Calitzdorp to Swellendam (home)

Wednesday 01 August 2007

Woke early, feeling much better after having eaten so well the night before. It was pleasant riding along the reasonably flat section separating the Swartberg from the Rooiberg, and it was still dark as I wound my way up the pass.

While not as steep as the Swartberg, it certainly was a pass of note, and by the time I reached the top, the sun was just poking its head over the pristine fynbos. It was once again a 'watershed' experience, as I bid farewell to the Swartberg in the north and greeted the Langeberg in the south.

I flew down the pass, and then followed the road leading along the base of the Rooiberg as it wound through picturesque fields of luminous green, with quaint white farmhouses dotting the landscape here and there. Although on a smaller scale, the route was very similar to the previous day's ride to Calitzdorp. I felt as if I was having a minor deja vu experience.

I arrived at Van Wyksdorp, stopping briefly to fill my water bottles and get something to eat. As I left the town, things started to get a bit silly.

The first thing to go was my knee. I suddenly developed a sharp pain in my knee joint that got worse as the day progressed. This I was able to remedy by letting my good knee do most of the work on the level, and pushing my bad leg down with my arm on the uphills. It actually worked quite well, except that I still had 150km to go!

The next thing to go was my bottom bracket (the one on the bike). It started making a 'cluck, cluck' noise that everyone knows is slightly worse than the ' click, click' noise but not nearly as bad as the 'cluck, clang' noise. That would have been OK, except that after a while, it started to develop some play at each 'cluck', resulting in a sort of ' cluck, donk' noise.
So, in summary then, if you happened to be lying in the bushes on the side of the road as I came past, you would have heard something like this:

'Cluck / donk / creak (knee joint) / $!&#!* Cluck / donk / creak / &!#*^!

Anyway, enough of this technical jargon, the result of it all was a rather slow, painful passage along the northern slopes of the Langeberg.

I made it through to Barrydale just as the sun set, and stopped at the garage shop to get some takeaways for supper. I was now in familiar territory, with the mountains I have managed for the past four years spread out in front of me.

With 44 kilometers left, it was only the Tradouw Pass and the Tradouw Leopard that stood between me and my own bed. No really, I know that numerous people have seen the animal in the pass at night or early morning, and I was reminded about this again by the shop owner in Barrydale. Not that I was in any way perturbed by the thought of riding through the kloof alone on a bike going ' cluck / donk / creak / #%!@# !' at nightfall. I really just wanted to see how fast I could go through the kloof, and boy! did I impress myself or what?!

Both knees were now complaining as I rode the last few kilometers along the N2, with trucks, buses and cars whizzing past me. What a contrast from the soft Kalahari sands, the vast open plains of Bushmanland and the Quiet Karoo.

Just past nine, I ground slowly up the last steep section of dirt road that separated me from the town of Swellendam. I sat on the grass outside my house absorbing the lavish welcome of my two sheepdogs. Sitting there on the lawn in the dark, I experienced the deep flooding peace that comes at the end of a long, hard journey. I looked up at the towering shadows of the Langeberg only a few 100 meters from my gate. In my mind I followed the trails I have walked: exploring the pools and quenching my thirst with fresh sweet water from the lush ravines, and then I thought ... 'It's good to be home.'

Day 9: Calitzdorp to Swellendam
Distance: 205.56km
Hours: 16hrs 05mins (05:05–21:10)
Ave riding speed: 16:32km/h

Prince Albert to Calitzdorp

Tuesday 31 July 2007

Hit the snooze button a few times too many, so I stepped out into the crisp morning air at about 05:30 instead of 05:00 and headed down the sleepy main street of Prince Albert. The road leading up to the beginning of the pass was longer than I remembered it to be, but it was a welcome warm-up to what I knew was waiting patiently for me up ahead. The scene around me was breathtakingly beautiful. I rode deep and dark through the narrow base of the kloof, while above me the unseen moon illuminated the massive western wall like a giant neon spotlight. I felt rather small among the splendor.

