The Begining

I realise that the blog has been a bit quiet the last couple of weeks, but things have been pretty busy here. The time has passed in a flash and all of a sudden it's time to set off tomorrow morning, and I'm frantically trying to get the last things little details sorted (health insurance, critical bike tools, directions etc).

Organising a bicycle ride in Africa is much easier from Africa. Fact. I happened to look at the homepage for The Freedom Trail and saw that there was a talk being given in Cape Town by the previous year's race winner, so I went along. The speaker, Ben Swanepoel, had won a race along the freedom trail by riding 15-21 hours per day, crossing rivers and pushing his bike up unrideable sections, to complete the 2300km off road course in 19 days. Thankfully, my daily target distance is about half of his iron man days, so it should be a bit more comfortable. The plan is to take 37 days to cover the trail, including 6 rest days. The pace has been geared towards 'completion' rather than over exertion, and I expect to be riding somewhere between 6 and 8 hours per day. I realised from the photos that I had not prepared sufficiently for the amount of snow in the Drakensburg mountains. Oh dear. I made a mental note to get a better shell layer and an emergency blanket.

Ben told a few hair raising stories, but most situations he found himself in were the result of riding and navigating at night or when exhausted. Overall, the talk was inspirational, and I now feel fired up about setting out. After 4 months of uncertain planning, not knowing whether I will be fit enough to participate, finally, this is the moment when I feel that it is all going to happen.

I also met the trail organiser, David Waddilove, with whom I have been communicating by email for months, and who has arranged my accommodation and given planning advice. It is something of a relief to see that he is a real person and not just an automated computer service, as it is he who I will be calling on in case of an emergency. David assures me that plans are coming along well, and he will have the maps for the trail to me tomorrow (ie D-Day - 1).

The talk was organised by an outdoors equipment company, Cape Storm, and afterwards, I met the organiser, Ian. He is interested in my plans to ride the trail and then follow on to Malawi. I ask if he has done any touring in Africa: "Yorkshire to Cape Town" he says. We chat for some time, and he fills me with confidence about the people I will meet, and tells me of the countless generous offers of help he received when riding across Africa with his partner, Ellie. Fitting proof of this statement was just around the corner. Ian offers me a lift home (I had cycled 15km in the dark through Cape Town's suburbs), and so it is that I experience my first generous offer of assistance from a stranger. I arrive back at my guest house feeling tremendously excited about the next day, my final day of preparation before setting off.

I am writing this blog entry on Friday evening, the final evening before I leave Cape Town. I had another generous offer from a Dutch couple who offered to give me a lift across Cape Town in their car to my start point, as there was torrential rain - it would have been a fairly horrific and perilous cycle through the CT traffic and rain, so I am very grateful for this second act of help. As I get out of the car and unload my things it dawns on me that we don't even know each other's names (Thanks Walter and ).

I still only have enough directions to get to the first night stop point, but I am assured the rest will be emailed to that stop and printed for me. The reason there are no directions is because nobody has actually ridden the trail from finish to start as I am about to do. Usually participants set off from Pietermaritzbug and arrive in Cape Town a month later. I will be something of a guinea pig for David's reversed direction set. Fortunately, there are GPS waypoints... I finally took delivery of the map set last night. I was expecting a collection of foldable OS land ranger type affairs. Instead I received 10 A1 and A2 prints. This was quite daunting, but after spending a few hours chopping up the necessary sections of the maps and following the route as I did so, for the first time I have a real appreciation for the different sections involved. The names in the various race reports I have read are starting to fit into place.

Unfortunately, there are not likely to be many pictures for a while, I've been told that I'm not likely to encounter more than a couple of internet cafes along the route, so from here on in I've had to resort to blogging from my phone, so I won't be able to read comments, but I should still be able to pick up emails, so notes of support will be much appreciated.

Bye for now.

Alex

Cape Town [finally]

Well, a month down the line, and here I am in Cape Town. After so long on the ship in the same room, it began to feel like home. The days stopped dragging as we approached the equator, and I settled into a routine of eating, sleeping, watching the wildlife and cycling. I also spent a couple of hours a day trying to convince my Dutch Reformed Church Afrikaner third mate that all living things evolved from slime mold, which provided much entertainment for both parties. Check out my almost-infinity pool:



I didn't have such a great time during my short stay in Namibia, and it was funny how relieved I was to get back into my 10 foot square living room back aboard ship. The highlight of the 1 day sortie was seeing Namibia's Skeleton Coast. The 30km road from the port to the nearest town of size, runs north sandwiched between the coast and the desert. In the morning, the sea was almost entirely obscured by thick fog which rolls in from the Atlantic and across the impressive sand dunes of the edge of the Namib desert. On the return journey the fog had retreated about 100m back from the shore line, shrouding a half dozen of the many shipwrecks that give this eerie coast line its name.

The Polish Catholics take easter very seriously indeed. Although I suspect they are at least partly motivated by the excuse to take time of work and drink vodka. Which everyone did, without exception. I discovered a new hidden talent winning the shooting competition and beating two ex polish infantrymen to take a bottle of vodka. It was slightly worrying to note how much vodka had been consumed by the participants, and I felt slightly afraid to participate, until I discovered that it was only an air riffle.

Last sunset from the bow of the ship


A Namibian Dolphin



Flying fish off the Ivory Coast


It's the first time I've been back to Cape Town since spending a few months here during a gap year 9 years ago. It's been fantastic to see Kathy again after 3 months apart, and we've had a great holiday here so far, pictures to follow soon.

So I think that a health update is in order. The ride has been very much up in the air for months now, but over the last few weeks, my health has really improved again, and I am definitely going to give it a shot. I have decided to scale down my expectations slightly, since I am still recovering from this pesky virus thing. Whilst the aim is still to Cycle as far as possible from Cape Town to Malawi, I am going to set my self the initial goal of cycling the offroad part across South Africa from Cape Town to Pietermaritzburg, which is the first 2300km stage of my route. I hope you don't all think this is too much of a cop out and is still worth sponsoring! Provided I get that far, I will take a few days rest and make a decision about whether I am able to continue.

Kathy is in Cape Town with me for another few days of holiday, before heading back to Malawi on Saturday. From the weekend I will be staying alone in Cape Town and doing some bigger distance training rides before hopefully setting off about 10 days from now.

I have been able to upload the rest of my photos now, so there are plenty more on my flickr page.

Watch this space for an update in the next week or so.

Thanks for reading,

Alex

1 Month later, I'm in Africa

Hello everyone. I'm almost at the end of my journey to Africa now. The ship has stopped in Walvis Bay, Namibia, for our last call before Cape Town, where I'm scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. I'm about to run out of time here, but I just wanted to point you to some photos I've FINALLY been able to upload:


Click Here to view on Flickr

Next stop Cape Town...