Day 328 - 329 / 93 - 94

Date: 6 - 7 March 2023
Sleeping location: Columbus Guest House, Steiltes, Mbombela/Nelspruit, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 5 / 20322 / 5485
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 100 / 178400 / 60400
Bees: sensitive

Day in three words: Maggie’s big makeover

The first morning I made the most of the lie in despite having no coffee or breakfast bits* with me. The guesthouse was a very lovely place - the main “house” looked down onto a big swimming pool, behind which was a compact two story accommodation block with a sun deck on top. I had one of the less fancy rooms on the lower floor but all rooms had wonderful views off the edge of the steep hillside into rolling green lowveld hills below. Colourful lizards skittered around everywhere and the sounds of nature came up from the hills.

Detlef very kindly offered to take me round town to run whatever errands I had, which (as the parcel containing my parts still hadn’t arrived in Louis Trichardt) included visiting multiple bike shops to find replacements. The derailleur wheels were easy but the chainring was less so, as there appears to be an almost total lack of five-bolt chainsets in South Africa. Eventually an alternative solution presented itself - I found a crappy old hybrid crankset for £15 and decided that could do the job until my dad comes out to SA and can bring a replacement chainring. This means I had to hang on to most of the old crankset, but I drew the line at carrying an extra crank so I just chucked away the new one, meaning that Maggie currently has a stylish left-side-silver-right-side-black crank arm arrangement.  

Detlef is an amateur beekeeper with two hives, one of which he had decided to move from its position by the side of the house up to the roof. He had read that you can only move the hive up to 3ft or over 6 miles in one day without spooking the bees, and since he couldn’t figure out how to do the latter he had rigged up a fantastic scaffolding, pulley and ladder contraption to move the hive up, then across, in 3ft increments. Each night I was here I helped with this by hoisting the hive whilst he kept it steady, decked out in his beekeeping outfit of a long sleeve tshirt tucked into some yellow rubber gloves. He is also allergic to bees, which is quite wonderful. 

The second day I had a long session rebuilding Maggie with the lovely view in the background. She has an entirely new drivetrain but despite this has developed some shifting issues - I’ll wait to see if they wear in, she's old so it might be the shifters or derailleur. I also puzzled over a broken rivet in my saddle, which came loose when I was trying to get the seized bolt out. I was worried that this was critical to the health of the saddle and I'd have to carry a spare in case the whole thing failed. When I mentioned this to Detlef he immediately said "ah no we can put a new rivet in" and in 15 minutes we'd done it. He is probably the only person I've stayed with in my whole time in Africa who had both the know how and the tools to do that - brilliant timing. 

After she was reassembled I took her on a test ride to the nearest shops, up and down several big hills to give both the gears and the brakes a proper test. On a maintenance roll, and over a couple of some tasty local beers, I gave my stove a proper clean for the first time and got it roaring again. For dinner I made an elaborate and enormous meal of “Massive Sausage Two Ways”, one way fried with onions and the other way in a tomato stew. It was a delicious meal but for the first time in ages I was almost unable to finish it. Almost. In this state of slightly uncomfortable fullness I had to discuss and manage the visit of a plumber back home, which was fun. The eventual job cost an entire month’s Africa budget - a reminder that I can’t escape the “real world” even when I’m in another hemisphere.

*Well, I had oats and peanut butter, but I’m sick of oats and peanut butter