choosingtangent
New member
Last October (2014) I made a trip to Cape Town South Africa to visit with some good friends. My friend Ian set up a trip to a “farm” called Klein Tafelberg Home in the Western Cape region Sandveld, between the towns of Redelinghuys. and Aurora Ian also hooked me up in Cape Town with a place to rent a Wrangler and we set off for the farm. Ian and Peter in Ian’s JKU, Marius and his buddy in his JKU Rubi and me and my friend Daniel in the Rental JK.
We spent about an hour on the main road heading out of Cape Town then hit the secondary roads toward the ocean… After a beer on a deserted beach… it was all dirt and gravel.
We arrived at the trails late in the afternoon and we immediately greeted by a Hilux buried up to its axles in sand. It was fun watching the guy who owned the farm have to come out to the entrance, drag the Hilux out and give him a lecture on the finer points of adjusting tire pressure.
We got checked in and were directed to out campsite which was two bungalows in the shadow of a huge rock outcropping. Unbelievable! The best feature was the braai pit because nothing beats friend food and a fire, oh yeah, and lots to drink (We won’t get into the brandy induced chair collapse or the midnight Jeep sand drifting) We were set for the weekend for sure.
We convened in the morning and set out on the trail. This turned out to be an AMAZING all day adventure that started with what seemed like miles of brutal sand. I have wheeled plenty of different places all over the world, and trust me when I say that this was a challenge. With the turns prior to climbs and loose dry sand, it was an exercise in judgment, momentum control and appropriate application of tire pressure (0.7 bar was the magic number).
After the sand trails ended with “Heartbreak Hill”, the most capable vehicles (us in the 3 Jeeps and 2 Landys) headed of for the rock trails. Just think crawling through Africa on a Nat Geo documentary and you will have the picture. Don’t get me wrong, there was no overly technical crawling that involved winches, but there was enough skill required that if you screwed up you would flop for sure. You would be hard pressed to find a better way to spend time in a Jeep in South Africa.
Thanks again to Ian, Marius, Dan and Peter for the experience and I am looking forward to you guys coming over so we can do Moab together. And I certainly don’t want to forget the owners of the farm Stephen and Anneli Burger. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for drinking all of the Windhoek in the bar. Seriously, Steven KNOWS off-road driving. Anyone who finds themselves in Cape Town should have this place on their list.
I am posting just some of the pics and a link to a GoPro I made and posted on YouTube . res is not HD because of the file size restrictions. http://youtu.be/jyTgk8cEtRs
We spent about an hour on the main road heading out of Cape Town then hit the secondary roads toward the ocean… After a beer on a deserted beach… it was all dirt and gravel.
We arrived at the trails late in the afternoon and we immediately greeted by a Hilux buried up to its axles in sand. It was fun watching the guy who owned the farm have to come out to the entrance, drag the Hilux out and give him a lecture on the finer points of adjusting tire pressure.
We got checked in and were directed to out campsite which was two bungalows in the shadow of a huge rock outcropping. Unbelievable! The best feature was the braai pit because nothing beats friend food and a fire, oh yeah, and lots to drink (We won’t get into the brandy induced chair collapse or the midnight Jeep sand drifting) We were set for the weekend for sure.
We convened in the morning and set out on the trail. This turned out to be an AMAZING all day adventure that started with what seemed like miles of brutal sand. I have wheeled plenty of different places all over the world, and trust me when I say that this was a challenge. With the turns prior to climbs and loose dry sand, it was an exercise in judgment, momentum control and appropriate application of tire pressure (0.7 bar was the magic number).
After the sand trails ended with “Heartbreak Hill”, the most capable vehicles (us in the 3 Jeeps and 2 Landys) headed of for the rock trails. Just think crawling through Africa on a Nat Geo documentary and you will have the picture. Don’t get me wrong, there was no overly technical crawling that involved winches, but there was enough skill required that if you screwed up you would flop for sure. You would be hard pressed to find a better way to spend time in a Jeep in South Africa.
Thanks again to Ian, Marius, Dan and Peter for the experience and I am looking forward to you guys coming over so we can do Moab together. And I certainly don’t want to forget the owners of the farm Stephen and Anneli Burger. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for drinking all of the Windhoek in the bar. Seriously, Steven KNOWS off-road driving. Anyone who finds themselves in Cape Town should have this place on their list.
I am posting just some of the pics and a link to a GoPro I made and posted on YouTube . res is not HD because of the file size restrictions. http://youtu.be/jyTgk8cEtRs
