As a number of the guys on the Wild Ride indicated that they read my blog and all are English speaking. I will therefore post the last three days in English. Julle "boere" kan mos Engels lees!
One of the hardest day on a bike for me! Not sure where I would have been was it not for Martin Deyer. He pushed me up most of the steep hills, carried or pushed my bike up most of the big climbs and made sure I was not too much of a "drag" on our progress.
We got going at 09:11. Martin indicated that it should not be a long day and we should finish by 14:00. Little did we know what lay ahead! Turning right along the Umzimvubu river on what was a good gravel road, which turned into paving for the next 5 or so kilometers. Couple of ups and downs and then a "monster" going up to 18%! At the top we took a small gravel jeep track which took us along the ridgeline high above the sea. This took us down to the first river crossing of the day, which was "chiken feed" compared to yesterday. Thereafter came the regular ride along the beach.
All good things come to an end and this day had some interesting challenges for us, mostly in the form of rocky outcrops next to the sea or steep hike-a-bike climbs to get around some big rocks. This is where Martin came to my rescue by coming back to take my bike up the hill after he dropped his at the top. This happened at least five times during the course of the day. Once on top we were able to ride again, but not for too long. Down we went to the next river crossing, which once again was only ankle deep. This was followed by some beach riding again and then over some rocks! Progress was slow and our average speed drop to below 10 kph.
This was the menu for the day and the further we went, the slower was our average speed. We also took some lengthy stops just to relax and take in the amasing view. Population was very thin and most of the time there were not a dwelling in sight, only some cattle lying on the sand while chewing the cud! The fact that there were some cattle about was proof that some people did live nearby, we just could not see the houses. Our third river crossing was a little more challenging, coming up to our
At 25 kilometer we stopped at a shop for some Coke, while having a rest and eating the rest of our lunch. On a hill outcrop about 100 meters away was a couple of bungalows, which had the most amasing view. Martin said we still had one and a half hours to our destination. This ended up being two and a half hours. Despite the dificulty, we had a super day with some very wonderful views and some very special little "tracks" up and down the hills and along one of the rivers. At one point we literaly cycled through someone's backyard!
Cresting the next hill, we could see the dwellings at Mboyti in the distance, but judging from lay inbetween it was still going to take us at least an hour to cover the ground to get there. After crossing the beach at Mboyti, we still had a kilometer or two to our accommodation and that entailed another two, ridable hills on a local road.
After 6:35; 34 km and 1,251 meters of climbing, we reached Mboyti River Lodge. We all agreed that that was one tough day!
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