About the Route
This route takes you from the lovely town of Hogsback to Tarkastad over, mainly, gravel roads. As you leave Hogsback there is a small section of tar going down the mountain, but once at the bottom the route takes a left turn on the gravel road. It is a lovely small gravel road and in reasonable state. There are some deep ruts, so keep that in mind. Once you get to Seymore, there will be tar for a short section before we take the gravel road towards Mpofu Nature Reserve. You will get to an entrance gate with a guard at Mpofu Nature Reserve, the guard open up the boom for us without any questions, so I assume you are allowed to ride through the reserve with motorbikes. There are warning signs for buffalo here, but we didn't see them. The gravel road through Mpofu is absolutely stunning and gradually climbs up. The exit from Mpofu has an old guard house, but it is not manned and the boom is removed, there is just a cattle grid. A bit further down the road there is an automated fence you can open with a button. Once through the gate, you take a left turn and the landscape turns to vast open hills. The gravel road has some small ruts, but is in overall reasonable condition. We had a blast on this section! The last part of the route is over the R344, which is a lovely main gravel road. It surprised us that this was gravel, it only turns to tar just before reaching Tarkastad. In Tarkastad, you have limited accommodation options. We asked around a bit and got referred to Peter's Place by the lovely locals. It is a room in a house, so you share the kitchen etc with the owners, but they are lovely people and very welcoming.