It was like a window back into my personal motorcycling past, laid out across the vast open floor for my delight: there was my 1977 Yamaha XS750 triple; my Triumph 3TA 350 twin; my Jawa 175 split-single two-stroke; my friend Kevin’s Triumph Tiger 200 single. Interspersed among them were several bikes I had ridden during my years as  a road-tester: a BMW R100RS, the BMW R100RT I’d ridden across the Arizona desert; the Honda 1978 CX500 whose launch I’d attended in France, the Yamaha XT500 single, the Honda CB750F from 1981…

I was on a much-postponed visit to The Motorcycle Room, a museum in Knysna on the Garden Route in South Africa’s Western Cape. It’s about 25 minutes down the road from our home in Plettenberg Bay, and I’d been meaning to go there since it opened, with some 85 bikes on display. The wait wasn’t entirely in vain, though, because by now its collection has expanded to some 150 motorcycles. And this January day, I had the whole place to myself, alongside my friend Pete Meadowcroft, a BSA owner from way back.

Knysna is a quirky town, built along a beautiful tidal lagoon on the Indian Ocean, with a busy marina, a nice mic of touristy shops and restaurants, against a backdrop of the Tsitsikama Mountains. If you’re in the area, it’s well worth a visit and a meander, even if you’re not into old motorcycles.

The museum isn’t entirely my cup of tea, to be honest. I like my classic cars and bikes to be in mint condition, restored if need be to better than new – none of this “patina” nonsense so beloved by Wayne Carini of Chasing Classic Cars fame, and so many other classic vehicle buffs! Some of the bikes in this collection are in great condition, and one or two of the more recent BMWs look brand new, but many are a bit tired and some are plain rusty. And that’s the stated intention of the museum creator, Colin Stunden, a former enduro racer. He’s picked up a wide variety of old and not-so-old bikes, some designated as barn finds that await some degree of restoration.

My interest is mostly in road bikes, too, which means that about half this collection isn’t really my thing at all: there are scores of off-road bikes, most of them seemingly KTMs, which is great if you’re into that sort of thing but otherwise not very compelling. Others who admire the world of knobbly tyres will doubtless be engrossed.

There was a lot of metal to hold my attention, regardless. One of my first-ever bikes was a Jawa 175, bought from a scrapyard for a fiver in Dublin in or around 1969. My good friend Seamus, a wizard with things mechanical and electrical, was able to make it run – as long as it was connected to a transformer that was plugged into the mains! I don’t recall riding it very far… Here in Knysna were several examples of the same split-single concept under the Jawa and CZ brands.

The Triumph 3TA was of the bathtub variety and black, with that strange upturned rear mudguard thing. Mine came without the bathtub, happily, and was an ex-police bike, also black, that I had professionally painted in the metallic green of the Opel Reckord of the early ‘70s. I lingered over that Yamaha XS750, which brought back happy memories. My wife and I bought the then-new triple back in ’77 with a wedding gift that was intended to buy a three-piece suite. It was one of the first Japanese bikes with shaft drive, presenting an attractive alternative to the BMWs of that era. We rode it from London to Rome and back and enjoyed it hugely, although the XS850 that followed it a year or so later was even better to ride.

Memories were triggered too by the Honda CB750F in the Knysna collection, because I had one on test the week my daughter Elizabeth was born, back in June 1981. I remember being so elated at her safe arrival that I rode home from the hospital through country roads at about 1:30 in the morning, pulling a joyous wheelie the first chance I got. The bike was okay, as I recall, although the 900cc version was more fun.

Other machines in this eclectic collection include an 80cc version of the ubiquitous Honda 50 step-through, made in India under an Indian brand name. There was the odd Matchless, a smattering of BSAs, a few Ducatis, a Laverda or two, an Aermacchi, a few scooters, a Harley and a host of scramblers, motocrossers, adventure bikes and trail bikes. If you’re ever in the area, it’s well worth stopping off and spending an hour browsing through The Motorcycle Room. You’ll find it on Thesen Island, clearly signposted near the end of the quay, with several excellent waterside restaurants and bars a few steps away. Entry costs R160 (about £7). Maybe you’ll meet a slice of your own motorcycling past there, too.