DAY-8 22 December (Arniston to Cape Town)

Assorted video collection from Day 8

Waking up early with the stunning view of the sea from the comfort of our bed coupled with the soothing sound of the waves, and the mild light from a cloudy sky, it was indeed an extra-ordinary feeling for us.

THIS IS WHAT MY AFRICAN SUN-BURN LOOKS LIKE

After yet another elaborate & lavish breakfast at the coffee shop of the Arniston Hotel, we check out and as we are loading up the bike, an elderly lady passing by greets us and comments “Its going to be one very windy ride today folks”.

We slowly make our way out of the serene fishing village of Arniston and a few minutes & few kms later, we could not agree less with the lady at the hotel lobby- It was indeed a very rough & windy day. Cross winds are at their best and an added challenge is the dark clouds looming overhead. I tell my wife on the intercom, we have all kinds of challenges today and don’t be taken aback if we end up in cape town fully wet, drenched & shivering.

Fortunately, after Bredasdorp, though it is still cloudy, the cross winds subside and we have a nice & cool ride on a well surfaced tarmac backroad passing Napier, Fairfield, Akkedisberg pass & Stanford before merging with R43 road heading to the large & lovely whale watching town of Hermanus.

Hermanus is a trendy & lively place with a lot of holiday shoppers out on the streets in a festive mood and the road into town is lined with beautiful homes. All this on the ground, however one look above and the sky was conveying a more depressing message to Mrs & Mr Adventure - Yes, being endowed with relatively fair weather for the past 7 days, today we are going to see rain for the first time on this trip.

As we are getting out of Hermanus, small droplets of rain hit our windshield. As I am thinking that our riding gear is waterproof and can handle some amount of water, suddenly the droplets change to pouring rain as the sky opens up in full form! Now we are wonderfully wet, outside town on a lonely highway with no shelter, and our summer jackets are not really keeping the chills away either. I decide to carry on in rain.

Although there is breathtaking scenery with the sea on our left, we are in no position to take in the scenery and just have to ride on & on. However, soon the pangs of hunger overtake Mrs & Mr Adventure and we take a deviation in Pringle Bay to find an eatery. Again seems our bad-luck is bad today!!! We find a mini-market/grocery type of store and improvise lunch on a table outside while a small board nearby warns us of Baboon intrusions! With the rains, I guess the annoying baboons didn’t want to greet us today, so we finished our lunch (if you call it that!). While I got the table cleaned up, Mrs. Adventure decided to put some positive thinking into this otherwise non-exciting time and  suddenly finds her way into an interesting shop nearby and kicks up a conversation with the extremely friendly business owner, Mariane who herself makes most of the wonderful wax & soap stuff in her shop. We are thoroughly impressed with her work and buy a few of her products. Sometimes at dull moments such as this a few nice words & perhaps a hug from a stranger is all one needs to light up our spirits.

OFCOURSE, THAT’S THE LUNCH I AM TALKING ABOUT ON A RAINY COLD DAY.....

Re-charged in our stomach & mind, we get back on the wet roads with light rain still accompanying us. Infact, on this trip I had great plans to shoot some nice videos/pics etc on the spectacular Clarence Drive (its where a lot of BMW bike and other car commercials are shot), but without proper natural lighting and wet conditions, I fix my GoPro camera on my helmet and shoot a few stretches of the R44 road on Clarence drive with lots & lots of curves, the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the tall imposing mountains on the right. Though it was in wet rainy conditions, regardless we decided to make the best of this serpentine masterpiece of riding. It was pure biking Nirvana with the long sweeping curves with gentle ascends & descends, while the massive atlantic ocean on the left is looking you in the face and the sparse traffic makes you feel you literally own the road. The biker in me was simply ecstatic……especially knowing that this is probably the last stretch of wonderful twisties before we head into Cape Town and finish off the ride.

One camera on floor, one on my nut….!!

Riding the Clarence Drive on a wet rainy day

The unforgettable Clarence Drive finally terminates at Gordons Bay, where we stop for the customary Ice Cream! Sure makes it taste better & romantic in rainy & overcast conditions! Added to that we have just finished an absolutely exhilarating ride on one among the best sport touring bikes on the planet!

Anyways, after the ice cream break and cooling off some of the adrenaline rush, we gun for the highway that takes us back thru the outskirts into beautiful Cape Town with lots of ‘ROBOTS’ to negotiate (means traffic lights in SA!) in the evening traffic. We arrive at the popular V & A Waterfront and then slowly inch our way towards Loader Street…

TEXTING AND DRIVING, VERY BAD COMBINATION!

Arriving at our base camp- 17 on Loader, what a great feeling to have done an absolutely enchanting ride of about 2000 kms thru the western cape of the rainbow nation thru varied kinds of landscapes, terrain, climates, foliage etc etc. 

BRAVO, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED…...

AND, THAT’S SOME OF THE STUFF WE CARRY IN THOSE BOXES….

After unloading and washing up, we head to the Kaprinos restaurant for a buffet dinner. Well, the food was excellent, but you have to wait in a line of 60-70 patrons before you get your shot at the buffet counter. At Rand 99 per person, its an all you can eat affair and is good value for money esp with seafood like calamari and shrimps galore.

We head back on foot to our B&B on Loader Street enjoying the wonderful cape town climate and end the day with some well deserved sleep.
Total distance traveled today, 276 kms.