RASA Day 12

RASA Day 12
The distance for the day was scheduled to be more than 120 km, so we decided to go for a 05:00 start. In the end we managed to get going at 05:21.

The district road outside Elandsberg was the best we have encountered to date. Our average speed for the first hour was more than 20 kph and that was in the dark! The navigation through to Stuttgart, the halfway stop was fairly easy as long as one kept to the narratives and read them correctly. After the initial euphoria if the good road and high speed, we did encounter some hills and covered the 68.57 km to Stuttgart in    4:54:19. On the way there we passed the farm where my dad grew up. Our "lunch" stop lasted 48 minutes.

The first 17 km was reasonable district roads, but then we were back onto rough jeep tracks, which culminated in an unbelievable climb up Schurfteberg and an equally unbelievable descent on the other side.

Past the Schurteberg farmstead, we were on good farm tracks and district roads again until we got to the Grootdam turnoff. Yhe last 10 km was very rough jeep tracks through the Grootdam farm and game reserve where we had to go through 9 gates, four of which we had to climb over and one game reserve gate, which was 3 meters high, but fortunately had a special small gate on the middle specially made for cyclists to get our bikes through. We reached the overnight stop at 17:15, just before sunset.

Total riding time: 11:55:13; total distance: 132.15 km; total ascent: 1,838 meters; total descent: 2,012 meters.