Enjoying the snow

I've been cycling through the Drakensberg mountains for the last few days, and my arrival has marked another dramatic change to my surroundings. The slopes are covered with grassland, and the snow capped peaks are even more dramatic. This mountain range is characterised by steep escarpments, the contours on the map are so close that they appear to merge together like a kind of mountain barcode.



The snow seems to have stopped falling, but at this altitude much of it remains, particularly on the South facing slopes. I've spent most of the last few days riding at around the 2000m level - the air is noticealy thinner and the temperature varies greatly with sun and shade. The days start below freezing, but gradually warm up to the low teens.



I wasn't able to go snowboarding last Christmas, which was pretty gutting, so imagine my glee when Kathy pointed out that my next rest day was at the nearest town to South Africa's main ski resort, Tiffindell. With the improvement to my fitness, I've started to become a little complacent about rest days, and besides, I've only been on the road 3 days since my last rest day, so I decided to pay a visit to the resort just to have a look around. I had no intention of snow boarding, you understand, I'm here to cycle. Not snow board. So of course, once I say the 50cm deep snow I couldn't resist and rented a board, just to see if I could remember how.

The resort is tiny. It makes Glen Coe look like the entire three valleys area in the Alps. There is one nursery slope and two grown up slopes, which I shared with a dozen other people. This is South Africa's only serious resort at which one may come and stay, rent equipment etc. As you can imagine, it is a somewhat exclusive haunt. The workers' football pitch just below the snow line is in no condition for a game as it is home to 3 helicopters of current guests. The cost of using the facilities is similar to a day in any of the alpine resorts, so considering purchasing power, (let alone the fact that most alpine resorts have about 200 times more piste), I would say that makes it many times as expensive to the locals. I should probably have felt a pang of guilt as I handed over a few hundred Rand for the day, but to be honest it felt as though I'd been temporarily transported out of the Eastern Cape, and it wasn't until later that I even considered the hypocrisy of raising money in part for educating some of the poorest people in this country, but taking a day out from the challenge to relax with the wealthiest. Ho hum.

It felt so good to be back on snow with the correct equipment (board rather than bike) that i had some fantastic albeit short runs, and started gaining confidence. After about 30 minutes I fell and strained my neck, nothing too serious. Now I've done about 6 weeks of snow boarding in my life and that has somehow generated 2 visits to casualty, resulting in 3 months in plaster the first time and 3 months of physio the second time. As I sat there on the snow massaging my sore neck, I decided to quit whilst I was just about ahead and handed in my rental equipment, save the snow boots. All was not lost, however, as the resort is nestled up against the slopes of Ben Mac Duhi, the highest peak in the Cape. At 3001m it is only a short hike from the resort (2700m). I'm used to going downhill at this altitude, and this was the first time I'd hiked at over 2000m. I started slowly, but actually found it got noticeably easier as I went up. Can any mountaineering nut explain this? This peak is the highest I will ascend on this journey, and I took a moment at the top to consider that I was standing 3 vertical kilometres higher than when I set off from the beach in Cape Town one moth earlier. From the top the views into Lesotho 20km away were stunning. Here's a timed photo of me looking away from the camera and towards Lesotho to protect those viewers sensitive to unruly facial hair.



By 2 o'clock on my rest day I had already been snowboarding and gone for a cold mountain hike, so I decided to spend the rest of the day in my heated bed to compensate. Which reminds me - I still have pins and needles in my finger tips from 'The Day It Snowed', and very little sense of touch. Can anyone tell me how long it takes to grow new nerve endings or whatever? Any doctors out there? May?

And Finally

What's wrong with this building? Answers on a comment please.



