through them with ease - With the fun this team had on their first ride with us, I anticipate seeing more pics of them on this site in the near future.

Water, water, everywhere - why did my Raptor have to drink?!

In the first deep section, Thaven managed to partially drown the Rappie, and stressed a bit for most of the rest of the ride, closely monitoring the exhaust smoke. This didn't deter him from having a great time on the dunes and the many flat sandy sections.

Hawkeye to the rescue!

Sadly, I didn't actually manage to tow him out, due to the Hawkeye's rear wheels digging in - so we got a tad wet manhandling the Rappie out of the river's clutches.

This was the last near-drowning on the trip, with all the sport bikes being much more cautious before taking the plunge.

Not your garden variety pot-'O-gold!

Debbie, Liam and Craig

It was interesting that it's been almost 6 months since I first rode with them, at the North Coast Kawasaki Fun day at Eteza back in November 06!

Thaven and Craig swopped bikes for a bit; and had fun doing donuts and drags in the sand. We spent some time in this area, since the river was a bit too full to explore further than about 6kms upstream.
According to Craig, they estimated that they ate up around 16 kms of the river last time.

Craig: My tyres were too soft!

Donuts on 2 wheels are cool, until you wipe out! Fortunately, the landing was soft, and there weren't too many witnesses - but I did manage to get it on camera!

This marked the only incident on a really excellent ride - we will DEFINITELY be back here when the water level drops a bit.

The morning was nicely topped off with a light and leisurely lunch at the hotel, with chats about previous and future rides.

View the rest of the photos taken on this trip in our online photo album