Looking back to past rides

Before the digital age ushered in the demise of the camera shop where reels of film were developed I, like many of you I'm sure, amassed hundreds of photographs, some of which were neatly arranged in photo albums and many more were chucked into a handy drawer.

I have been recently going through that drawer and those photo albums to work out what I want to do with those old memories, a lot of them obviously involved motorcycles and some of those I want to share here;

This was the second Honda Goldwing that we owned, a 1982 GL 1100 which I bought privately in Capetown. I was perhaps a bit hasty because it was not an Interstate, the fairing, panniers and top box were added aftermarket and unfortunately were not mounted very well. The person who did the job had used threaded bar to make the brackets and one of the pannier brackets kept breaking, also when I got it there were eight small keys on a ring for each of the eight locks. As you can imagine this was a nightmare so one of the first jobs I had done was to standardise the locks.

In spite of the problems, such as poor brakes and lousy suspension which had to be pumped up at a garage every now and then, Janet and I did a lot of happy mileage on this bike.

 One of our favourite things was to ride out with no agenda, no fixed destination and no accommodation booking, we would arrive in a town after a good day's riding and then look for a place to stay which was usually a caravan park chalet or self catering unit. Once we had set up we would then go off to buy supplies; beer, wine and food, then with the bike parked nearby with our favourite music playing over the sound system we would have a nice braai. We did a lot of that and they were memorable trips.

Occasionally when the circumstances warranted it we would splash out on expensive accommodation such as this fancy lodge in Cape Agulhas but that was for one of our wedding anniversaries so it was well worth it.

On our various motorbikes over the years we have traveled extensively around South Africa and Namibia and have loved every minute of it, in fact our one particular road trip about which I posted quite recently was Janet's favourite holiday. Time, I think for another road trip.

It will have to wait a bit though, winter is fast approaching so we'll wait for warmer weather and then see what we can do. Stay safe my friends and keep the rubber side down.