Fc 2026 Day 6 Makek to Vuvu

 FC 2026 Day 6 Malekonyane to Vuvu

See I have day 5 and 6 in English, so 7 and 8 will be in Afrikaans

It was a 04:00 start as we wanted to push through to Vuvu and you do not want to get caught in the Vuvu valley when it gets dark. 

The exit out of Malekonyane is quite tricky. To address this we "walked" the first part after SJ served her penalty. This turned out quite fortunate as the asigned route had some small saplings, which were cut off 2 or 3 inches above the ground. Can you imagine what the results would have been if we encountered that in the dark! We did find a better alternative 90 meters up the road. 

The actual navigation at 04:00 in the morning did not go too well after the section that we walked, as it is very difficult to find your bearings in the dark. It took us a while to find the wier where we had to cross the stream and more time to find the plantation we had to go around. Then after some more "wanderings" we did locate the corner of a fench which was a reference point. From there we needed to get to the road. There was some discord on how to get there, so I reverted to a silent prayer for a car to come down the road so that we knew where to go. Lo and behold, my prayer got answered in 2 minutes! I decided that I just had to witness about this when we got to the top of the next hill, which I did and that was received favourably. 

We continued along a district road for a few kilometers and then turned off on a obscure track which took as through a village. I was falling behind and when I caught up with the rest of the group, I was informed that SJ is not feeling to good and that the rest would go on their own. I diceded to stay with the ladies. We found our way through the village and around a "koppie" called Thaba Chita. From there to steam down a very rocky gully where we had to mostly carry our bicycles. Up the otherside and then onto Black Fountain. Part of the track towards Black Fountain looks like it could have been a pass for motor vehicles, a longbtime ago! It is quite a "trek" up to Black Fountain which alternate between some riding and some pushing.

Once past the old homestead it was mostly good riding on the ridgeline to a "koppie" just above Tinana. Here there are three options to go down the mountain, a "tiger line" which I used in 2014 and 2016 but as this was so long ago and I was not confident in leading the group doen that. SJ also have not tried it before, so decided to go for the "easy around the mountain" option. After awhile we realised that we actually were on the second option which is not as daring as the tiger line, but did provide us with some challenges getting down the mountain. Once we picked up the district road the next challenge was finding a track down to the river. This also presented some serious mountainering challenges with a bicycle down a mountain. Crossing the river was easy and then we went to the intrem stop at Mrs Kibi's house for lunch. We were back on the road again after 33 minutes.

It is quite a nice ride from Tinana to the entry to the Vuvu valley with fairly easy navigation. SJ had some specials notes from Richard Erasmus to help us getting through the valley and we made good progress. We managed to do some riding, especially when close to the river, which we crossed 5 times and the Tina river once. We also had to do a fair amount of "hiking-a-bike" up some serious inclines when we could not followcthevriver. We were in the last section of the valley and darkness have caught up with us. We were just short of the road and was busy man handling our bicyles up a very steep incline, which we thought would take us to the road, when we saw a light to our right. A "good samaritan" saw us and guided us through the last section to the road. I remembered this road from 2019 and it is "awefull". The one hill must have us close a hour to concour! 

After 16:08 and 77 km with 1,896 meter of climbing, we clocked in at the Vivu school. What a day!!