Faced with a detour around a section of the pass that had been washed away, I decided to porter through the river, only to find that my cleats had completely disappeared under a thick layer of insta-dry mud! The only tool that proved adequate in gouging the stuff out was a broken bottleneck I found conveniently lying on the side of the road. (Thank goodness there are some people who still believe in littering, even in this day and age of environmental ethics and earth consciousness!)

Soon after the detour, a landrover edged past me, and it was fascinating (and slightly alarming) to watch the headlights stitching their way through the hairpins higher and higher till they finally disappeared over the ridge at an impossible height above me. Mountains are funny, the further away you are from them, the more impossible they appear, but the closer you get to them, the more they appear to level out, and before you know it, you're half way up.... and only then ... do they nail you!

It was a fantastic climb, and I enjoyed every bend. I also realized that I have climbed this pass

three times in the past three years; twice in the Freedom Challenge and now on this trip. Maybe I should keep up the tradition; it is after all one of the most spectacular passes in the country.

I arrived at the first 'top' just after the sun had risen. Words cannot describe how beautiful it was up there. I lay on my back with the Karoo stretching away to the Nuweveld Mountains in the distance. It was also a little sad, as if I was reading the final chapters of an amazing book.

I still had some climbing to do as I passed the Gamkaskloof turnoff, and headed further up to the watershed overlooking the Little Karoo.

The sign 'Die Top' made me suspect that I had in fact reached the point after which I would descend, probably quite rapidly. The wind was blasting through the neck, as I took some photos and drank the last of my coffee. With a final glance to the north, I turned my back on the Kalahari, Bushmanland, the Great Karoo, and headed down towards the Little Karoo below, and the Langeberg Mountains in the distance.

I blessed my hydraulic disc brakes as I white-knuckled it down the pass towards the green fields drinking from the Maatjiesrivier far below me. The road to Calitzdorp followed the base of the Swartberg, with green fields and quaint farm houses lining the road, overshadowed on the north by the snow-capped mountains -- memories of the cold front that recently passed that way.

For some reason, I had completely run out of energy, and I really struggled through the last 30 or 40km to Calitzdorp.

My intention was to push on through to Vanwyksdorp, but I just didn't feel that I had the energy to get over the Rooiberg Pass. So after having lunch in the town, I booked in at the local backpacker and spent the afternoon relaxing, servicing my bike and organising things for the next day.

I bought some food at the local supermarket and made a huge meal of pasta and mince. I thought I wouldn't get through half of it, but as 7de Laan finished, so did the food! I realised that my body was obviously crying out for fuel, hence the lack of energy I had experienced during the day. The problem with relying on eating at restaurants and B&Bs, is that you seldom get enough food volume to meet your body's nutritional needs for this type of riding.

I fell asleep with a full stomach and mixed emotions at the realization that tomorrow would be the last day of my trip.

Day 8: Prince Albert to Calitzdorp
Distance: 90.72km
Time: 7hrs 30mins (05h30 – 13h00)
Average riding speed: 15.77.km\h

Fraserburg to Prince Albert

Monday 30 July 2007

I awoke to a clear and windless winter morning. Leaving at 05h00 I had to force my way through air that seemed on the verge of changing from Oxygen to liquid nitrogen. Once again, I lost my gears to the cold; iced up on the centre chain wheel. I didn't really mind though, I was in good spirits as today I would be dropping off the escarpment through the Nuweveld Mountains and was I looking forward to the hills!

I started climbing steadily soon after turning onto the dirt road outside Fraserburg, the full moon so bright in the clear air, that I didn't need my head torch to light the way.

I rode in and out of patches of silent mist as I climbed; everywhere the frost lay thick like snow on the ground, stray pools of water transformed into circles of ice. I had managed to work my gears loose -- none too soon as I now needed to move into climbing mode. It suddenly came to me that this was the first time since leaving Askham 6 days ago that I had need of my small chain ring! The sun rose quietly over a mountainous landscape, a feast for my eyes. I cannot describe the feeling of joy in being in such a varied landscape; my senses drank it in as if trying to satisfy a Kalahari thirst.

