Easter - Motorbike Trip

This Easter weekend, Roger & I headed off on a motorbike trip with our fabulous friends Tanya & Rob (my poor mother, motorbikes?!?! in Africa!?!?). With no real plan, just Kosi Bay as our destination.

Rog and I did the first leg of the trip on our own since Rob & Tans were coming from Joburg. We headed over the Barberton pass deciding to enter Swaziland at the Bulembu border. We fell in love with this drive, and even made sure to take Chelsea when we went back to Swaziland last month.

Bulembu looked really interesting, so I made sure to do some research when we returned from our trip. You can find more information about the town on their website.

We left Bulembu and drove one of the worst dirt roads to Piggs Peak, definitely not recommended by car, but was fun on the bike! Had to stop for some refreshments at a very old hotel just outside of Piggs Peak (For the life of me, I cannot find its flippin' name online - if I find it out, I will let you know!).

Rob & Tans joined us that night and we stayed at Lidwala backpackers in the Ezulwini Valley - we shared a room with a very smelly boy from Vancouver, which somehow transferred to me being called a smelly Canadian for the rest of our trip.

The next morning, we set out on our adventure. We drove through Manzini, had drinks in Big Bend at another old hotel, crossed the Lavumisa border back into South Africa (on the other side), had drinks at a ridiculously fancy hotel called the Tiger Lodge on the Jozini Dam and even took a splash in their fancy infinity pool.

We then carried on to our destination, Thobeka backpackers in Manguzi ( closest town to Kosi Bay), where we were greeted by the absolutely lovely owner who made us feel right at home in our little hippie backpacker shacks.

We spent the next day on the beach. We thought we would be able to ride down or walk down to the beach, but we were mistaken. We instead caught a ride with a game vehicle (thanks to the really nice couple that let us join on!), who also took us on a quick free tour of the fish traps in the lake. We then lay on the beach all day drinking beers, and got stupidly burnt because that is what we do. Silly bums.

Mozambique day of hell ( well it started out to be, and then ended up being the best day of our trip once we got our minds wrapped around it).

We woke up and decided to head through Mozambique, again with no real plan. We went through the Ponto Malongane border, and within 100metres into the trip Rob & Tans have already fallen off their bike. The sand roads are intense! Roger & Rob are sweating rainforest amounts of water to keep the front wheels straight.

It takes us HOURS to get to Ponto do Ouro, with Rob & Tans falling a few more times, and luckily us only falling once. Tanya & my spirits were WAY down. Tanya and I debated how to take a taxi home, we were beat - and when the surfshop owner told us that we have only finished a quarter of the sand road up to Catembe, we were broken. But we had lunch, changed our tune and decided "Fuck it, lets do this!" - and off we went.

We made it to Catembe at 7pm. Rob & Tans had hit a major pothole in the road, but we were still in relatively good spirits. We took the ferry across to Maputo, which is definitely a must-do experience. We relaxed and watched the Maputo city lights get closer and closer, along with a million other Mozambicans and their cars squashed onto the expertly packed ferry.

We had arrived in Maputo! We headed to my favourite old hotel, Costa do Sol, had HUGE seafood dinners to reward ourselves for our crazy day, had lots of laughs and slept like babies in our cozy hotel rooms with the air-con blazing.

Four friends, four days, three countries, two bikes & a bucket load of memories! We are already planning our next trip.