Day 319 / 84

Date: 25 February 2023
Sleeping location: SleepOver Hotel, Beitbridge, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 165 / 19733 / 4896
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 400 / 170900 / 52900
Most emotional river: Limpopo 
Day in three words: Hundred mile headwind

Despite time lost to vigorously scrubbing the pan that I had burned the previous evening I was on the road by 7.15, aiming for a big day to keep ahead of Freddy. Initially things looked good; the newly built road was again lovely and wide and smooth (including for a short time my own private section which hadn’t officially been opened yet), the terrain was more endless gently undulating savannah, and conditions were cool and dry. But the wind had evil plans afoot. A gentle headwind soon became a lot less gentle and across the empty terrain it was relentless. My speed dropped to an average of around 15kph and riding became a total slog. 

The day passed in a sort of fever dream. I wanted to get to Louis Trichardt by the end of tomorrow to avoid Freddy, and as this would involve a big climb and (per the forecast) even worse headwinds I needed to get to the border town of Beitbridge today to give myself a chance. This required a day of over 150km, which in normal conditions would be big enough but with this headwind was huge. I was in the saddle for somewhere between 10 and 11 hours, just keeping the pedals turning like a zombie, chaining podcasts to keep me sane and stopping occasionally for a five minute rest and a cold drink wherever there was a shop (which wasn’t often). The only interesting memories outside this trudge are:

-My first drinks stop with a nice family, Kudzi Justice and Agnes, who took some photos with me and who referred to the storm as "Mr Freddy". Justice was drinking a beer at 9.30, the absolute rascal

-A HUGE roadkill snake, probably 2m long and as thick as my arm when unsquished

-A quick lunch (peanut butter, crisp and chilli sauce sandwiches, of course) uncomfortably close to four donkeys who had been tied up next to the picnic table

For most of the day I wasn’t sure if I would make it. With 20km to go, an hour before sunset, I was funnelled onto a dirt road detour as they were still building the nice new road. I decided to commit, gritted my teeth and powered my way over the bumps for 10km. This got me into the outskirts of Beitbridge as the sun began to dip below the hills to my right, and I decided to make a break for South Africa that evening to save on border faff in the morning. 

I went through immigration in a dazed rush, without doing any of the usual admin like changing money or using up my phone data. The people seeing me out of Zimbabwe were all efficient, lovely and helpful, which was a fitting end to my time there. It’s up there with Turkey and Uganda as my favourite countries of the trip; really friendly, helpful and welcoming people, a very interesting history and loads of natural beauty and open space. The actual border is the Limpopo river (like the Zambezi, a wonderfully exotic and evocative name) and I crossed this on the new boring road bridge while marvelling at the old (1929) beautiful rail bridge to the left, which was being used by a group of monkeys as well as some humans. On the right the sun had set over the river but the sky was still glowing orange. The whole scene, and leaving Zim, made me a touch emotional, but maybe this was in part because I was exhausted. 

The SA side of the border was, surprisingly, more ramshackle and confusing than the Zim side, but the queue was short and I was stamped in within 15 minutes. This moment essentially decided the end of my trip; I have 90 days in SA but the clock does not stop when I cross into other countries, so I have to be out (and probably on a flight home) by the 26th of May. By now it was dark so I put my passport away in my bag, put my bike lights on, set off, panicked that I couldn’t feel my passport in my pocket, stopped, found my passport in the bag, realised that my rear light wasn’t on, put it on, set off again. This is what extreme tiredness will do to you. There was a good budget hotel a km away so I went straight there and got my reward for crossing the border that evening: a big clean soft bed, aircon, wifi strong enough to stream the rugby and two cold beers as the cherry atop the cake. I ate some noodles with soya chunks and watched the rugby outside with Eric the friendly security guard, then dragged myself into the bed and passed out immediately.