2001 Biking South Africa

Day 25, Tuesday, July 10
Ladismith to 12km before Swellendam
115.4km @ 14kph

A relentless headwind turns your day into a climb, regardless of terrain. If the terrain also includes one real climb after another, a relentless headwind is daunting in the extreme. So it was with the first 80km of this long day. The ride to Barrydale was enlivened only by a sign advertising the ‘World Famous Ronnie’s Sex Shop’ (actually a pub in the middle of nowhere) and by graffiti proclaiming ‘Snags, Bedags, Jags’. We lunched on burgers in Barrydale – and reluctantly hit the road again. And were delighted to find on entering the incredibly beautiful Tradouws Pass, that the wind dropped away completely. And so we were able to enjoy the remains of the day – which after the pass took us through the fascinating town of Suurbraak to the junction with the N2.

We got on the road at 07h30 and averaged 15kph to Barrydale where we broke for lunch. We started the day with some great drops, but did quite a bit of climbing thereafter. During our first break on the side of the road we were passed by a group of cyclists riding in a tight pack.

We saw a troop of baboons, prompting us to sing: Bobejaan klim die berg. We passed “Ronnie’s world famous sex shop” (a pub apparently with ‘sexy’ paraphernalia) and saw on a wall graffiti proclaiming: “snags, bedags, jags”.

The wind was fairly strong against us, relentless in fact to match the relentless hills, but otherwise we were lucky again with the weather.

We passed through wonderful bush – a very clean green with yellowy flowers, fleshy stems, prolific and pretty. Some of the mountains are tall and barren and convoluted, coloured only by cloud shadow. Others just a jumble of hills. It was drier here than in the Groot Karoo. We saw a field of jojoba – Charl stopped a woman to ask what it was. 

We averaged only 14km per hour to Barrydale where we stopped for a hamburger lunch, leaving town at around 14h50 with still 44km to go. We had encountered stones and branches on the road into toen; the hamburger lady told us that at weekends there was even more “litter” hampering the trip to Swellendam.

We entered the 14km long Tradouws Pass – a stunning pass, completely surrounded by towering, broken mountains in the Stonehaven Nature Conservancy, with a great echo and wonderful stone pillars towering above our heads. With the sun still high, but the surrounding mountains dropping us into shadow and releasing us into light. In the pass, more of the huge red locusts we had seen on and off during the day. And for the first time on this day, no wind – yay!

Just after cresting at 351m I had a puncture, frightening at high speed. Charl was way ahead, zooming down in the late afternoon sunshine. Luckily we were on a hairpin bend, so I could see him below but coming back toward me and I yelled to him to stop (having deafened myself to no avail on the emergency whistle hung around my neck. As I walked down, Charl had to walk part way back up to change my tyre – ag, shame.

Between Tradouws and the N2 to Swellendam we passed through little Suurbraak, a missionary town and a community in tact. From the dorpie we looked back on the mountains we had come through from a different world, a world of new textures, all green with shorter grass, conifers, a lily-filled pond … beautiful. Oh, and guinea fowl.

Yesterday we asked a chap at the caravan park if he knew where Beitbridge was, and he answered: “Ja, net hier anderkant Calitzdorp”.

And on this day we met a young coloured chap who said: “Dis bitter ver om te ry”.