Day 334 / 99

Date: 12 March 2023
Sleeping location: Woodland 26.8705S 30.8850E, South Africa

Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 74 / 20599 / 5762
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1600 / 184800 / 66800
Most emotional weather condition: rainbow

Day in three words: The great escape

In the morning I wasn’t feeling particularly restored but there wasn’t much point staying in the reserve so I kicked on regardless and, after breakfast and a fourth goodbye with Sarah, set off out along the “no access” road I’d come in on. As a little goodbye from Mlilwane there were about ten kudu hiding in the grass on my way out. As a significantly worse goodbye from Mlilwane, the 2.5m high gate that I’d entered through was locked and there was nobody around. There was no way I was taking the 15km detour, so a plan needed to be formed: I could climb over the gate, my bags could go under the fence, but what about Maggie? I found three big cinder blocks to stand on, then employed a can do attitude and the help of a slightly skeptical passing woman to lift her over. 

My victorious spirit didn’t last long - Maggie’s rear tyre deflated again within a few km and her gears were still skipping. It felt like she was letting me down for the first time, and I diverted to a cafe to try and fix things, feeling rather glum and aware that there was a lot of climb still to come. I took the tube out to check it but found that the problem seemed to be with the valve core - my issues with inners feel like a game of whack a mole at the moment. The cafe was a very touristy place and there was a big church-affiliated group, two of whom, Louis and Michael, came to say hi and ask about my trip. They were very nice and friendly but it felt a bit weird when they started talking passionately about “the Lord”, though this probably says more about me than it does about them. In the end I wasn’t away til 12, with the shifting issue still unfixed, though actually just messing randomly with shifter whilst riding made things better. Maybe this isn't a terminal problem, just a very fiddly one. 

I went under grey skies through green hills, fields and pine forest, all very British though frequent aloe vera plants spoiled that vision. To get up into the mountains I had a long 400m drag of a climb, but compared to recent days it was a piece of cake in terms of steepness, then a fast descent where I couldn't tell if the wobbly sensation was due to swirling wind or a newly deflated rear tyre. Thankfully it was the former as the tyre still seemed good when I stopped for lunch. 

Once in the mountains I had a couple of climbs and descents to navigate, going 7kph up and 70kph down.  It was fairly quiet but some people were wearing traditional robes and jewelry in a non ironic/tourism way, which nice to see. On one of these climbs I had an unexpectedly emotional moment when I was hit by a decent sized rainstorm. I was just thinking how miserable today had been when I happened to look to my left and saw a rainbow. This was a sudden reminder that every cloud has its silver lining, every rainstorm has its rainbow, and if you keep going every bad thing will be left behind you, as the rainstorm was, leaving just the rainbow as a big colourful metaphor. It was an allegory for the whole trip and it suddenly made me feel the weight of everything I'd overcome to this point. This is with 2,500km still to go - I'll be in bits by the time I get near Cape Town. 

On top of the final climb the wind was gusting and the landscape was nice but unspectacular, forests and faraway fields again. After a short descent with a ripping tailwind I got to the very quiet, remote border post where a very nice man stamped me out of Eswatini, telling me he hoped I had enjoyed his country and that I would be back soon. I’m not really sure what to make of it; it had its moments in terms of scenery but wasn’t as nice as SA, sometimes the people seemed nice and sometimes they seemed quite surly. I was only there for a few days so I didn’t really have that long to get under the skin of the place.

 

I cycled the short distance to the South African border post but they didn’t have any water so I had to go back to Eswatini to fill up my supplies for a wild camp. After getting stamped back into SA I had half an hour before my arbitrary 6pm cut off point, but it was all steep dirt climb and I had to stop to eat some cake to avoid a sugar crash so I only made it a few km. I ducked into quite open woodland on a small footpath then cut away until I found a level enough spot. I was visible from the path and only once I'd committed did I realise that a house was close enough to hear distant shouts from outside it, so I was a touch on edge until full darkness, but nobody came past evening or morning and it was a lovely quiet spot. For dinner I had the final remnants of the massive bolognaise with some pasta, and even now there was so much left that it filled my pan to the brim.