I decided since this is the first Saturday I've had my baby, that I was going to stretch her legs a little. So I got up early and set up a route that included 3 different passes. I was going to film each of the three passes, but alas, my video camera was out of power.
First off I headed out some back roads, then took a bit of highway to play around with the cruise control. Either I don't know how to work it or it doesn't work, will have to RTFM. Then as I reached the Huguenot Tunnel I took a detour over the Du Toit's Kloof pass a winding uphill pass with one or two tighter corners, but mostly a steady 100kph pass. I got lucky and got a clean road most of the way up until I finally got stuck behind a truck near the top so I decided to stop and take some pictures.
^ The view ^
^ The car ^
I then continued on, having cleared some space between the truck and myself. After cresting, on the way down there was a troop of baboons crossing the road near the apex of a concealed turn. Luckily I didn't have any trouble missing them despite the pace I was going.
I then continued on the N1 for a bit until I got near Worcester and turned over towards Villiersdorp where I intended to stop for coffee, of which I hadn't yet had any. This road was mostly straight and I didn't have much cars in my way. There is a short, fun set of twisties in one spot but as I got close there was an i10 in my way going about 50kph that I couldn't pass until after so I dropped down to 30kph for a while to open a gap so I could take the double U-turn at my own pace. When I got to Villiersdorp I was more interested in driving than coffee so I pushed on towards the second pass, the Franschhoek pass.
This pass has two sides: the eastern is slower with incredibly tight corners and some rockfall; the western is a steadier, straighter section with a great view of Franschhoek.
I went up the eastern side which was a lot of fun. The 86 cut through the roads. I was very comfortable doing extremely tight turns at relatively fast speeds. About midway through I had a Nissan Micra in the way but caught a gap after a few corners. Just as I went over the crest I stopped to take these.
^ The view ^
^ The car ^
What followed was a nice couple of tight turns down and then I stopped for some good breakfast at Franschhoek.
The final stretch was some straight road with traffic to Helshoogte pass. Got there and stopped to take this.
^ The start of Helshoogte pass ^
By now my car was looking pretty dirty. Some bikers stopped there as well and warned me about some diesel on the road. They really liked the car.
This is the pass I know best, but is also the least eventful. Bikers like it because most of it has double lanes and if they get there early enough they have plenty of space to gun it. As it was getting late-ish there were plenty cars and I just cut through them at a moderate pace.
After the pass there's some roads and the bikes like to go through there cutting between cars. I saw the guy that warned me about the diesel and I followed him in between the cars as well. He seemed impressed I was able to stick to him, giving me a thumb's up when we stopped at the light.
Overall it was very enjoyable and noticed quite a lot of people rubbernecking on the highway to see what was coming past.
The car was quite dirty after all this so I washed her up nice and polished the exhaust tips again. I like shiny!
If anyone in Cape Town is interested in doing a run like this some time, let me know. It was tons of fun!