Getting up to Date

Hello all. A lot has happened since descending the ladder, and I'm conscious that the blog starting to fall behind the action, so this is a fairly long post, but there's a treat at the end...

Hell and The Gamkaskloof

After the epic 120 km day, a rest was in order, so I moved my planned rest day forward and spent an extra day in 'The Kloof' as it is called by the locals
(Kloof = gorge). Of which there are about 20. The Kloof was historically an extremely isolated valley, the only entrances being the ridiculous mule track I descended the night before (the ladder), and a difficult river bed at the other end. The first vehicle in the Kloof was a tractor which was lowered down the ladder piece by piece and reconstructed in the Kloof. I saw photos of the first car in the Kloof being pulled over the boulders of the dry river bed by 4 donkeys and 6 men, 50 years ago. In the space of 24 hours, I somehow managed to meet all 3 of the major land owning parties in the Kloof, each was wonderfully hospitable and kind to me. It was quite fascinating as they all have different interests in the future of the Kloof, and there are clearly a lot of politics. There isn't space to go into it here though unfortunately. At some point someone had the bright idea of building a mountain pass into the Kloof. This was no mean feat - the, the road runs 57km ascending and descending 5 valleys or so. The last stretch into the Kloof itself is the steepest and has the worst quality surface. The pass is known as 'Die Hell'. I heard 3 different explanations as to why, but perhaps the most plausible is that the old dutch word for descending sounds something like helling, so die hell means literally 'the descent'. It would have been a most challenging descent, I'm sure, but my task was to ascend it. On the way up each valley my thighs and quads burned. On the way down my calves ached from standing up over the pedals.



It was a pretty tough climb and after the first few kilometres, I started to worry about whether I had brought enough water (I left with 3.5L). This kind of mental stress affects your cycling too, and my energy levels started to wane together with my motivation. Eventually, i realised that the solution was right underneath my nose. At least once per valley I was crossing a mountain stream. I remembered the kloofers boasting about the amazing purity of their spring water so i started using it in my bottles. It was cool and crisp, and completely transformed my mood. I now took breaks in the climb whenever I crossed a mountain stream. Emerging at the end of the pass, I was rewarded with spectacular panoramic views, but the best was yet to come.



I was about to descend the swartberg pass. This thing was built for mountain bikes -it is one of my top 3 downhills of all time. Set amid an epic rocky mountain range, the hand built pass clings to the rock face, winding its way down some 700 vertical metres with switch backs and tabletops to jump all the way down. I had passed about 1 car per hour all day, and could see the entire pass unwind beneath me, so I could see that there was no other traffic. I had the road to myself, so I loaded Rage Against The Machine on my MP3 player and started pedaling. The surface is dirt, but devoid of loose stones, and i was able to hit about 55km/h on the way down, never dropping below 30. After 10 minutes of this grin inducing fun, I had a simple 6km downhil coast into my next guest house. I was still grinning when I went to bed that night, and I'm grinning again now writing about it. I seriously considered waking 2 hours earlythe next morning just to ride it again before breakfast.

The Kleine Karoo

Next up, the semi desert Kleine Karoo. The terrain was pretty flat and uninteresting so I got my head down and just pedaled to get it over with. I did however manage to tick off some of the smaller animals on my safari watch list. I saw some huge tortoises, my first ever scorpion in the wild, a big (albeit dead) puff adder road kill, and an albino donkey grazing with sheep (most confusing I can tell you - I thought it was some kind of emperor sheep at first).

