2001 Biking South Africa

Day 09, Sunday, June 24
Devon to Villiers
95.6km @ 17kph

We cycled this morning in a vast silence. Through golden magical light past gold and dusky pink fields trimmed with blue gums. Just an astonishing variety of birds for company; and once a couple Sunday-dressed slowing their white Merc to stare and raise an uncertain hand in greeting. Past isolated farmsteads and painted huts; past labourers taking a day’s rest and a white pig ambling unconcerned across the road; past a power station long dead and a vlei where flamingos stalked their prey. Through Balfour and Grootvlei to the N3 south. And safely here on the still-under-construction section of road alongside this busy artery.

Another crisp, cold, clear, beautiful day. Another fantastic Sunday morning in the country. We left Devon for Balfour just after 08h00 and could see for miles in the magical morning light. Grassland in the most stunning colours, telephone poles stretching ahead, Charl cycling ahead of me with his neon vest blowing in the light looked surreal.

A fantastic Sunday on a really quiet road on which we moved pretty fast most of the time; uphills gentle, golden light over golden and dusky pink fields, bluegums sometimes lining road, corn cut and dried, cattle a-munch, lots of bird life, geese eating from a stalky field, a pig ambling across the road behind us, houses patterned and painted (not Ndebele), now and then totally abandoned homes – roofs off, windows out.

We crossed the Modderbult river, and climbed the Modder bult past the Modderbult cash and carry and a bus graveyard. We saw very few vehicles, in one, a white Merc, a couple dressed in their Sunday best off to church.

We turned left onto the R51 to Balfour, past a pondokkie with the most enormous turkey scratching at the dirt there, and averaged 18km coming into Balfour. Our vetkoek place was closed, so we went to a filthy loo at the garage where the apologetic owner said he owned the garage, but not the ablutions. We asked a local where we could have tea. She said there was nowhere. When I asked how she survived she laughed.

Charl and I had biltong sarmies on the post office steps, where we were joined by the folks, and where we got assistance from a local about the best route to Villiers. At around 11am we started a leisurely walk through town to get onto the R51 to Grootvlei, reminiscing about the last time we were here en route to Durban, day one of our first cycle trip together.

Before the Grootvlei kragstasie the grass is aubergine and peach, and there are patches of water surrounded by conifers, tall reeds, and eucalyptus clumps. With large white birds taking off from a pond on our left and landing again with splashing sounds. And electric pylons marching majestic across the fields; when we pass under them we can hear them buzzing. And two youngsters carrying live chickens by their wings on a fantastic bit of cycling road on which we did over 20kph for quite some time. Grootvlei on our left proved not especially groot, but boasted lots of little blacks ducks, and a couple of flamingos; nearby a multicoloured windmill lonely in a field. From here we could see trucks on what we assumed to be the motorway ahead.

Mom and dad, driving ahead, did a recce of the motorway and called to say it is a two-lane highway of which only one lane is open to traffic, in other words, we would have a double carriageway all to ourselves, safe from the traffic on the carriageway next door.

Cycling in this area brought to mind the “ver verlaate vlaktes” from Die Stem.

The wind, which was behind us for most of the day, freshened considerably and changed direction, blowing from our left though luckily not from in front of us.

We had a couple of long climbs on the N3 and got off the motorway for the last 5km into town, which we could see below us in a valley. We crossed the Vaal on an old bridge (Vrystaat!) getting to the campsite on the river mid-afternoon where Mom gave us viennas and bread for lunch.

Charl and I went to a nearby hotel to email website stuff and were charged R20 for the phone call.