Day 337 / 102

Date: 15 March 2023
Sleeping location: Kazuma Guesthouse, Pomeroy, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 83 / 20874 / 6037
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1100 / 187900 / 69900
The way we say Zulu: Z-U-L-U*

Day in three words: Adventures in Zululand

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23ViourbxrE

The morning was misty but soon cleared, as it had on the day of the battle. I had to finalise the attempted repairs to Maggie but trying a new thing - lubing the cable guide - seemed to help. We are getting there. Somehow a combination of the repairs, sleeping in a bit, attempting to squeeze in a blog entry and general faffment meant I didn’t leave until 10, and even then I felt I had to go watch the video in the visitor centre because Johan had been so nice to me and had said it was really good. To be fair it was, adding a bit more historical context, but after that and some chitchat I didn’t leave until well after half 10.

Like the day before I was riding on a network of good gravel roads across open grassland, except now I was in the "black" area - Zululand proper - and there were few fences, cows roaming free and houses dotted around. It was nice riding, the people that I passed were mostly friendly, despite historical context, and on the quiet roads I saw a bouncy little mongoose thing and 3ft lizard. As the morning went on the terrain became more hilly and in the hot sun it was quite hard work. Early afternoon I got to another historical site, Rourke's Drift, where the British fought a rearguard defence against a Zulu attack in 1879. Compared to Bloed Rivier the museum was disappointing as there was no historical context, just an account of the battle itself. Still, it sounded like quite the to-do. Here a local man asked about my journey, then asked if my name was Rapha because it was written on my t shirt. 

After lunch and a brief look in the museum I got back onto the gravel and started heading up towards pretty big escarpment. This looked impassable but the road sneaked through a gap in it, requiring a pretty big climb in the end with two very steep and loose sections that were unrideable. I went slowly and hit the top with just an hour until sunset, but up here was cow country and the road was covered with dried mud, rutted and slow. I was slowed down further by a cow traffic jam, about 100 of the things being herded slowly along the road by two guys. I had to very carefully move through the crowd, whistling and shouting at them myself because the guys provided absolutely no help at all. 

Late in the day I arrived back on tarmac after 100km of gravel riding, most of which had been really enjoyable. It was quite late and I had no water so I couldn't wild camp, but as I was back in white land now there was nowhere to pick it up and every suitable camp spot was fenced off anyway. Instead I headed as quickly as possible for the town of Pomeroy which had a hotel listed on google. I knew there was a big descent down to it, which helped, although a bad road surface and random, pointless, aggressive speed bumps in the middle of nowhere didn't. Coming into town close to sunset there were beautiful views down over a wide plain backed with mountains. This seemed to be the start of black area again and Pomeroy was noticeably poorer and messier than the other big towns I've been through in SA. Everything shut up at bang on 6 and the one open shop in the petrol station had no fresh veg, meat or cheese, so my dinner was "corned meat"** and chakalaka with pasta. The hotel was fairly rubbish and fairly noisy but at least also fairly cheap. This sort of feels like being back in the "real" Africa. 

**I looked at the ingredients. You don't want to know.