Day 314 / 79

Date: 20 February 2023
Sleeping location: Bikita lithium mine, Glencova, Zimbabwe
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 124 / 19308 / 4471
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1200 / 169000 / 51000
Nirvana song of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkcJEvMcnEg
Day in three words: Rest is change

I slept badly, which I realised late in the night was my own fault as I’d put my pillow in the wrong place (off my sleeping mat, rather than on it). In the morning the guys building the shop appeared before 6 but were very tolerant and respectful of the strange man stumbling around in their workspace and just worked in a different room for a bit. The local children, on the other hand, were fascinated and seemingly all came one by one to have a good look at me. I should have charged them for the privilege.

On setting off, into swirling winds which looked like they would be problematic later on, I saw Birchenough Bridge almost immediately and assumed I was only a few km away. It was therefore strange when I went past a sign saying it was still 10km away. The sign was absolutely right, and the reason for my confusion was revealed when I reached it - it's absolutely massive* and pretty impressive**.

 

On the other side of the bridge were a few houses but these quickly faded away into nothing but completely empty savannah. There was a token fence on either side - to keep the animals in or humans out? - but it had fallen over every few hundred metres or so and whatever was meant to be contained wasn’t any more. The road was climbing very gently; I had hoped the gradient would be imperceptible but actually the 1-2% coupled with a gentle swirling breeze was extremely perceptible and I went along at an infuriating pace of just 10-15kph. Thankfully it was overcast so I didn't have the hot sun to make me worry about drinking all my water. At the first village, which wasn’t for a few hours, I stopped for drinks and developed my weird talent for the day - drastically changing the riding conditions each time I took a break. 

After the village I was now riding across an open plain with more classic Zimbabwean rock formations around. The road became a more tolerable series of proper ups and downs, but out in the open the wind was gusting hard from my right and frequently buffeting me around. I took lunch under a tree whilst trying to stop everything from blowing away, but did manage to invent the peanut butter/chicken ring puffed corn snack/hot sauce sandwich. Having reset the conditions with this break the wind then calmed down, but shifted to become a full headwind, and with more gradual climb progress continued to be constant effort for little speed. Thankfully a third break then allowed the headwind to drop and progress became easy again.

 

With my power now established I should obviously have carried on until nightfall, but I needed to pick up water for camping so I had to stop again. The water came from a mysterious water tap next to a petrol station, which gushed out clear borehole water at great volume but only every so often. I had to stand there for five minutes waiting for it to activate again, then rush over to quickly capture the water. This sounds unconventional but this is what the locals were doing as well. After this stop - of course - I was now going gradually uphill and into a headwind again. 

With terrible timing, there was then nowhere even remotely good for camping for the next hour, with way too many people out and about to either wild camp or ask at a village without attracting excessive levels of attention. I tried at a church but the gate was locked and nobody was about. Close to darkness I went up to an official looking gatehouse thinking they might have some secluded grass behind the building. The two guards instead showed me inside the building and a young man called Cuthbert said I could use his room as he wasn’t sleeping there that night. After some conversation with the guards I ascertained that this was a Chinese-owned lithium mine. The room was full of ants and one roaming rat, plus very hot and noisy as the mine works round the clock, but the mattress on the floor was comfy and I got to have a shower. Further proof that Zimbabweans are genuinely friendly and helpful people, and that cycling across Africa will lead to sleeping in some very strange places. 

*Sort of like the opposite of this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh5kZ4uIUC0

**A few facts: 390m long; built 1935, at which point it was the third largest single-span suspension bridge in the world; named after Henry Birchenough, whose ashes are contained within one of the pillars of the bridge