Adventure and Travel

Trail Daze | Fatbiking the Garden Route – Part 2

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The Trail Daze crew continue their bike packing stint along the Garden Route en route to Knysna.

This episode of Trail Daze is dedicated to the people of Knysna and surrounding areas, who were affected by the devastating wild fires during June 2017. Our sincere condolences go out to those who lost so much, in particular, the tragedy of losing loved ones. For the making of this episode, we were lucky enough to visit the Garden Route in all its splendour, and I’m glad to be able to showcase that beauty here. Nature always bounces back stronger than before, and we’re certain that the people of Knysna will persevere to rebuild and strengthen their towns and community once again.
Ewald Sadie

Following part 1 of our Fatbike adventure, we leave the quaint seaside town of Sedgefield en route to Buffalo Bay for our second and final overnight spot. More unscathed, pristine coastline, lined with jagged coral formations greeted us as we enjoyed another perfect South African autumn morning. Seemingly endless banks of black mussels lined the shore with luminous green seaweed breaking the different shades of black and grey. On our left, the tall cliffs that have dominated the skyline for most of our trip started to shrink and we stopped off at one of the caves for a mid-ride snack.

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Approaching the Goukamma river/lagoon mouth, the perfect Autumn temperatures gave way to an angry African sun, and we were forced to take a dip and refresh before doing the final stretch along the tar road to The River Deck. Three options of accommodation are available in Buffalo Bay, two of which requires you to bring your own camping gear, and the other (River Deck) offers a permanent canvas tent setup, good ablution facilities and bedding/towels – perfect for not carrying around too much luggage as in our case. With the sun now on maximum, we pulled into our final destination for the day and proceeded with our lunch-time tradition of ice cold beer and fresh fish & chips.

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Up again at the crack of dawn, we started prepping for the next leg of our journey which would include some fibreglass and paddles. We weren’t yet 100% sure if this would work but proceeded to dismantle our bikes and loaded all our luggage in our very flexible yet seemingly waterproof kayaks. A few nervous paddle strokes later and we were all set and heading off, snaking along the farmlands en route to the Goukamma mouth where we would abandon our water crafts (to be collected again by the friendly people at The River Deck). Cattle and Egyptian Geese kept a watchful eye over us as the first rays of the day popped over the hills and created some amazing reflections. But even the most amazing natural scenes couldn’t hide the fact that we weren’t ‘paddling-fit’ and we soon started to realise this rowing thing might take longer than anticipated. The banter died down, body language changed as the river bent again in the wrong direction. Arriving at the mouth, we were glad to have done this part of the mission, but also relieved to get back to using leg power to continue the rest of our trip.

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Day 3 was absolutely epic, it started off with a fully laden dawn kayak up the Goukama river leading to a perfectly smooth cruise past Buffelsbaai. Things got a bit tougher when we climbed out at Brenton-on-Sea and then crossed the boggy marshlands across to the old railway. A scenic ride across the railway bridge lead us into Knysna where we enjoyed some ice cold beer at Mitchell’s Brewery.
Dayle Holmes

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The short stint along Buffalo Bay beach towards Brenton-on-Sea flew by and soon we were heading up the tar climb into town. A part of this day that I was not particularly looking forward to as the gradient is not very fat bike-friendly. Let alone loaded up with luggage and under another angry African sun. Rolling over the crest however into Brenton-on-lake, we could see our final destination across the Knysna River lagoon, with only a swamp and a bridge to navigate. We followed the ribbons of ’singletrack’ revealed only during low tide, and made our way along the edge of the lagoon onto and across the decommissioned Knysna Lagoon railway bridge. As we rolled through the harbour and straight into Mitchell’s brewery, our mini fat bike adventure had come to an end and there was only one more thing to do…

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The timing of day 2 ended up bang on with it hitting low tide for the duration of our ride gracing us with hard untouched sand which we named the “fat bike super highway”.
Dayle Holmes

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On our last bit of trekking towards Knysna we had to climb over the neck of Brenton-on-sea. It was tough as hell after 3 days of riding with the sun baking down on us at 35 degrees. Ewald was keeping his watts high, I cursed the heavens as Dayle was flatboxing up the hill training for Sani (not really). All worth it though, when we reached Brenton-on-lake we were treated to some boggy-marsh single track goodness!
Danie du Toit

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This project is made possible by:

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RiverDeck GPS: 34°02’02.6″S 22°56’22.6″E

Riders : Dayle Holmes | Danie du Toit

Accommodation:

RiverDeck Accommodation

All images by Ewald Sadie

instagram:

@ewaldsadie

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