A little help with routes at Van Gaalens

[Rolf Hansen]

A bit of a thread revive.

Last time I was at Van Gaalens with the Trailseeker last year. I went down on the rocky downhill section at/after Tant Miems. Broke my derailleur hanger and cut my leg quite badly and ended up walking in the region of 12km back to the farm. 

Decided to try it again today. The signage is really not great. Arrows pointing both ways for the same trail at some points. We managed fine in the end though and had a blast.

We did the River/Greek Church and Baboons. Baboons was hectic and there was a stretch where none of us could make it up. Will definitely visit again and try do Baboons without hike-a-bike in some sections.

[W@nted]

On 5/29/2022 at 2:35 PM, Rolf Hansen said:

A bit of a thread revive.

Last time I was at Van Gaalens with the Trailseeker last year. I went down on the rocky downhill section at/after Tant Miems. Broke my derailleur hanger and cut my leg quite badly and ended up walking in the region of 12km back to the farm. 

Decided to try it again today. The signage is really not great. Arrows pointing both ways for the same trail at some points. We managed fine in the end though and had a blast.

We did the River/Greek Church and Baboons. Baboons was hectic and there was a stretch where none of us could make it up. Will definitely visit again and try do Baboons without hike-a-bike in some sections.

Would you mind sharing gpx files please?

We are heading that direction next weekend and would appreciate some trial options? Staying at magalies park for a week, so any routes/options would be ideal. Only taking my mtb. Anything between 40-100km. Thanks!

[Rolf Hansen]

14 minutes ago, W@nted said:

Would you mind sharing gpx files please?

We are heading that direction next weekend and would appreciate some trial options? Staying at magalies park for a week, so any routes/options would be ideal. Only taking my mtb. Anything between 40-100km. Thanks!

Unfortunately I won't be able to help you with that as I don't have any electronically mapped routes. 

I am a manual rider that rely on the signage 🙃

[Steady Spin]

59 minutes ago, Rolf Hansen said:

Unfortunately I won't be able to help you with that as I don't have any electronically mapped routes. 

I am a manual rider that rely on the signage 🙃

It really is a network of guess work at times when you ride there. Finding the Greek Church and river trail isn't too bad but when you head out to concrete strips, oom piets etc it gets a little difficult. 

I've upgraded to a Garmin now so hopefully loading a GPX will help with navigating this. 

[Rolf Hansen]

17 minutes ago, Steady Spin said:

It really is a network of guess work at times when you ride there. Finding the Greek Church and river trail isn't too bad but when you head out to concrete strips, oom piets etc it gets a little difficult. 

I've upgraded to a Garmin now so hopefully loading a GPX will help with navigating this. 

The problem is you sometimes get to junctions where the route you want to take has arrows pointing in opposite directions. The mind boggles.

[Steady Spin]

One thing I've learned... don't trust Trailforks. Last time we followed the route it ended up taking us through devil thorn hell and resulted in a 5km hike back to the car. 

[Swift01]

Hi,

You will have to ask Victor at the gate where you pay on the latest changes by the river. The farmer put up a few fences dues to theft which has blocked a few routes.

1. You can get to Greek church from VG going over the steel bridge. Signage is the blue board with white arrow.

2. If you go out to concrete strips, Tannie Meims and come round the district road to go to greek churck you have 2 options. First is the Greek church sign (this map shows Baboon 1) easiest way to get the greek church from the district road. You can also start the river route and as you drop in from the district rd you turn left over the concrete bridge to the other side of the river ride along the river until the steel bridge then cross over the river on the bridge and follow the sigs. That gets you onto the Greek Church 1.

Once at the greek churh, I heard Babbons 1 still has quite a few random loose rocks from the baboons, but the "Baboons 2" route (higher one) is clear at the moment from the big loose rocks from the baboons.

[Swift01]

VG2.gpx   NewGreek From VG.gpx

Attached is some VG files. You will be able to use the NewGreekFrom Vg file to get to Greek straight from the start.

 

Pomphuis, I am not sure if he has cleared the route up so some blackjacks last time we went