DUST HORIZON
How do you explain the Karoo to someone who doesn’t know it? Maybe with the geographical facts: It’s vast; starting near the sea and eventually fading into the red dunes of the Kalahari and the grassland of the Free State, almost all the way to the Drakensberg. Will the person you’re speaking to believe you when you say that there are scenic back roads and mountains, and rivers when it rains? That you can almost hear the earth, the animals, even the stars?
None of the six motorcyclists who have gathered in Carnarvon for a five-day tour know the Karoo well. Alwyn van den Heever is from Nigel, Arie Lubbe is from Kathu, William Turner is from Bellville, Pieter Steinmann is from Centurion, and Jacques Jacobs and Nic Grobler are from Krugersdorp. Justus Visagie and Jacques’s wife Villene will follow us in a back-up bakkie with a trailer. It’s a dirt-road tour over six mountain passes in the Bo-Karoo; we’ll also take the odd jeep track across the quiet plains. The tour starts and ends in Carnarvon and goes via Loxton, Beaufort West, Merweville, Sutherland, the Tankwa Karoo, Middelpos and Williston.
Somewhere, on a road out there, the Karoo will creep into the hearts of the bikers. I know it will.
through winding Sakrivierpoort to Loxton, where we
