RASA Day 9

RASA Day 9
Moordenaarspoort to Brosterlea. We rose at 05:00, had breakfast at 05:30 and managed to get going at 06:20.

The road out of Moodenaarspoort to Kranzkop was all good district roads with a number of climbs and we covered the 38.63 km in 2:48. The temperature got down to -1.5 and we had quite a bit of cloud cover. We stopped at Kranzkop for a early lunch of soup, coffee and "beskuit". We also checked through the narratives for the next section. Total stoppage time was 47 minutes.

The 48 km to Brosterlea had quite a bit of tricky navigation, but nothing that could cause any serious problems as long as one read the narratives carefully and followed them. No portaging was involved either. We found our way through all the tricky bits and was on the Burgersdorp road in good time. We stopped along the road for a lunch bite and were on our way again. Om the meantime a north westerly was picking up. We were riding diagonally into it, but at this point it was manageable. We got to the final turn off at the old Gouevlei siding at about 14:00 with only 18 km left. The first 3 km was a steady climb and the top we turned into the wind, which had picked up some speed by now. The road surface was also very rough, which made the going even more difficult. The net result was that it took me 2:30 to cover the 18 km. i sure was glad when I reached the Brosterlea turnoff.

In the end we once again had a shortish day with mot too much difficult riding. We both agreed that it was a good idea to divide these two days into three. Tomorrow it is 82 km to Romansfontein.

Total time 9:12:59; total distance 89.73 km; 1,421 meters of climbing