Day 310 / 75

Date: 16 February 2023
Sleeping location: Woodland 19.6838S,32.6363E, Zimbabwe

Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 104 / 19032 / 4195
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1100 / 165100 / 47100
Liaisons: dangerous 
Day in three words: The rain evader 

I had a relaxed pack up whilst chatting with the others in the hostel and making another proper breakfast, which meant I wasn’t ready until after 10, however I didn’t actually leave until after 11 because Taku had gone out and I still needed to pay him and say goodbye (my own fault - I said I’d be there when he got back, thought he’d be ten minutes, forgot about Africa Time). On setting off I went about 200m before realising that my front wheel was on the wrong way round, then slunk back to Ubuntu to request help rotating it. Still, it was a great place to stay and hang out - Taku and Hannah are building a special little home from home there.

Once out of town the landscape was more empty rolling savannah with big impressive rounded rock formations. When the sun was out it was very hot in some of the lower altitude sections. Zimbabweans are still really nice, but the way they shout “how are you” as I roll past is kind of annoying, since there is no way to properly reply in the half a second that I usually have. A couple of the villages today had drunk middle aged men (on a weekday afternoon, which is a little depressing) who took a profound interest in me. I think they were being nice but their English is probably bad enough when sober and I couldn't understand them. The interactions were therefore weird and I had to move on, which was annoying since there are nice shady spots to rest in the villages. Throughout the afternoon the clouds started to gather and it was clear that there was some big big rain about, but I scuttled between the cloudbursts and somehow managed to entirely evade getting wet. 

Sarah was also heading in the same direction; she left Ubuntu several hours after me but, given her bike has a few hundred times more horsepower than mine, she caught me up around 70km in. This was despite her getting stuck in torrential rain, and an absolute mudbath requiring some locals to create a ramp out of wood, near Mutare. We rode together, her keeping to my uphill pace of 10-15kph, bless her, for more than 5km as she decided to stay with me to share the moment that I passed 19000km. With darkness a couple of hours away she sped off to head to Chimanimani. Whilst riding together we had turned off the main road onto a very quiet road up a steep sided lush river valley, which slowly (for me, anyway) climbed up to to rolling plain fringed by forested mountains.

I picked up some water in a village and started looking for somewhere to camp. After investigating a few unideal tracks, including one with a distressing number of ants, I came across a track into woodland which didn’t appear to go anywhere and led to flat sheltered grassy spot 50m from the road. A perfect place, except a herd of cows was standing around on the road nearby and every vehicle that passed was honking at them to make them move. Not interested in this being the soundtrack to my night, I went to scope out alternative spots nearby and was startled to see a small car parked further down the track. I puzzled over what it was doing there. It wasn’t farmers or hunters, because they don’t drive a Honda Fit hatchback. Eventually I decided it was either a parking spot for distant house (unlikely - why not just extend the track to the house) or a romantic engagement of some kind. If the latter, they might leave shortly having finished their “romance”, so quickly I went back and put the dark green tent outer on. This was good planning as after ten minutes the car started and then drove past in the gloaming. Its headlights shone on my tent but they must have just thought it was a big green rock as they didn’t stop to examine it any further. I hid behind a tree where they couldn’t see me (or Maggie) and heard a male and a female voice out the open windows as they went past - my scandalous theory was correct.

 

After that all was calm - I made spaghetti with mostly flavourless tomato packet soup and some quite good mozzarella, from the coziness of my bed as I was feeling lazy. There was a distantly audible mysterious drumming noise but other than that it was very calm and peaceful (the cows seemed to have finally got out of the way), and once the sun had fully set the stars were very beautiful. This is why I like wild camping so much.