Most of the time, beauty lies in the simplest of things - Winna Efendi

6 March 2019, Piketberg to Kardoesie, 40,4km
Kardoesie R350

If a motorist says “you will first need to get over the mountain” then you know you have some serious climbing to do. Motorists often tell us the road between one place and another is “flat” when it in fact includes one or more noticeable increases in elevation…so we knew from this comment as well as our Ride With GPS map that we were in for a tough day.
We were up at 05:00 and on the road by 06:00, a good 40 minutes before the sun got up, headed for Citrusdal 47km away. We had several climbs with some exhilarating downhill runs and one long-ish, flat-ish section before encountering a road sign advertising the 12km Piekenierskloofpas. We had been trying during the early morning hours to work out where the N7 crossed the mountains we could see on the horizon ahead of us. It looked as though it dead-ended at the mountains, and it was only when we were quite close that we saw the road running at an angle across and up the front edge of the mountains and disappearing around a spur.
We were almost immediately forced from our bikes and onto our feet, initially optimistic, telling each other we would just take it slow. But in time, as we got increasingly tired and the sun burned more strongly, we found pushing our bikes up a seemingly endless incline exhausting. Pushing a bike weighing something around 30kg, body angled slightly to grip the handlebars, makes one’s shoulders ache, and in my case, my right hip.
I reached a point where I had to set mini goals to keep myself going. I promised myself a brief rest every 200m, taking my breaks at the blue distance markers counting up from somewhere behind us in 200m increments. In reality, I often stopped to catch my breath between markers, but sat briefly on the metal barrier lining the road at each marker for a slightly longer break.
When we reached the spur we thought would take us around the edge of the mountain and hopefully down the other side, we encountered instead another spur and then another. About 600m before the summit and perhaps 7km before Citrusdal, we were lured off the road by Kardoesie, restaurant, shop and accommodation. Our Piketberg host, Ferdinand, had told us about Kardoesie whose owner/chef Henri had catered both his wedding and that of his daughter.
We immediately decided to negotiate for a room, and managed to persuade the owner, via young Lelanie who had seen us on the road just after 07:00, to halve the usual cottage price. Then ate lunch - a delicious chicken salad - and, at Lelanie’s suggestion, ordered an Hawaiian pizza (large) to be delivered to us for dinner at our cottage up a steep dirt road. Our cottage is named Uitkyk (Lookout) for a very good reason.
Before leaving the Kardoesie restaurant, we met a couple, he originally from South Africa and she from Poland, both chemical process engineers working for Teflon, and living in Holland. Teflon turns out to have considerably more uses than I ever imagined.
Glad to call time out after six hours on the road…

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…