I reached the top of the pass along with the cold snap of sunrise, which I countered with two small cups of piping hot coffee from my Verneukpan flask. I walked around a bit, hugged the sign indicating 'Caution! Steep descent' and spoke briefly to a farm worker walking with his sheepdog to work on the neighboring farm.

With my gears firmly wedged in top gear, I wound down through the Oukloof Pass, watching the layers of mountains unfold in front of me. Funny how you can form a picture in your mind, that even though you know is unrealistic, you secretly and naively believe it to be true. When drawing up my profiles for the trip, the profile for this day showed a steep downward slope for 120km.

That was true in that I would drop close on 1000m during the day. In my mind however, I imagined reaching the top of Ouberg Pass, and then freewheeling for 120km to Leeu Gamka, which I would see far below me in the dim blue distance. Of course, it wasn't anything like that, and I only recall about 8-10km of fast downhill, then what seemed like level riding for the remaining 110km.

I finally came to the turnoff that I had marked on my map, which would take me to Leeu Gamka.

I was surprised to find that the road, marked on the map as a main dirt road was in reality merely a farm track with a large 'CUL DE SAC' sign posted at the locked gate. I checked the map, even taking out my 1:50 000 maps of the area but it appeared correct, so I swung my bike over the gate (try doing that with a 4x4!). The road was fine for a bit, but then seemed to fade out, leading into a dry riverbed. I was enjoying the riding, but was starting to get a little concerned, as this road, according to the map was the only one leading to Leeu Gamka in this area, and I still had over 100km to go. I decided to see if I could get some information from the farm indicated on the map a little further up the road. On reaching the farm, it was immediately obvious that I would be getting no answers as the buildings were broken down and derelict. The road had now completely disappeared, and I was following a thorn-strewn cattle track in and out of the dry, sandy riverbed. Now what to do? I have no problem riding single track, in fact I was really hoping to find a lot more on this trip. But finding myself on my own on a track that had disappeared, with still 100km to the closest town, and I was not feeling nearly as brave as I sometimes appear.

Sit down again. Take out the maps. What to do? Well, the map looked right, but the road had disappeared, that much was true. The map however did indicate a number of farms up ahead, and I just couldn't believe that they could all be abandoned. I decided that I would push on, in the hope that the road conditions would eventually improve or at least not disappear entirely. All pumped up and ready to tackle the unknown, I rode around the very next corner slap bang into a district road!

At precisely the same time, a farmer from the farm Rooiheuwel happened to see me on the 'wrong' side of the fence and stopped. We had a good chat, and the story came out that the road I was on was washed away in the floods of 2000, along with the farmhouse I had seen. A new section of road had been constructed to bypass the road I had just taken, and so the riddle was solved. He told me that a few farmers in the area have formed a mountain bike club and regularly go on rides in and around the Nuweveld Mountains. This is definitely an area that gets an entry in my little black book under the category 'needs further exploration'!

The remainder of the trip to Leeu Gamka was fairly uneventful, although I did notice that the people seemed to be very friendly. On two separate occasions I was stopped by farmers wanting to know if I was OK, offering lifts and just generally wanting to chat about my trip. My perception is that the further north I was on the trip, the less interest I generated from the

passing (flying) traffic. Typical Karoo veld and farms with lots of stone sheep kraals and buildings greeted me along the route, and I arrived at Leeu Gamka at around lunch time. I collected my

support parcel from the post office, which is inside the general dealer, which is attached to the hotel. Although I had arranged to sleep in the hotel that night, I was still feeling reasonably OK, so I decided to move on to Prince Albert. I had been watching the Swartberg Mountains growing taller, and I was keen to place myself under their watchful eye before nightfall. I rode onto the N1 and after polishing off a very large burger at the N1 Ultra City, I was back on the road again.

