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