2001 Biking South Africa

Day 19, Wednesday, July 4
Middelburg to Graaff-Reinet
111.9km @ 16kph

The wind howled its malevolence all night and all but ruined our day to Graaff-Reinet. It screamed through the streets of Middelburg, swept around the corners and hammered at our tent – weaving tendrils of fear about my head. And during the course of this long day it smashed at us – most often from the west, but in the jumble of hills could surprise us from any direction – making light of our weight. At one point we were literally blown to the edge of our wide shoulder where I managed to get my feet down before going over, but Charl, riding with his hands on his upright bars away from his brakes, came off on the steep gravel slope there. And so we focused, not on the stunning scenery or the perfect cycle-friendly route, but on the discomforts of the day – a pity!  

The wind howled through the night, screaming down the street, and battering at our tent – making me extremely reluctant to get on the road. But it was beautiful out there; a flat road, surrounded by mountains, with the wind initially behind us and not too strong. 

The sun came up behind our left shoulders, peaking through dark clouds, the play of light and shadow on the hills very beautiful. We travelled alongside the railway line, passing aloes and sisal trees and huge electric pylons silhouetted against the skyline – I love the mixture of nature and technology. The road was very quiet, marked by km stones. So quiet that we were warned of approaching cars long before they reached us.

Charl asked road-workers “Is hierdie die pad na Durban?” (Is this the road to Durban?), got a couple of assents!

We had been told we had to climb the Lootsberg and then it was “downhill” all the way to Graaff-Reinet. We don’t fall for that sort of statement any longer, but cannot in some secret place help hoping…

We cycled past the Dwarsvlei railway station, just a tin shack and signpost in the veld. Past flat-topped hills and conical hills. Cycled at first on the original narrow old road, then onto a wider road with roadworks in progress, then onto a wider road with a nice wide shoulder. We love roads with nice wide shoulders, but this one seemed excessive for the Eastern Province on a very quiet road. Cycled past khaki bos, and wonderful aloes, heading into mountains and climbing on and off for 20km or so.

At times the wind was very powerful, frighteningly so. We saw a willow tree straining against it, bent by it over the pond beside which the tree stood. The wind was particularly difficult to cope with as in the jumble of hills there was no pattern to it, its unpredictability forcing us to interact with it constantly as a separate and malevolent entity. We could actually see it blowing in different directions at times by looking ahead and seeing different patches of grass bent in different directions all at the same time. When the wind smashed at us from the side, we were particularly grateful for our wide shoulder – despite which, at one point, we were blown almost off the road where it dropped down a gravel slope. In fact, while I managed to get my feet down in time, Charl, cycling with his hands away from his brakes came short on the gravel slope – not much fun. We saw tumbleweed, tumbling across our path and felt a bit like a tumbleweed ourselves.

Just before we climbed into the mountains toward the Lootsberg pass, the road curving to the left, we passed a narrow valley on our right, squeezed into a bend on the river between hills, then opening up around the corner to the farmstead and fields. In the narrow depths of the valley were leafless silver-bark trees, their trunks hidden from our view, their silvery branches tracing patterns against the blue sky and the green-brown of the fields.

On the Lootsberg Pass was a danger sign: an exclamation mark, ice, 40kph for 3km. The top of the pass sits at 1787m and at the top the world drops away and you can see for miles; see gentler hills and cloud shadow all over, and cars shining tiny at the bottom of the pass. I took it slow on the downside; Charl went zooming and whizzing down – fearless.

At the bottom was a field of bontebok, including albinos; the entire herd stopping to stare as we passed by.

Later at the top of Naudesberg Pass (1447m), just before the final stretch to Graaff-Reniet, I was given quite a fright by a lone man in a lone car. Charl was cycling some distance ahead of me, but I had stopped to take a photograph and was standing isolated astride my bike. The man, approaching me on the other side of the road, did a U-turn just behind me, parked his car and got out of it. Heart rate elevated, I scrambled to put my camera away so I could get back on the bike and zoom away, when he called out that he was from the local Rotary club with which we had been in touch regarding a donation to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Whew! What a world we live in where stranger danger is our first response to what in most cases is perfectly friendly interaction.