The route involved a reasonable amount of climbing, and the 190-odd kilometers of riding were starting to talk to my body. I crested the last uphill before the town as the setting sun lit up the Swartberg in a final display before handing over to the ice princess.

I revelled in the last few kilometers of downhill, arriving in the main road as it got dark. Battling to find a place to stay that fitted my budget, I wandered around from guest house to guest house, eventually finding help from some of the locals who phoned around and got me installed in a very luxurious house, complete with DSTV and jacuzzi, at a special rate. On their recommendation, I had supper at a cozy little restaurant where I enjoyed the warmth of the fire, the meal and the hospitality.

After the normal routine of bike service, packing, rearranging kit and preparing my maps for the next day, I fell into bed, not having made use of either the DSTV or the jacuzzi! The bed topped them all.

Day 7: Fraserburg to Prince Albert
Distance: 196.28km
Time: 13hrs (05:00 – 18:00)
Average riding speed: 20.67km\h

Williston to Fraserburg

Sunday 29 July 2007

The down was just too soft and warm, the morning too cold. I woke an hour late, and decided that I wasn't going to beat myself up about it, because hey, it was Sunday, a day of rest!

It was absolutely freezing when I left at 06h00, with an icy wind blowing the low clouds along a moonlit sky. I made good progress along the 30km section of tar, and hit the dirt road just as the sun lightened the eastern sky. No sunrise today, as the low grey cloud scurried to blanket the landscape from my prying eyes.

With my senses reduced to seeing only the road ahead, hearing the wind flowing past my helmet, my feelings numbed by the cold, I decided it was a good time to treat myself to some music therapy. Out came the earplugs and up went the volume as I drifted into the words and worlds of Eric Clapton, Jewel, Jimmy Hendrix and James Taylor. At one point I almost jumped out of my lycra as a car came whizzing past me, without me having even being vaguely aware of him! I realised that this was the first vehicle I had seen on the road for the past three days! I thought the roads were all mine. I made a point of taking regular peeps behind me after that, but I needn't have bothered, he was the traffic till Fraserburg.

The road rose and fell consistently now, with some good climbs and even a downhill where my speedometer reached the 50km/h mark -- beyond first class! My stops were few and brief as the biting cold spurred me on to Fraserburg. It wasn't long before I met up with the tar road and followed it into the town, straight to the B&B I had pre-booked.

No sooner had I arrived than the rain began falling, so I unpacked, and climbed straight into bed, where I stayed for most of what was left of the day. I spent some time servicing my bike, washing clothes and generally reorganising my kit.

Had a wonderful supper, eating with a group of visitors from Cape Town. After excusing myself from their company, I climbed under the blankets and watched TV while eating a bar of chocolate. Oh, the trials and tribulations of the long distance cyclist!

Day 6: Williston to Fraserburg
Distance: 95.93km
Hours: 4hrs 55mins (06:05 – 11:00)
Ave riding speed: 21.2km/h

Verneukpan to Williston

Saturday 28 July 2007

I have the most beautiful full moon to keep watch over me in the early mornings, a true friend.
Louis and Annic insisted on getting up with me at 4 am to prepare a hot breakfast and to make padkos for me. They also forced me to pack a flask of coffee, and despite my feeble protests, I gained a flask as part of my kit; an addition that became an absolute necessity as the early mornings of the trip came and went.

During the night, the sky had cleared and the wind stopped singing. Setting out was like riding through a deep freeze. My gloves were still wet, so I put on surgical gloves underneath until the wind dried them later in the morning. My gears were jammed, and I only had two or three gear options until they thawed out later, which was fine, as I wasn't too keen on creating a frigid headwind anyway. I passed the small community of Swartkop wisely asleep in the cold night air, and pushed on towards Brospan

The sun finally lifted above the horizon, but brought no relief from the cold, unlike my flask of coffee! For the rest of the day, though the sun shone bright in a reasonably clear sky, the air remained freezing, and I stayed in my early morning gear for the entire day. I had now left Bushmanland and entered the Great Karoo. Absolute flat gave way to some low lying hills, and I was quite excited to climb a small pass of about 60m near the Heuningberg which was an astounding 90m above the road surface! The route to Williston was long -- 165km of straight road. During this stretch I had some time to reflect on the mental aspects of riding long distances on your own for extended periods.