I had hoped to be able to update the map on the right with my up to the minute position streaming real-time from my GPS, but that has proved a bit much for my phone to handle, and sadly the map has fallen behind. I haven't been able to view it myself yet, but Andre has kindly put together a map of my route which sounds much more advanced map than my simplistic effort, so please check it out and let me know how it looks. Thanks Andre!

http://maps.google.com/AlexButcher/

I harp on about sponsorship every week, so this week I will stay quiet. Except to say that I am compiling my first ever christmas card list based on the names on the just giving page...

The day it snowed

PG: Parental Guidance
If you are one of my parents, then you are advised to skip down the page to the 'And Finally' section, as this post contains some material that you my find worrying.

South Africa is in Africa right? The land of lions in the streets, elephants in your vegetable patch and red hazy African sunsets. Nowhere in my geography textbook did it say anything about snow. A cold front has been moving up from Cape Town over the last few days, and successive farmers have warned me that cold weather was approaching. I didn't take their advice too seriously, as the Karoo farmers seem to think anything less than 30 counts as a cold snap. Change was definitely in the air, however, and on my last day of riding across the plains I picked up a serious force 5 head wind which whipped up a dust storm at one point.

As a prelude to the story I'm about to tell, I just want to point out that I do have some fairly sedate days of riding, and some even more sedate rest days. It's not a life threatening adventure everyday, but this would be a pretty boring blog if just recounted each day as it happens, so without further ado, here's another epic day for you...

Yesterday's ride took me up a horse track ascending the Aasvoelberg mountain from 1400m (elevation of the farm at which i slept) to 2200m. I didn't have directions at the start of the day, but the arrangement was that once up the mountain, I would have cell phone reception and the directions would be waiting for me in my email, and there was only 1 track up the mountain. Sounded easy enough I thought. The farmer told me I needed to ascend to the top to cross over into the neighbouring land, so off I trotted. There was already a strong wind blowing as i left the farm and by 930 it started to rain, and the surface turned into a mud bath. My tires soon clogged with mud and I had to push. So sticky was the stuff, however, that after a hundred metres I couldn't push as the mud had clogged everything. I felt as though i was swimming in treacle, each cycling shoe weighing an extra kilo from the mud. I was feeling in high spirits after a run of pleasant riding days, so this didn't do much to dampen my spirits, i just declogged my tires with a stick and headed cross country, pushing across the low shrubs to avoid the mud. About 20% of the track was rideable due to the freezing rain, which was now coming down heavily, and the mud. So I pushed my way steadily up to 2180m where I got cell reception and discovered I should have crossed the ridge 200m below. And then I got a puncture. Next the cloud descended reducing the visibility to about 100m. As i sat down to change my tube it began to snow. It was so much bad luck in such a short space of time, I half expected the rock I was sitting on to morph into Jeremy Beadle, and for a helicopter to whisk us into the You've Been Framed studio, but it was not going to be that easy. It took me nearly half an hour to change my inner tube as my hands were frozen. My cycling gloves had gotten soaked in the rain, and I was down to latex surgical gloves. I'm not sure what the temperature was, but I sucked some juice through the exposed tube into my backpack and was reminded that I have sensitive teeth. The simplest operations become painstakingly difficult when you lose the use of opposeable thumbs. I had to use my leatherman with both hands to remove the rubber cable boot from my V brakes. If that sentence doesn't mean anything to you, then It's kind of like using an electric hedge trimmer to open a packet of crisps. Whilst inflating the new tube, my pump seized up with puncture sealant from the tube. The tire was only up to a poor 15psi, but there was no way I was going to dismantle the pump and clear the blockage whilst exposed on mountain face, so I continued with a half inflated tire for the rest of the day and hoped that i wouldn't get a pinch flat as that was my last spare tube. By this point it was about 1530, and I had travelled less than 10km from the farm I slept at the previous night. I still felt fairly happy about things though. I've learnt not to get too stressed about the onset of night, provided you're on a road. Once the sun sets, It's not really that bad out here in the sticks with no cars or people to compete with. But I was still some way from a road.

