Freedom Challenge RASA day 9

FCRASA day 9

We left Kranskop at 05:31. We turned right on the district road and then left through a farm gate after 2.7 km. The next 7 km was on farm tracks around some cultivated field and a rocky outcropt reaching a public road. After 1.3 km we had to go through a pedestrian gate and then through the veld for 1.1 km until we reached a farm track, which took us to  tar road close to Burgersdorp. After 400 meters took a right turn, which took us past the disused Gouevlei station and onto Brosterlea, where we had an early lunch. Riding conditions were good and we made good progress, but still had 82 km to go, which included crossing the Stormberg.

Out of Brosterlea we had some district road riding and then some farm tracks which took us onto another dirt road for a short distance before turning off at Weltevrede farm to cross Stormberg. There is a track right up to the top, which us ridable, but due steepness and tired legs involved a fair amount of pushing. Going down the otherside was very nerve racking as the gradient was very steep and rocky. Once at the bottom we crossed the railwayline and then cycled through the Anglo/Boer warsite of Vegkoppies on farm tracks through to a tar road. After 1.6 km we turned right on a gravel road. We tried to ride in eschalon formation, but the corregations was so bad that we had to give up. 13.5 km later we turned off at the farm De Rust and then immediately right again in a westerly direction around a koppie. The next 11 km took us to the Molteno/Hofmeyr gravel road via varioys farm tracks, which was in a fairly good condition, but riding was getting more challenging as we were tierd and it was getting dark. We reach the dirt road and now had only 9.4 km to Romansfontein. This turned out to be quite challenging due to very tierd leggs and a number of hugh hills. To add some spice, it started to rain, but fortunately intermitend and not very hard. We decided to push on and not stop to put on rain ware as we should be home within 30 minutes. My haert jumped with joy where we crested the last hill and gad a downhill run to the farm entrance. The rain was falling a bit harder, but was not drenching us yet. We arrived at Romansfontein at 18:30. Another hard day out of the way!