I found two distinct personalities within myself. One was a weak, undisciplined
brat, with absolutely no willpower, lazy, easily irritated, argumentative and prone to sulking. The other 'self' was self-controlled, extremely disciplined, goal-orientated, realistic, calm and mature. Conversations would run along the lines of:

'Oh, I am sick of this stupid road. I'm going to stop right here right now and to hell with it all!'

'No, you are not going to stop. You stopped a kilometer ago, and you are fine! Just keep going. You can do this. You really need to keep moving at a steady pace.

Ja right! It's all very well for you to talk -- it's not your flipping arse on the line!'

'Listen, just pull yourself together, this was your idea. I'm just helping you fulfil your dream.'

The second thing I found is that during difficult times, I kept repeating the same sentence, almost like a mantra. The sentence went something like this:

In order to reach your goal, you need to be making consistent significant forward movement.

Not very profound, but when I look at it a bit deeper, I see great depth of wisdom in that saying. I have learned over the years to think carefully on things that come to me during times of stress and extreme hardship. I think that the lessons we learn about life and ourselves might even be the real reason why many people choose to put themselves in difficult situations, for it is often true that from our weakness, comes strength.

In practical terms, I developed a measure where 14–16km/h was called tourist class travel, 17–19km/h was business class travel, and anything over 20km/h was first class travel. Tourist class travel was NOT considered significant forward movement.

So the day passed as I travelled through a steadily changing environment. At some point I realised that I had not seen a single car on the roads for two full days. The air remained frigid, and to stop for even a few minutes caused my core temperature to drop. I turned off the road and into a small group of farm workers' cottages, where I shared their fire, bought some coffee and spent a little while talking with Gert and his wife about farming and living in the Great Karoo.

With 75km to go: farmhouses with palm trees, acacia trees; 50km to go: goats, horses watching me pass; 25km to go: sheep, trig beacons on the map, fence posts, crisp fresh air, thoughts drifting

The last 9km were really difficult, probably because I knew I only had 9km to go, and besides, my mature self had left the brat to complete the last section alone. The kilometers would not pass, and there was no sign of the town I expected to see in the distance. Eventually I sat down on the side of the road and almost screamed with frustration. Where was the town?!

Three hundred meters and one bend later, bang! Welcome to Williston. With relief, I rode down

the main road with the sun low on the horizon and found a quaint B&B where I could spend the night. I was able to get my clothes washed, and had a very comfortable evening before wedging myself between a ton of down, and drifting off to Neverland.

Day 5: Verneukpan to Williston
Distance: 165.69km
Hours: 11hrs 45mins (05:15–17:00)
Ave riding speed: 17.67

Kenhardt to Verneukpan

Friday 27 July 2007

Verneukpan. From the time I saw it sploshed on the map like a wet bird dropping, I was fascinated by it. Maybe because it's the only real feature that stands out on a map between Askham and Fraserburg, or that in 1922 Sir Malcolm Campbell broke the land speed record in Bluebird on the same blotch. Either way, I was looking forward to riding over it, and today would be the day.

After 'clip-clopping' down the hollow passages of the hotel at 05h00 in the morning, I stepped outside into a strong, cold wind, and headed off into the darkness. The weather was clearly changing for the worse, and there would be no sunrise for me that morning. The early morning gloom revealed ominous low, dark, brooding clouds in the direction I was heading, and the strong tailwind pushed me towards the storm.