Whenever you hear a story about hiking in the wilderness, there's always that phrase hidden somewhere "be prepared because the conditions on the mountain can change suddenly." Well that's what happened next. The wind picked up and the snow became a heavy fall, but I was prepared equipment wise, and felt warm (except for my hands). I wasn't prepared for how difficult the navigation would become. Within half an hour the farm tracks by which I was trying to descend the mountain started disappearing beneath the snow, and the visibility afforded little chance to orientate with my surroundings. And, you guessed it, the GPS batteries started to die. Thankfully I just about had cell phone reception, and by calling David with my GPS position a couple of times I was able to orientate myself (OK, David was able to orientate me). It was in these moments when I stopped and waited for David to calculate my position that I realised how cold it was. My speech had become slow and slurred because my face was so cold, and I had ice on my beard (having a beard really helps in cold weather though). Whilst I waited for him to ring me back, I seriously considered getting out my emergency equipment and trying to find shelter to weather the storm, but I was somewhere nearby a farm, apparently, and the lure of tea and a fire was strong. I had been scared to leave the farm tracks because they were all I had to orientate by in the snow, but I finally abandoned faith in the tracks and just headed straight down the ridge, which turned out to be the right decision.

By the time i made it off the ridge the sun had set completely and the moon was obscured by snow clouds, and once again I was dependant on my head torch for navigation. There wasn't enough snow to get the snowboard out, but enough to make things difficult for me. My bike was operating at about 20% - the wheel rims were frozen, so virtually no brakes, the freehub was frozen so for every turn of the pedals I lost a quarter rotation in slippage, and the gears had frozen, although thankfully in a moderately useful gear.

It's funny but I was never overly worried about the situation. I think that had this episode occurred a couple of weeks earlier, I would have been a nervous gibbering wreck and just collapsed somewhere and cried. The biggest change has been to my health. After 3 weeks on the trail, I now feel about as fit as I've ever been. I'm consuming a huge amount of food everyday (for a change) and throughout the pushing and snow and navigation problems, I never felt as though my body or energy levels would be the weak point. The worst case scenario would be that I abandoned my disfunctional bike and hiked down the hill to the nearest farm, which I felt that I would have energy to do.

I took a wrong turn and instead of hitting the public road, I found myself in a crop field. I could see faint lights off in the distance, and decided they might be coming from a farmhouse, so I started to push my bike across the muddy field. Just then, by chance I turned back and saw the angel. The light descended slowly from high up on a ridge, and became 2 headlights as it neared. I flashed my headtorch and headed straight for the pickup. As it came level with me on the other side of the field, I started to shout, and it stopped. But then just as suddenly it moved off again and my heart sank. I started to run directly across the field, thinking that perhaps he hadn't seen me, but he was just driving to the gate at the end of the field. I was actually only 2km away (if you're a crow) from the farm house when i was picked up, but i was thankful to get into the cab and out of the wind and snow for the first time since starting up the mountain 9 hours previously. The pickup was the first real sign of anyone else I had seen all day. The farmer had heard that i was on the way down the mountain, and knew the route to the road i was supposed to follow. He had traced the route and followed my bike spoor (tracks) to see where I had gone wrong. It made me smile to think that he had used tracking skills to locate me in a muddy field in the pitch black night.

The next morning I found out that the temperature had gotten down to -6 at the farm house in the valley, where they'd had only a dusting of snow. I'm not sure what the temperature on the mountain was, particularly with the additional windchill, but It's probably a good thing I didn't try and sleep it out. I couldn't operate a camera that day, (I couldn't even unbuckle my cycle helmet, I had to ask the farmer to do it for me), so I don't have any photos of the snow as it came down, suffice to say it was a whiteout. I watched the weather forecast the next morning and the farmer's wife pointed out our location on the weather map of South Africa, right underneath the 'N' of 'HEAVY SNOW'. This is the view of the mountain that i crossed, taken the next morning:

I left my bike in the farmer's pickup that night, which was stored in his barn, but the next morning it was still clogged with snow and ice. We used hot water to declog everything, but as I rode off from the farm house 10 minutes later, the hot water had already frozen all of my cables, so for the rest of the morning i had no gear changing ability unless i stopped and strategically kicked various components.

