2001 Biking South Africa

Day 23, Sunday, July 8
15km before De Rust to Oudtshoorn
54.4km @ 13kph

A short day, but slow. Due to a strong headwind. We’re in ostrich country. The birds are endlessly curious, running to stare over the fence at us passing by. Yesterday a very handsome male took strong exception to Charl and ran aggressively the entire length of his field – getting down in the dust on two occasions to sway and display. I reckoned this was his mating dance, but Charl took strong exception to that! In the early hours of this morning we had to abandon our tent to the howling wind and pouring rain – and take refuge in the wind-battered caravan. So none of us got much sleep. Luckily today, though windy still, was clear and dry.   

The wind nearly blew us away in the night and we finally abandoned the tent and joined the folks in the caravan where none of us got much sleep. Thank goodness by dawn the wind had quietened somewhat.

This morning we took down the tent and packed away the wet stuff and had jaffles for breakfast before dad dropped us 15km outside town at 09h30 – a late start with a short day ahead.

The final / first stretch to De Rust had looked incredibly daunting both last evening and this morning, but we averaged 13kph with relative ease, obviously getting stronger and feeling good.

We pottered around cute De Rust (arty feel, quaint hotel, restaurants, shops) before heading through klapperbos and fields of onions and ostriches for the 35km to Oudsthoorn. The road was busy and narrow, crossed the railway line, and passed a lot more farms not as isolated as earlier on this trip. Beautiful mountains to the right, red sandstone cliffs and rounded green tops. On the left, vineyards. Several volstruis paleis(e).

The wind hindered our progress all morning, but compared to the storm last night we felt lucky – no rain, good visibility, cloudy but lots of blue too.