I stopped and propped my bike up against a small rocky outcrop as I rearranged my pack and clothing in preparation for what was to come. It proved none too soon, and I soon had freezing rain hitting me in the back. The turn-off to the pan took me onto a road of loose soil and
corrugations, intersected by numerous farm gates.

Because of the following wind, I had made excellent progress, and was approaching the pan itself. With only about 8km to go, I thought to myself that at least the road over the pan would be flat and easy. Big mistake!

The road was straight and very smooth, but as I rode onto the pan, I was greeted by a shower of thick, porridgy clay coming off the wheels. I swerved off the road and tried to follow some

tracks running on the white pan itself, noting in alarm that both front and back wheels were sliding out to the side! The clay felt nice and cool on my shoulder as I squirmed around in the mud trying to unclip my feet from the pedals.

Standing up was a delicate process, but I was soon slip-sliding away on the pan in the very general direction of the road. I must have fallen at least 4 or 5 times till I came to the sign marking the original place that Campbell had broken the speed record. I risked taking a few photos in the rain, and then moved off for Act Two of the Biker Ballet on the Pan.

I really couldn't see much of the pan due to the weather, but now the main aim was to get off this ice rink and onto the brown road I could see in the distance. Having more or less mastered 'Verneuk dance', I was feeling quite positive and only had a few kilometers to go to my overnight stop at the farm Nuwerus.

Up ahead I saw someone crouching next to a bike, and for a moment I felt my spirits lift as I thought it might be a fellow bike traveller. It turned out to be a local farm worker on his way to… who knows where? We exchanged pleasantries, and he happened to mention that there was a rather loose section of clay up ahead. Well, I could see the road quite clearly now, and it was obvious that the surface was fine, and couldn't possibly pose any problems for me and my bike. I gave him a wave and sped ahead in an excellent display of cycling mastery … straight into a clogmire (new word) of thick, sticky clay.

It was so bad, that it packed around the wheels and within a few revolutions the bike jammed solid. I got off and tried to push, but it was no use, so I tried to carry the bike, but it was too heavy with clay to budge. By now, my shoes had packed with clay to such an extent, that I was about 20 cm taller and 20kg heavier! Using my gloves, I scraped as much clay off the bike as possible and then carried it as far as I could (about 20 steps at a time) before either dropping it due to the weight, or slipping and falling over in the mud. It was still raining, and the pan already looked like a very large lake.

It was so frustrating! I could see the farmhouse about 3km ahead of me, and the road looked perfectly normal. Progress went: 20 steps, stop/fall, 20 steps, stop/fall, for what seemed like hours. All things, even bad things, come to an end, and it was with relief that I finally placed my bike down and found that it was on firm ground. After scraping the worst of the clay off, I was finally able to ride. I couldn't use the cleats, the gears or even the brakes, but I could ride, and ride I did, in the rain to the farmhouse.

What a haven. One look at me, and Louie lit the 'donkey' for a hot bath while Annic placed a mug of hot coffee in my hand and took my clothes away to be cleaned. My bike was sent to be de-clayed, and I was soon relaxing in a hot bath. After my bath and a huge lunch I settled down to enjoy the hospitality of my hosts, the Salzmanns.




I rode around the farm with Louis in his bakkie and heard stories of the pan. I heard how a few years ago Johan Jacobs had died during an attempt on a new speed record, and I saw the remains of his car with the text 'If you think this is scary, read the Bible, it will scare the hell out
of you!' painted on the cockpit side. I heard that the area is a
favourite among the kite










sailing/skating/riding/jumping community, because of the
consistent strong winds and absolutely level ground on the pan. I heard about how one of the kite riders lost the plot and went flying away completely out of control, to be found 18km away, alive, but unconscious. I heard how people battle to perceive distance and size on the pan, and how people can get lost. I realised then that many people have been verneuked by this pan, and I started to feel quite privileged to have been at least a little verneuked by the pan myself!

It was still raining and blowing a gale when I finally went to sleep, safe, warm and feeling very spoiled by such generosity shown by my hosts.

