BB2BB Day 3

Got up at 05:00. Had a good breakfast and got going at 06:20. 1 km gown the mIn road, I realised that I left my waterbottle on the counter. Phoned Pieter de Jager and he brought it to their main gate. That was a adventureoys start to the day! Had a good ride down to the Van Collerpas gate where I had to phone the duys from ZZ2 to open up for me. I have been waiting 15 minutes for them to arrive! They arrive after 32 minutes. 

Van Collerpas and Waterpoort is one of the highlights of this trip. The pass is not too strenious and not too long, but beautiful and a good 3 km challenge with a view down the poort. After the pass comes the railwayline. This is a "highlight" in revers as for the next 8 km I had to push my bike down the railway line. The stones between the sleepers generally are to low so the opportunity fir riding is limited. The shoulders also are too narrow. But I first tried a very faint track next to the line. This was reasonable except for the 2.5 meter fench between me and the railway. When I got to the point where the fench went away from the railway, I had two options: go back the way I came or find a hole in the fench. Luck was on my side and I found a hole in the fench! Once on the railwayline, it was a 2:30 push for the next 9 km. In total it took me 3:30 from the gate untill I got onto a good road again, a distance of only 19 km. The last 3 km was, to a certain extend, similar to Van Collerpas. 

Once on the msin road, my pace increased. After about 5 km tge GPS indicated right and 500 meters further, left. 60 meters before I had to turn there was a track, which I passed. I continued on and went past the point where I was suppose to turn, but saw no road, so I continued only to find a deadend. I went back the track, realised after 100 meters that it was a farm track. Back towards the deadend. Right at the point where the GPS indicated left, there was a very faint track. I turn onto it and aftrr a while this became the railway service road.

I continued along this until the GPS took me away onto a tar road. I passed a car wash, which sold ice, so stopped there. R25 for a bag of ice! It was more than I needed, but that dud not stop me from buying it. I filled my waterbottles with ice and ate one of the breadrolls Mafunga Lodge gave me, drinking some of my ice water. I filled both my waterbottles with ice and then topped it up with water, I also had 1 liter Coke bottle and a 500 ml bottle, which I filled with water. At this point I have only used hslf of the ice. Not to worry, I just tagged the icebag along. As I was riding along I ate some of the ice, threw some down my back and put sone ice cubes under my helmet. All helped to cool me down. At this point temperstures were in the high 30's but would later go up to a maximum of 45.7! The ice did its work. Whenever there was water in the bottom of the bag, I would stop and drink it. When there were only a few cubes left, I stuffed it down my back. 

The GPS took me down some dusty roads on to Bandelierskop. From there I had to go 5 km in the direction of Loius Trighart (Makondo) to my overnight stop at Lalapanzi. I must give credit to John Brand who shares his Capepoint to Beit Bridge tracks with me for the rout through Waterpoort as well as the Mafunga Lodge and Lakapanzi accommodation.

It was a long day. 86 km; 9:48:32.