Ride Report : Umfolozi River Ride - Sat 9 August

Team

Pathfinder on his Yamaha 400, Stewart on his Can-Am 800, Allister on his Can -Am Limited Edition 800 and myself on my Kymco 300, all rode from Stewart's workshop in Alton to the Bird Park at Eteza on Saturday.

Getting ready

Short stop before the forest section

20 km point in the forest - check quads for branches that often lodge in the CV joints

Lapa stop for a refreshment

Had breakfast at the 'Bird Park' and made our way down to the White Umfolozi riverbed for some action.

The river as we all know, is really dry while some areas seem to have a little more water. There are ‘pay loaders’ digging up sections of the river bed which makes some areas nonnegotiable, an alternate route must to be sought up on the river banks. Crossing the trenches is misleading as they are deeper than expected...

Kymco after a swim....

Clearing water from the exhaust..

First obstacle was a muddy patch of water, deeper than what it looked. The bigger quads sailed through effortlessly, ...thinking I was on par with them, got a little stuck and before I knew it the seat and rear part of my quad was covered with muddy water. Within seconds I was pulled out and the engine was started with much water out of the exhaust. Oh dear! would she ever be the same again?.......... yes as you see, after draining the CVT, we all rode on.

Its all plain sailing until you hit a patch of black clay like mud which lies below a thin layer of river sand and then you bog down…. as you can see. Much pulling and winching eventually got Pathfinder out and then myself, Much fun was had and laughter afterwards, as I tried to clean, not only my quad, but myself.

Lets try a push and some gas..... = no way's..!

Ouch!!!! ...going nowhere...

Bogged to the chassis

After much pushing and pulling, time for a rest and a laugh

On route back - crossing the same trench of water

Later we left the bird park at 17.30 cold, wet and tired, but needless to say, what an enjoyable day. Yet again I watched as the Can-Am's and the Kodiac refuel, whilst I completed the route on a tank of fuel which was 170 Km's …..very impressive used low range once and completed the route with the "big boyz".

Learnings
Beware of sections of the river bed which have soft mud underlying a thin crust of sand.
Worth another trip on the next weekend. Next time we will try and make it to the 40km river point.

Cya, Shelley