I would strongly recommend that visiting the Salzmanns at Verneukpan be placed high on the 'have-to-do' list of any serious traveller/adventurer. They have a nest of caravans and lapas which they rent out on the pan itself, and a website http://www.verneukpan.co.za/ for bookings and information.

Oh, and of course it just never, ever rains there, especially in winter … unless of course like me (and others), you too get 'Verneuked on Verneukpan'!

Day four: Kenhardt to Verneukpan
Distance: 91km
Hours: 5hrs 55mins (05:05 – 11:00)
Ave riding speed: 21km/h

Upington to Kenhardt

Thursday 26 July 2007

I have always believed that duct tape and cable ties will fix anything, but I never reckoned that I would use them on my arse! Well, not the cable ties, but I cut two strips of duct tape, placed some gauze in the middle, Betadine on the gauze and slapped them over the offending cheeks, followed by two pairs of cycling shorts and one pair of cycle tights. It didn't work, and I must surely have broken some record by riding the entire 120km without once sitting on the saddle.



I am going to leave this subject completely alone, other than to say that it clouded my trip to the bitter err…..end!





Leaving in cold conditions, I rode through the silent, sleeping town of Upington and over the Orange River. I then followed the winding road that hugged the river until it headed south near the village of Louisevale.


Sunrise on the trip was always the highlight of my day, and was worth every minute of the cold snap that always seemed to accompany the event. This morning was no exception as it gleefully splashed golden paint on the last few koppies I would see for the next few days, and on a lone wise old Kokerboom on the side of the road. Resting forever under its shade lay a sun-bleached skeleton of an antelope.


























I was pleased to see no signs of the cold front that was at that moment causing serious flooding in and around the Western Cape.

The road from this point sliced a straight (no really, I don't mean generally in a southerly direction or meandering very much to the south or anything like that, I really do mean ……straight!) path directly to Kenhardt through flat veld (again, I don't mean quite flat with the odd koppie breaking the monotony, or gently rolling low-lying hills or almost completely flat, I mean ……flat!).

I didn't realize just how difficult it would be to ride a flat road. Staying motivated to keep going with no ups or downs or bends was mentally the most difficult riding I have ever done. The worst was watching the signboards run from 80km to 70km etc, etc down to Kenhardt. At first I tried to ignore them, looking away as they came up, but my brain just laughed at me and shouted the answer over and over until I couldn't ignore it anymore. So I decided that if I you can't beat them, at least make them laugh, and started playing silly buggers, posing at each road sign for a self portrait.













































At about 20km to Kenhardt, the ground fell away slightly and for the first time in three days of riding, I saw land ahead of me that affording a view other than a flat horizon. Sounds weird now to even think of this as significant, but at the time it was eye candy of note!

I rode down the main road, burst through the saloon doors in a cloud of dust, eyes wild and clear from the harsh desert sun, my voice deep and steady with the dust of the land, 'Brandy' I growled, 'and make that a double!'. Actually, if I recall my actual words they were something about 'I'm just so sandy' and 'Does the bath have bubbles?'. Either way, I was soon installed in a room at the Kenhardt Hotel and spent a very pleasant afternoon servicing my bike, doing washing, relaxing and walking around the town in plastic coated leggings, cycle-shell and stokies, which was actually my entire recreational wardrobe for the trip!

I collected my parcel containing spares, maps and other consumables from the Post Office in Kenhardt. I then repacked my kit, and posted back in the same package anything that I did not need, such as used maps, etc. This was one of two such packages I had sent 'Poste Restante' (they just love it when you talk foreign!) to selected towns along the route, and the system worked very well.









I had supper at the hotel and watched the weather reporter on TV talk about probable snowfalls, extreme cold and widespread rain reaching up as far as Upington. With this thought walking slow circles in my mind, I drifted off to sleep.

Day three Upington to Kenhardt
Distance: 123km
Hours: 7hrs 50mins (05:10 – 13:00)
Ave riding speed: 20.65