The started fine with a healthy breakfast in the company of my hosts, Anton and Toekie Doyer. Toekie also prepared a lunch pack for me. I got going 06:15.
The ride to the foot of Robbers Pass was hard work. I just could not get a propper rythm going, but grinded along to the foot of the pass. This was 9.67 km long and took me 1:54.
A couple of kilometers past the top I took the Mount Sheba turnoff. It was very misty and overcast and within a couple minutes it started raining. I pull off under a bush to get my rain jacket out, but before I could put it on, the rain stopped. The road first climbed a number smallish hills and then plunged down to the Restort. I followed the GPS and it took me through the resort and then down an obsure track, which I remembered from 2016. After a while I was confronted with the same old medieval gate from 2016. Last time we could push it open. This time it was securly lock with a chain and padlock. I definately was not going back to the resort to try and get somebody to open it for me. I did notice that if I pulled it back, there was enough space underneath to get my bike through if I took the front wheel off. The gap between the two gates was just big enough to get the pedal through. My backpak I managed to get over the gate and I could climb around the side through the electic fencing, which was not switched or just did not work!
The scenery was out of this world. I felt as though I was cycling through some English countryside forests in the middle ages! I did notice that my Garmin "froze". I just could not get it to re-act to any input and after a while it went dead! I did notice recently that it did not seem to like to get wet. Fortunately I do have a Garmin fenix 6 as backup and I did download all my tracks for such an occation. I switced that to Navigation and went to the relevant map. At this point I also decided that is was a good time to have lunch.
After lunch I got going and lo and behold, my Garmin came back to life. That was a relieve as it is difficult to navigate with a watch. My rout took me down the mountain and I remembered to route from 2016. I got to a point where I remembered that we turned right last time, but this time the GPS let me go left. I also noticed that I am loosing more hight than what I would have liked, but according to Garmin I was on the right track. After some more ups and downs, I suddenly came upon a tar road! I immediately realise that something is wrong. I started checking on my other maps and saw that I was on the road from Graskop to Sabie, very far from where I wanted to be! It was 15:15 and the only option was to go the Sabie and take stock once I get there.
It took me an hour and a half to cover the 18 km to Sabie, which had some wonderful down hills but also some nasty "kickers" going up. Sabie is fairly run down and had load schedding from 15:00-17:00 so generators were going everywhere. In the end I ended up at the golf club where I had a Coke and access to the internet. The nearest place to Longtom Pass, where I need to start tomorrow, was Mt Andersen and Lekkeslaap show 3 B&B's in that area. I cycled there. The first B&B did not re-act to any form of drawing attention and the number was on voicemail. The other two was nowhere to be found! A forth one had "For Sale" signs up! I was just about to give up hope when 4 youths came walking down the street. I asked then and they directed me to a place 100 meters futher on. Here I found "life" and a place to stay for the night. I even got a free plate of spaghetti bolognaise and salads!
So ended quite an eventful day. Oh, the reason why I "got lost" was because I loaded the wrong GPS map! Must be more careful in future.
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