Hello Karoo

26June 2011
The last couple of days have been a bit of a blur. The Stormberg continued to bedevil us. After a meander through the historic battlefields of the Boer war, ala Vegkoppies, Moordenaarspoort and so on, we ended up stumbling around in the worse mud imaginable trying to find our way to Molteno. To add insult to injury it started snowing and Di's freewheel hub packed up again.

But some angels were looking out for us. Our hosts Will&Stephanie were worried and sent the teenagers in the bakkie to come look for us. Not long after that we were warming up at the Aga stove waiting for dinner. And they feed us well.

The next morning we got dropped off where we were pic0ked to complete the 3 hour home stretch of the previous night. Getting across the Aasvoelberg was touch and go with the snow, but things cleared and after another monster muddy hike a bike, we descended down 15 ks of verrry technical tracks down into the Karoo at last.Waiting in Hofmeyer were of course their legendary pies and a whole lot more comforts.

The weather improved dramatically, and today (my birthday) was the best day riding of the race so far. A big drop down the Elandsberg, and we're again well fed by Margaret,before riding over the Great Fish river to near the Mt Zebra Nat Pk outside Cradock.. The day did have sting in the tail when with only 20 ks left we ran into and had to cross two rivers that were flooding.Some locals helped us by showing us the best line which still didn't prevent me falling in but at least we were not washed down the raging waters.Let's hope the weather holds a bit longer.