So the end is here. Today I felt like the Tour d'France winner on the final day of the Tour d'France during the ride into Paris! It really was awesome! The support, the camaraderie, the encouragement, it was very special.
Hennie and myself nearly polished the lasagne last night with only a very small helping remaining. I was ready for bed after supper, but Hennie felt it was too early. We both "hung" around for a while and went to our rooms at about 20:45. We arranged to meet Johann and Annemarie along the road and had to get going by 07:30. I set my alarm for 06:30 and had a good sleep.
Hennie was up early and breakfast of museli, yoghart, toast and coffee was provided at 07:00. Johann advised that the meeting place and time has been changed to 08:00 the Pot Belly down the road from our accommodation. We left just before 08:00 and met them there for coffee. We were a little early for our scheduled arrival at Eden on the Bay by 14:00, so we were in no hurry. We joined the other two for coffee and got going after that, at a leasurely pace.
When we left Mitre's Edge, Hennie commented about the perfect weather. That actually changed as we crossed the N1. Suddenly it was very misty and the temprature dropped to 12 degrees. Even Hennie, who normally ride with bare arms, stopped to put on a jacket. Across from the N1 we took the road to Eenzaamheid through to the Agter Paarl road. Here we went right for a short distance and then left on to the road leading through Leeuwendans and onto Slent road. There was very little relenting in the mist, but the temperature did creep up to 15 degrees.
At the Slent road junction we took stock of our timing again and it was obvious that we were going to be early if we do not take a deviation or two. First we thought of going through Durbanville, but in the end we decided to take the Klipheuwel turn-off from the Occultdale road and then cross Adderley road to join up with the Malanshoogte road past Fair Cape. This also cut out quite a bit of tar road.
When we reached the tar section of Malanshoogte, we met up with Andrew Keevy who rode through from Sunningdale on his road bike. He cycled with us over Malanshoogte up to the entrance of Anna Bealah, where we turned off for lunch. My brother and his wife also waited for us half way up the Malanshoogte climb. We stopped to greet and have some water.
We stopped at Anna Bealah for a bite to eat and to while away some of our excess time. We spent an hour and a bit here and then tackled the last streach. I wanted to arrive at Eden on the Bay at 14:30 so when we got to Table Bay Mall at 14:00, we decided to stop at Vida for a final coffee. This took just more than 10 minutes and we were on our way again. It is only 3.5 km from here to the end where we arrived at 14:30.
That is it then! 3,500 km over a period of 39 days. What an awesone adventure! Thank you to everyone who helped to make this possible. Without your support, this could not have happened! A special thank you to CANSA. It was while paging through their magazines when I accompanied Sue during her chemo sessions in 2014, that the seed for BB2BB was planted! Now it has been realised twice.
I enclose a couple if videos taken by Con Malherbe while cycling from Nothingham Road to Underberg and up and down Sani Pass.
I will follow up with a reflection in English and Afrikaans together with all the relevant statistics.
Geen opmerkings nie:
Plaas 'n opmerking