That day was 2 days ago now but i still haven't gotten the feeling back in my fingers. Thankfully they're not black though, so I guess they'll fix themselves eventually. I'm using this rest day to organise some better gloves, and to weather proof my bike.

And Finally

(Hi mum!)
As always, thanks to everyone that has emailed, texted and commented their support, It's always a treat to get into cell reception. I'm resting today so I'll try and catch up with a few emails.

I've been asked to provide an indication as to my current position along the trail. I must admit that the reason I haven't done this before now is that on a day to day basis I don't really have a clue, I just wake up, ride, sleep, repeat! Today I am resting and it is day 26 of 38 planned days to complete the trail. I'm not certain how many kilometres I have covered as my cycle computer packed up a week ago, but looking back over the directions, I should have covered about 1630kms, leaving about 700kms to go. I'm due to finish the trail on 5th June.

Hello to my "London to Malawi Overland" Facebook followers! I'm not really sure what face book is but I can only assume from the name that It's some kind of giant internet sized book of faces. Assuming I'm correct, here is a recent mug shot of yours truly for the album.

If you haven't gotten around to sponsoring me yet then you've obviously got time to do it now since you've made it to the end of another long blog post. I notice that I have 81 Facebook followers, but less than half that many donations... No pressure.

Cheers,

Alex

How to Sponsor

If you are happy to use just giving to make an online donation, then please click the link to the right of this page.

If you would like to sponsor this event without making an online transaction, then you can send a cheque made payable to "Link Community Development " to

Tina Sloane
Link Community Development
Unit 39
Kings Exchange Business Village
Tileyard Road
London
N7 9AH

Link will take charge of distributing funds between the two beneficiaries once collection closes. Please attach a note to indicate that it is for Alex Butcher's Freedom Trail event. If you are a UK tax payer then please declare this in the note, and include your full name and home address so that Link can attempt to claim gift aid in addition to your donation - note that this doesn't cost you a penny.

And remember, this isn't just a sponsored bike ride, it is often a sponsored silence too, as sometimes I don't talk at all during the day. And it is a sponsored walk since i often spend hours pushing my bike. It is also a sponsored slim, i'm expecting the final weigh in to be quite impressive. So you're actually getting away with sponsorins 4 events in 1. Now that's value for money.

Thanks,

Alex

The Karoo

I'm currently riding through the Great Karoo desert. Karoo means dry place, and it is a fitting name. One early traveller to this area had this to say:

"I came to a pool of mud. The little water it contained was almost boiling ... Tears of delight came into my eyes."

I haven't reached this stage of dehydration however, quite the opposite in fact. Even though it should now be coming into winter the air is so hot and dry that i constantly feel the need to drink. I have had to learn to swill my mouth with the tiniest amount of water or else I quickly drink all the fluids I am carrying and feel sick from over hydration.

The highs and lows of riding solo

The day started with a relaxed tour of Louis's goat farm. All the farmers I have stayed with since Cape Town have been happy to explain their business, and many have offered to show me around the farm, which I always keenly accept. I can now identify 5 different breeds of sheep and goat, and distinguish qualities of wool. I'm sure i'll find a use for these skills back in London. I had a fairly easy mid length flat day of riding ahead and so was happy to spend a bit of time touring Louis's farm. He pointed to a mountain at the back of his land and told me that I should go over it instead of around it, as there were fantastic views from the top. David, the Freedom Trail organiser also said that I *must* take this route. South Africans frequently use 'must' where they mean 'could'. I am used to making the mental substitution, but I was feeling bouyant on this morning and decided to be a bit daring and so took the mountain route, despite the lack of any tracks being marked on the map for the first 20kms or so. This was my first serious error of the day. Until I made it to bed at 11 that night, I would think back to that moment of deciding to cross the mountain.

