Adventure 10 Day Tour: Kingdom of Lesotho

Eleven nights round Lesotho from Bloemfontein, guided, two and a half thousand kilometres with sixty per cent off-road, with the price quoted on application.

The operator rates the riding in and around Lesotho among the best its team has done anywhere, and the reason is a quirk of recent history: the main highways were rebuilt to a high standard, leaving sweeping new asphalt through mountains that see almost no traffic.

Lesotho is entirely surrounded by South Africa, just over thirty thousand square kilometres with a population around two million, independent from Britain since 1966, and almost all of it high mountain carved by rivers. Thaba Ntlenyana in the north, at 3,482 metres, is the highest peak in southern Africa. Bloemfontein is the base. The route then crosses repeatedly between the two countries: Mafeteng, Clarens, the Katse Dam, Himeville and the Sani Pass, Thaba-Tseka, two nights at Semonkong with a short fifty-kilometre day, Rhodes, and back. Daily distances run between two hundred and three hundred kilometres, around sixty per cent of it off-road and perfectly suited to an adventure bike.

Eleven nights of twin-shared accommodation in quality lodges, Bloemfontein transfers, all breakfasts and two or three-course dinners, ten days of Triumph Tiger Rally Pro 900 with third-party insurance, GPS with the daily routes, dual-purpose tyres, an assistance vehicle carrying the luggage, qualified medical support and a guide with two support drivers are all included; flights, medical insurance with repatriation, fuel at around €350, visas and a €1,300 excess deposit are not. The price is given on application. It runs by special request for groups of eight to ten, in September. The night at Rhodes is in a family-run village inn rather than a lodge.