Baviaanskloof

Polite Pessimism and hospitality have both characterised my interactions with South Africans. The areas I have been cycling through, particularly the scenic kloofs, are pretty remote, and the only people i meet are either farmers, farm workers or South African tourists. The high season has ended now, I passed roughly one 4x4 per hour yesterday. With so few people, you might think that there would be less chance of meeting and interacting, but infact the reverse is true. Almost every vehicle I passed yesterday in the kloof stopped to talk to me. All were friendly, but at the same time pessimistic about my chances of cycling out of the kloof. The South Africans are strong believers in the power of fruit. After expressing their doubts about my chances of making it to my next destination, many of them offered me fruit, as a kind of last supper I suppose. I heard each of these statements yesterday:

"You're going to Cambria? I don't think you'll make it that far I'm afraid. Can we give you an apple though?"
"The road is terrible. You won't be able to cycle on it. I think you will have to turn back. Or at least push your bicycle. Shame man, you want a nartjie?" (nartjie = satsuma, tangerine, mandarin, clementine etc)
"You know there are some lions on the loose from a neighbouring reserve? Good luck hey!"

I wasn't fooled by the last jester, but the first 2 comments are typical of the reactions I have received from South African tourists throughout this trip (the farmers I have stayed with, however, never question a man's ability to achieve the day's goal). It is a general pessimism about the capabilities of one man power next to two hundred horse power. Earlier in the trip, these warnings genuinely frightened me. I didn't have a great deal of knowledge about the off road terrain in South Africa, and so tended to listen to the words of warning - Lonely Planet would have been proud that I was taking local advice. It was this kind of advice that sent me shooting down a farm track worried about being eaten by leopard last week. I am now one week wiser and can take these things with a pinch of salt. The 4x4 drivers who doubted my ability to climb the rough 4x4 track out of the kloof were failing to see the track through the eyes of a mountain biker. I am not riding any old bicycle, it is a mountain bike, a serious all terrain vehicle designed specifically for crossing terrain that would make a Land Rover wince in terror. And i'm not exaggerating. Where a 4x4 driver sees a steep 10 foot narrow trail with 10 inch rock steps that he must somehow ascend, i instead see a wide track across which i may zig-zag to my heart's content, thereby lessening the gradient. There need only be a single 3 inch wide route around the rock step for me to stay seated and pedal my way to the top. If not, It's an easy hop to hoist my meagre 100kg total mass, compared to the 2000kgs of the 4x4. While the 4x4 ascends slightly quicker, on account of not having to stop to rest, I can certainly descend the same terrain with signifiantly greater speed. Probably not much control, but it's definitely more fun. I heard today that the 4x4 average speed up, over and down yesterday's mountain pass is 10 km/h, whilst i managed almost 14 yesterday. Food for thought init?


View in the Baviaanskloof


One of the River crossings in the Baviaanskloof

So now, instead of quaking in my boots when drivers wind down their windows and offer their advice of doom, i instead soak up the words and use them as motivation to stay in the saddle and keep pedaling to the top. Despite the doubters, I made the 80 km journey up, over and down the mountain yesterday with an hour to spare before sunset, and without having to get off and push once. There was even time for a lunchtime swim in the wonderfully clear and cool river.

And Finally

And so we are now up to date. I promised a treat at the end though did I not? And so here it is. After almost 2 weeks on the road, and plenty of moments when I felt that I was going to have to drop out, I finally feel moderately confident that I will be able to complete The Freedom Trail in its entirety. Tomorrow I will pedal across the 1000km mark, leaving 1300 to go, so this seems like a good time to ask you for sponsorship! When I left the UK, I saw this trip as having a green message, that it is possible to do big things without necessarily resorting to eBookers, if you have the time. To reflect this, I chose to donate sponsorship to World Land Trust who do some excellent conservation work and have a fantastic record of using donated money extremely effectively. Since leaving Cape Town, however, this trip has gained new meaning for me personally, as I have come into contact with poverty on a daily basis as I pass through rural South Africa. For this reason, I have decide to split the proceeds raised between The World Land Trust and a South African based charity, Link Community Development, which works with some of the poorest most resource starved communities within South Africa and beyond. So please, do 2 things for me:

1. Go to my just giving page now and sponsor some money. And remember this is no 3km fun run, so dig deep!

2. If you know anyone else who might be happy to sponsor this event, then please email them this link. http://www.justgiving.com/freedomtrail

Thanks very much. And remember, the amount of effort I put into future blog posts will be directly proportional to the amount of sponsorship raised!