David's directions described both routes - around and over the mountain. The mountain route would, he said, 'take a little longer, but provide for more varied riding surfaces.' There were in fact 3 distinct riding surfaces that I encountered on this route.
1. On yer bike
2. Push yer bike
3. Carry yer bike
Each surface was present in roughly equal portions. So I struggled to ride, pushed or carried my bike for much of the morning. Making it to the top, I was too tired to really appreciate the spectacular views. I checked my GPS and found that the waypoint for the next track was actually in a field on the other side of a fence from me, so I needed to take a best guess at which direction to follow down the other side of the mountain. The land is used for cattle grazing, so there were numerous animal tracks leading off in various directions to confuse the issue. I picked one, but after about 1km it disappeared suddenly. That would be a cow track then. I pushed and carried back up the path, as it was strewn with melon sized rocks. I rode further along the watershed of the mountain and started to descend a jeep track, but that too disappeared at the top of a gorge, and I was left to push and carry back up the hill once again. Eventually I found the right track down the mountain but the surface was similar to the one on the way up. I hit a sharp rock and my back tire blew out. After fixing the tube I continued only to have the exact same thing happen 100 metres further along (yes, Ben S and Ben W, you were right, I should have gone tubeless). The terrain was too rough to ride, so I carried, and somewhat dejectedly threw my bike down the rest of the mountain, but my problems had only just begun. I tried for the next hour and a half to find a farm track east to the neighbouring farm land, but eventually gave up, everything seemed to lead to dead end or else turned South. I was now almost out of water too, so I headed back to the last farm house, but there was nobody to give me directions. I decided to give up with the cross country route and take the road to my destination, which would still be 70kms once I got to the road. It was 1700 and the sun was low in the sky - I needed to get moving in the right direction quickly. I asked some kids the way back to the road and they pointed to a farm track. Mistake number 2. I started the slow climb along the track but after about 15 minutes I realised they had sent me the wrong way. I was now getting pretty depressed about the way the day was going, at this point i was still within 15km of where I had eaten breakfast, so decided to take a break and finish my sandwichs to rally my spirits. I turned to start the ride back to the farm house, but found that my back tire was flat again. I fixed the tire only to discover that my last GPS batteries had run out after only 30 mins use (in South Africa the Ever Ready brand is most misleadingly named). I made it back to the farm as darkness descended, but then took off my sun glasses and realised I had about another 30 minutes of light. Over the next 5 hours I munched my way through emergency rations of dried fruit, nuts, energy bars and race fuel (a stimulant packed water additive). I was getting tired and my legs refused to pedal at much more than 15km/h despite the reasonable gravel road surface. I prayed for a second wind, but instead got a force 2 head wind. I stopped praying after that.

Looking Up

I didn't see a single car for the first 4 hours, nor any people. There was a real sense of isolation, which I've come to appreciate. The Karoo air is extremely dry and free from air pollution, and the few buildings that I came across, having no electricity, burned candles. So when I stopped to rest, usually in the middle of the road, I could lie down and star gaze at the most amazing sky. I saw 3 shooting stars that night. I also noticed for the first time, that due to the air quality and lack of light pollution, you can see stars right on the horizon. Lying there in the road with the warm desert wind and the stars, I was seriously tempted to pull out my space blanket and polythene sheet and just sleep. I felt completely safe having seen noone in hours, but without cell reception, I knew this would cause problems at my expected destination, so I pushed on.

Being on my own it became difficult to motivate myself to continue. Pauses for breath turned into 10 minute star gazing sessions. Reaching for my water bottle was an excuse to stop for a few minutes. I took out my MP3 player to keep me company - Lilly Allen's gifted lyrics have never failed to lift my spirits, so I feel bad for a while, but then I just smile (...I go ahead and smile, etc). It was only a temporary fix though, as the album started over again, (damn it Lilly, when's your next album coming out?), my body decided it had had enough and I stopped at an intersection still 16km from the farm.

