Welcome!

Welcome to my blog, these are the ramblings and musings of an (upper) middle aged biker and if you enjoy braais, (barbeques) beers and motorbikes then hopefully you will enjoy what Janet and I do; we do lots of braais, we drink lots of beer and we tour South Africa on our motorbike, which at the moment is a BMW R1200RT. Join us, read about what we do and please leave us your comments.



Monday, January 23, 2012

Lunch in Capetown and we check out the Beach Club

Saturday it was still hot and humid, the past two weeks have seen a debilitating heatwave over the western cape, heat that saps your energy and keeps you continously damp and bad tempered. We saw temperatures in the high 30's celsius but I believe further north and inland there were recordings of close to 50!
We are lucky in Saldanha Bay in that the southerly wind blows in off the sea and over the bay itself, this tends to keep temperatures down slightly, but move away from the bay and you soon feel the temperature rise.
Luckily Sunday was forcast as the beginning of a slight relief from the heat as we were going to Capetown to meet up with Janet's sister Lesley and Leon for lunch and I desparately did not want to drive down, I wanted to ride! Sure enough Sunday morning it was considerably cooler as we saddled up, some 8 degrees cooler than the same time the previous Sunday.
It was a happy boy who guided the big red machine onto the R27 and powered south into the light south easterly which went some way to keeping things cool. It took us just about an hour to get to "Ons huisie" (Our house) restaurant in Blauwbergstrand and the weather was so pleasant that we found a nice table outside where we enjoyed a good lunch and two hours of pleasant company and conversation.
Before heading home I wanted to check in at the Viper lounge to see what was new in the "Victory" line of motorcycles they are selling;
This very nice looking Victory Vegas Jackpot was priced at R220,000, Janet wasn't too keen on the tiny little pad that she would have to perch on though.
This was a bit more to Janet's liking, priced at R269,000 - talk about a big red machine!
I liked the look of this one, priced at nearly R300,000 it has a lot of Arlen Ness custom parts as well as diamond cut engine fins and a really good looking paint job, but there was no top case/ back rest for Janet so I didn't buy it. Nice looking machines though.
The ride home was fast, enjoyable and uneventful with the BMW performing perfectly as usual, we both really enjoyed it and as we cruised into Saldanha the welcome cool breeze over the bay made us feel at home.
I had heard about a new pub that had opened up called the Beach Club so of course I wanted to check it out;
Our friend Ryno, who quite a few years ago started the "Captain's Cabin" has taken over the old beach sailing club which had never been very successful, and has made it into a casual beach pub/restaurant and I must say there is a lot of potential here.
There is a limited, light meal menu with items such as burgers, pizzas, fish and chips and calamari and chips etc., all at very reasonable prices.
Ryno's plan is to build a wooden deck outside in an "L" shape around the front of the building with shade, even though the facilities are quite casual at the moment, there were a good few people there.
Water sports are encouraged and the bay and the lagoon are popular areas for kite surfing in particular,
I'm not much into water sports but I'll certainly be back!

No comments: