2001 Biking South Africa

Day 22, Saturday, July 7
29km before Willowmore to 15km before De Rust
126.9km @ 17kph

We cycled today through some of the most stunning scenery we’ve yet had. The 30-odd km to Willowmore took us through mountains curled and ribbed like the butter in stainless-steel dishes at motels with white tablecloths. Later we cruised through Ghwarriespoort – dropping steadily for 20km or more. Past hillsides covered in aloes, and Angora goats sure-footed on cliffs. And later still, after turning onto the R341, we cycled toward mountains like cardboard cutouts placed one before t’other. Each flattened by the late afternoon light; each progressively paler until the last was just a shade darker than the darkening sky. Lovely.

This morning dad drove us back out to our stopping place, on a chilly, misty morning, both of us warmly dressed.

Our first 30km were tough, but really beautiful, taking us through lovely hills. With pitch black clouds sometimes in the distance, sometimes white wreathed amongst the hills. With the sun, which we couldn’t actually see, popping through an unexpected hole in the clouds, highlighting the patches of red on the cliffs. With beautifully-shaped trees – bare trunks and cute ‘hats’. There was quite a lot of mist on the drive back to our stopping place of the night before, but most had cleared by the time we cycled back to the areas in which it had been trapped.

At one place we saw crows squabbling and fighting above a windmill and hill, and soon after that we came across the Kraai (crow) River, so crows have obviously been a feature here for some time.

The thorn trees were just stunning, chocabloc full of thorns six inches long, usually snowy-white and incongruous against all the browns and greens of the Karoo veld. Under the trees, veld flowers in lavender, white and yellow.

Gwarriespoort is to die for doll; absolutely fantastic. We climbed 9km out of Willowmore, then dropped for 20km or more on a road not too steep, a perfect gradient for just sitting back and enjoying the view and the sensation, coasting at 30 kph or so. Through great scenery – some hills dry, others lush, blue-grey mountains in background, fields of aloes and angora goats, unusual and lush vegetation, sheep all lying on the ground (Charl made them all stand up by whistling at them – telling them if they didn’t get up they were headed for the abattoir!). Some hills were curled and ridged like the butter one used to get in stainless steel dishes at family hotels with white table-cloths. On a couple of hillsides we saw low-growing trees like umbrellas, where the tops are thickly branched and leaved and the trunks hidden in the deep shadows beneath the canopies so the trees appear to be trunkless and hovering above the earth, like UFOs.

We crossed the border into the Cape Province under extraordinarily lovely cloud formations. Mountains all around us: the closest, small hills covered in bush, then further away, hills less bushy, then further and further back, mountains more and more convoluted, and those on the horizon only a slightly darker shade than the darkening sky, some with misty wispy clouds wrapped and trapped.

We averaged 12kph the first 40km, but increased this to 16kph once we turned onto the road to De Rust. A great road from the turnoff, newly tarred, wide, quiet, narrow shoulder marked with yellow dots, only two cars in 10km or so, stunning mountains, cloud formations, light and shadow play, a sweef soos ’n arend road and a great ride especially with the wind behind us.

Before the turnoff to De Rust we saw a sign with a picture of a giant tap and an arrow to the “afdakkie” on the opposite side of the road; and worms concertina-ing themselves across the road. And a couple in camper van, who had stopped to admire a frog on the roadside, clearly wanted to talk to Charl, so he asked if we were on the right road to Durban. The man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head! A nanno second later, of course, he realised Charl was joking, said he was crazy, and invited us for coffee in the van. We declined as it was getting late and we wanted to get as far as possible.

We saw aloe “circles”, the leaves cut and lying below the plant. For collecting aloe vera? And two sugar birds, and klapperbosse, and mountains to the front and right of us, one behind t’other like cardboard cutouts, flattened by the light and a little unreal, and grasses soft and gentle in the evening sun and soft breeze.

In the late afternoon we cycled into the western sun, and mom and dad brought us jaffles and went ahead to await us at the 15km-to-go mark, which was all the distance we thought we could manage before dark.

Despite being surrounded by towering mountains for much of the day, we averaged 17kph.

We encountered increasing numbers of ostriches in dry and dusty fields; at one point a herd of females and youngsters with speckled feathers)ran to the fence to peer curious at us on the road below them. A lone male ostrich seen on this day “displayed” for Charl, not once but twice. A huge handsome male, aggressive, and territorial,  who ran along the entire length of his field, black black wings and dust-brown tail held high, flapping his wings and doing his ‘mating’ dance.

We saw a huge flock of ducks taking off from the roosting field in which we had disturbed them, and took flight, silhouetted across a cloudy sky. And crossed the Olifants River on bridge built in 1965.

At our De Rust campsite, where we were the only people, dad as usual carried the gas heater into the bathroom for me where I had a wonderful large long hot shower. We had mixed grill for dinner at the café across the road from our campsite.

In the field near our campsite were braying donkeys and a friendly cow whom we fed with carrots. Later, when I was telling the pooping bird story to my folks and we all laughed, the donkey began to bray in competition (or companionship).