It was 2230, and after 13 hours on the bike with only minimal breaks, I couldn't go any further. I called David to explain, at that point I would have been perfectly happy to don my winter clothes and sleep in a bush, but David said he would make a plan and call me back. Somehow he managed to find a bed for me at a hunting lodge 50 metres from where I was slouched on the roadside. It was the most incredible news I had heard all week.

A Very Different Day

The day before this somewhat epic and solitary journey, I had a very different day when it was a real pleasure to be on my own. David had arranged access to a closed off 4x4 track through part of the Baviaanskloof reserve. Access is actually the wrong word - I had permission to use the track, but I would have to find my own way in around the 3 metre high game fence. I've learnt that it doesn't matter how high the fence is, there's always a way underneath if you walk far enough along. Entering the reserve, it felt as though I had strayed into jurassic park. Once the game fence was out of view, the mountainous landscape was completely unspoilt. There wasn't a single sign of human activity in any direction as far as the eye could see. No telegraph poles, no fences or buildings, just an overgrown 4x4 track.

It was so stunning to be a part of these surroundings that I slowed my pedaling right down to take it all in, which also ensured that I was quiet, essential for suprising game. I knew that there were buffalo in the reserve and after my first few knee deep river crossings I found fresh buffalo dung. It may not sound that exciting to you reading this at work, it was after all just a rather large pile of turd, but it meant that I was sharing this wilderness with 1 of the big 5, and although I didn't actually see the animals, they were close by somewhere. Throughout the day I saw a variety of antelope ranging in size from spot to rudolf. There were fish in the river, and the birds sang. It feels as though I'm painting a cliche, but the Kloof really is spectacularly beautiful and I felt exceptionally lucky to be allowed to enjoy this area of it on my own. I didn't see or hear anyone all day until after I had left the reserve.

So as you can see, riding on my own has had its ups and downs. Thankfully the downs have been limited, and the ups have made the trip.

And Finally...

Thanks to all those people that have sponsored me so far. If you're reading this (can that ever be false?) and you haven't sponsored me, then that is theft, and I shall be looking to prosecute on my return to civilisation. Nothing this good comes for free, so get over to my just giving page now please (Link to the right somewhere). You are only excused if you are a student or if I owe you money. If you would like to contribute but don't wish to setup a just giving account, then you can do so by cheque. Details of how to do this will follow on the next post.

Stijn - it's not cold yet in Karoo, still having quite a warm spell. Drop me an email (alex.butcher[at]gmail.com) and I'll fill you in on my onward plans, as they seem to get more complicated by the day....

After 3 tough days, I'm resting up today, eating my way through my hosts' fridge. I've just spent an hour repairing 8 punctures. When I start back on the trail tomorrow, I will be half way along, so another milestone achieved. As always, thanks for all the emails and text messages, sorry that I haven't replied to all individually, as I only have short periods of time with cell/email reception, but it has been great to receive them all.

Cheers,

Alex

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!

A Changed Man

A lot can happen in 4 days. I woke refreshed on morning 5 and decided I was going to have a better day, positive mental attitude and all that. I started with another equipment purge. It's funny, but now i have to carry everything on my back, suddenly that second pair of shoes (ie something other than cycling shoes) seems less important. I manage to shave another 3kg which i post on to the finish. My luggage is down to about 13kgs now, which is still 3 more than the weight of my bike. The comparison is important for the portages. I have carried my bike across impassable terrain before, but never with luggage as well.

I set out on morning 5 with the aim of not having a quitting moment when i wonder why i'm doing this to myself.

