Old Postal Route, South Africa

I travelled to Cape Town to visit my brother Archie for 3 weeks. Whilst there he organised a motorbike trip through the Cederberg area a few hours north of Cape Town.

On the trip we had myself, my brothers Archie and Harry, as well as two of Archie’s friends Tom and Scott. Harry and I rented 2 Yamaha TTR250s from Woodstock Moto Co. We packed all of our bikes onto trailers and drove up in 2 cars to stay at the Oasis Campsite on Thursday night, so we could begin the trip on Friday morning. We then spent 2 and a half days motorbiking the dirt tracks that formed an Old Postal Route, camping wild for two nights in some stunning locations.

The Cederberg is an epic motorbiking destination, offering a fun mixture of technical riding in very wild and remote areas. The weather is amazing the whole way through, at times very hot but mostly quite pleasant - but we definitely went through a hell of a lot of water throughout the trip.

All shot on a Canon 6D, with a 40mm lens.

12th-15th December 2019

Filling up the bikes and car with petrol before heading off the roads and into the Cederberg

Archie ripping it on his Honda XR600

Harry always wanted to check if there were cattle water troughs at the bottom of windmills that we could swim in

Scotty taking a break in the shade whilst we wait for Harry and Archie to fix a tyre puncture

I made myself useful and went and fetched some cokes whilst they laboured away in the sun and heat

Cokes always taste best out of a bottle

Very nearly caught a face full of sand snapping this picture of Archie

Tom and his DR350

We stopped off at a campsite along the way to refresh with a couple of drinks and use their garage to make sure the tyre was sitting on the rim properly

After a 2 hour delay, we had a stunning sunset ride up to our campsite.

Archie had to pull his glove off with his teeth so he could film the sunset as he rode

We camped on the bed of a dried out small river, where me and harry slept in our bivvy bags whilst others were in tents

Scotty and Tom brought an aeropress coffee filter with them so they could have a high quality fix of caffeine in the morning

Push starting tom's bike in a dried out riverbed - glad I opted to be photographer, sweaty work

We came across this bus in the middle of nowhere on the second day of riding - can't understand how and why it was there

Really reminded me of the 'magic bus' from Into the Wild

I was in charge of carrying the 10l jerry can which we used to top up the bikes between fuel stops

Most of the land we travelled through was private, but landowners are generally very happy to let respectful bikers use the roads

Another evening, and another lovely sunset as we climbed up towards our campspot

The riding was a mixture of difficulty, some very sandy spots, but also the dirt tracks meant front wheels constantly felt very wobbly

Leeming, Leeming, and Leeming - just missing our sister to make it a full house!

Archie, Harry, Scotty, and Tom

The view from the top of the outcrop of rocks where we had set up camp, amazing panoramic views with plenty of cover from the wind

It wasn't the coldest evening, but theres nothing like a fire to make the outdoors feel a bit more homely

Photo credit: Harry Leeming

It was me and Archie's turn to cook - Chorizo and peppers pasta in a creamy tomato sauce, nice! (Photo credit: Harry Leeming)

So many gates...

Last year a bushfire swept across a large part of the old postal route, leaving charred remains of trees dotted along the road

Brief outline of the route