Direction 3 on my instruction sheet for the day reads:

"... Then you climb up the oudberg pass"

That was a little brief. It should have read something like this:

"Now you must climb the oudberg pass. Take note that this pass climbs steeply for 3kms without any flat sections on which to rest. Also bear in mind that you are now in the Kleine Karoo which means 'little dry place'. You should attempt this pass before midday when you will struggle with the complete lack of shade (since there are no trees) and 30 heat. Also, remember that this climb is a battle of the mind, this thing has more false summits than the cast of Baywatch"

The pass was a serious uphill struggle, i climbed for over an hour and went through 3 of my 5 litres of water. But i'm pleased to report that it didn't [quite] break me. After all the climbing the rest of the day was a much more relaxing rolling ride into the Anysberg nature reserve. Every time I looked up from the track i say different game; springbok, gemsbok and hartebeast. I arrived at the accomodation stop to be greeted by Annetjie and Gerrard who already seemed to know of me. We talked about mountain bike touring a lot, exchanging different ideas about luggage, bikes and nutrition (bike geek chat). I realised that they are the first (and still only) mountain bike tourers that i have spoken to since becoming one myself. And if you're reading this, did you pick up my travel towel by any chance? Because I didn't... Whoops. When the day came to an end for all of us at around 2030, I realised that this was the first day that i had not taken a moment to consider quitting, so things were looking up.

DAY 6
What an epic day. The oudberg pass now seems like a stroll in the park. Whilst day 5 was a fairly average 75km, today the pace was shifted up a notch, with a target distance of 120kms. I set out at dawn and rode hard, stopping at 1330 for lunch. The local shop owner chatted to me about the ride and told me what he knows about the terrain i was to encounter later that afternoon. I leave, with my supplies stocked and an offer to come and stay with the shop owner any weekend i like. The offer was most genuine, and I would receive 2 other similar examples of warm South African hospitality before the day was out.

I had heard a few tales about 'The Ladder', down which i must carry my bike and luggage at the end of the day. It is an old mule track into the gamkaskloof - an isolated valley steeped in history. I continue the afternoon's journey to the ladder, but as the sun starts to set i am only just looking for the final 13km farm track that leads to the top of the ladder. Spotting a farmer's pickup descending cross country,i realise that it must be on the track for which i was searching, so I made an intercept course. The farmer was half expecting me but clearly thought i had a screw loose to take the rough farm track at that time of night and then descend the ladder in the dark. "There's a couple of leopard up there too, boy" he throws in, looking extremely serious. I thought back to the last zoo i was in, searching desperately for a memory of tiny mountain leopard, perhaps like the cute fluffy snow leopard, but i quickly realise that he means a 6 foot long spotted giant cat. I should have known better than to take this seriously, leopard are extremely unlikely to attack a human, but It's easy to write that now in the safety of my ensuite guest room. I was already quite concerned about descending the ladder in the dark, but the thought of leopards set my addrenaline pumping and I hit the track flying. I must have covered the 13kms of rough overgrown downhill in 30 mins, which given the light conditions was probably quite stupid. As I flew over rocks and plants, i charted my progress not in kilometres (my cycle computer having packed up earlier in the day) but in hours that I would have to hike back on the track if i fell and damaged my bike. For the second time since leaving cape town i felt glad that i have an emergency blanket and cover sheet. I glance back along the track at one point half expecting to see a pair of green eyes, 8 inches apart, staring back into my head torch; but instead i saw the most spectacular sunset I've seen this year. I stopped for a few seconds to take it in but didn't dare stay long enough to take my camera out. Whilst stationary i picked up a rock and put it in my pocket in case i needed to get all Tarzan with the local wildlife. I remember Ben Swanepoel mentioning during his talk of how wonderful it was to come across fresh leopard spoor. I am glad that I can't tell leopard's spoor from a baboon's. If I had come across fresh leopard's spoor that night i think i may have left some spoor of my own.

I made it to the top of the ladder just as the sun set completely. I have developed a new found respect for mules. The mule track was steep, narrow and made up of medium sized loose boulders. It would be a moderately technical hike in the daylight without carrying a cumbersome mountain bike. I emptied my remaining full water bottle and hoisted the bike onto my shoulder to begin the descent. About halfway down, i stopped for a rest and took stock of the day. It looked as though i would be able to complete the ladder in the dark, my head torch saving the day once again (Thanks Joan!), and i was no longer concerned about leopard, being off the field. The full moon had just risen over the mountains opposite, there were no lights anywhere, and the only thing I could hear was a frog chorus from a pond somewhere below me. It was in this moment that i realised things had changed. I might have felt alone or afraid about making it down the rest of the ladder, but instead i had a huge grin on my face. I had been pushing my body hard for 12 hours, this being the 6th consecutive day, and my muscles were shaking with exhaustion. But after 6 months of cursing my body's refusal to work properly, finally I didn't just feel well, I felt significantly fitter than I had for a long time. The day was epic, but I enjoyed every minute of it. There was still much to come. I was also shown fantastic hospitality by 2 different groups of people before i was allowed to finally collapse into bed, but this post has gone on long enough.

Thanks again to everyone that mailed and left comments (which i it turns out I am able to read from the road). They really helped with the mental preparation. My body has now adapted to the task in hand too, and I have had 4 sensational and memorable days in succession, and I can't wait to get back on the bike tomorrow.

If anyone is bored at work, you could always send a text to my South African mobile number +27733482029. Don't expect immediate responses though, I only get reception about once every 3 days!

Tired

Today is my fourth day of riding the freedom trail, and I feel completely beaten by it. I would have posted a blog entry before now, but i have either been cycling, eating, sleeping, or else too shattered to contemplate writing anything. The first 2 days on the trail led me through some dramatic scenery, although i was constantly competing for space with the unforgiving south african motorists. Yesterday was the first day of off road riding,and it was tough.
Everyday so far i have at some point stopped and thought that i have bitten off more than i can chew by undertaking this ride. Today, day 4, i had 2 such moments.

This ride has become a full time job. I rise at 7,am on my way by 9 and cycle through til around 5, stopping for lunch, punctures and breaks. So far the riding has been hard work-my legs are out of practice after such a long break from training. Having said all that, i am having fun. I generally thoroughly enjoy the first 50 km each day. Climbing for an hour is made worth while by the 10 minutes of grin inducing downhill. I've seen a few birds of prey. I can't identify any of them, but they are most impressive. One of the highlights so far came yesterday morning. I strayed into the back of a farm and was trying to find the dirt road into the next town. The farm workers' children were playing a game of cricket, but they all stopped and walked me to the road. It felt really friendly. None of the cries of 'give me 2 rand please' which i hear when passing through villages.

Everybody here waves. I think it must be an unwritten rule that if you make eye contact with someone then you wave. This code breaks down when you enter more urban areas, but elsewhere is adhered to rigidly. So much so that when I'm climbing a particularly steep hill, i make a point of keeping my head down to avoid making eye contact and hence having to wave, as it breaks my rhythm.

Being in the bush makes me feel a little like one of my heroes, Ray Mears. With about 6 hours each day on the bike, my mind has had ample time to concoct improvements to make life easier in some small way, and just like Ray, I've been trying to realise these dreams using only what i have available. My toolkit contains, amongst other things, zip ties, rubber rings (fancy elastic bands) and velcro. From these basic ingredients, using only a leatherman (how did i survive 26 years without one of these?), i have so far managed to make:
> Helmet mount for my head torch
> Handle bar mount for GPS
> Map pouch fastening for my backpack
> backpack hydration system adaptor

And so now on with day 5. I have a rest day on saturday, so hopefully will write more then. Lastly, thank you very much to all those who have emailed their support - definitely pulled me back from the brink last night when i arrived at my accommodation too tired to eat - and also to those that supported me directly in muzenburg (thanks paymon, dion)