Day 338 - 339 / 103 - 104

Date: 16 - 17 March 2023
Sleeping location: The Riverhouse, Estcourt, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 133 / 21007 / 6170
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1900 / 189800 / 71800
Adrionack Inn: 0 stars

Day in three words: Storm and fury

I was up early and whilst figuring out the day I realised that if I got to Estcourt I'd have done almost 500km since my last rest day, which wasn't really a rest day, so on a whim I decided to book a modest hotel for two nights, rest up and catch up with blogging and general life admin. This required a big but doable day, but I love a goal and I set off with fire in my belly. The first 25km was a bit uppy, but mostly downy, to Tugela Ferry, where despite having come down almost 1000m since the top of the dirt section yesterday the temperature felt about the same. These were all black areas and seemed quite poor, including the town itself. I only saw one other white person. I had a quick stop for supplies and a coffee* and got in to a bit of an argument with a security guard where I was quite rude and had to go back and apologise afterwards, but so did he, so all was well. Getting ratty is another sign that I need to rest. 

Up away from the Tugela river was a big long steep climb that was tough but actually not as tough as it looked on the elevation profile. Near the top the views back down onto the plain and peaks were tremendous. This took me up onto ridgeline with similar excellent views on either side, then onto a rolling high plain with huge views, gradually climbing a few hundred metres over twenty km. It was very quiet but the road was smooth and new and it was nice riding. I was feeling pretty tired late morning but an early lunch and lashings of ginger beer injected some energy into my legs and the next section was easier. The woman running the shop here had her face painted yellow, as did another woman I saw later - this is a Xhosa thing, apparently.

On the other side of the summit the landscape immediately turned from inhabited grassland to empty savannah. I guessed that this was the border between black and white land, and some large scale farming down at the bottom of the next descent suggested so. The farmed areas all had big water spraying machines, which suggests that the conversion from savannah (ie dry landscape) to arable land requires a lot of water. I had my afternoon break at a petrol station** where I spoke to a couple of guys about my trip. When I said I was heading to Estcourt one of them said there were dangerous animals in the nature reserve that I’d have to cross. I asked him what kind of animals, he paused and said “…giraffes?”. When I saw giraffes in Katavi they lolloped off before I could get within twenty metres so I was ok with that.

The road through the reserve was beautiful, quiet and new which allowed me to scan for animals whilst riding. Halfway through I saw the unmistakable shapes of five giraffes off in the distance, and I think about ten zebra too, but thankfully they were too far away to cause me any danger unless they were trained snipers. Then out of nowhere, and I mean nowhere, a thunderstorm hit me. The rain was so heavy that it was actually painful on my face and all I could do was keep my head down and stick to the yellow line on the road. Near the top of a climb there was a very visible lightning strike followed by very immediate and loud thunder. I began to wonder idly what would happen if you got hit by lightning on a bike - rubber tyres on the toad, no direct contact with metal, so it would be fine, right? And anyway it would hit the giraffes first as they were closer to the clouds.***

After about 15 mins I came out of the natural chaos and entered some manmade chaos. A farmer in a car warned me that the road ahead was closed due to a protest, but with no viable alternative I decided to keep going and see what happened. The road abruptly went from farmland into a scruffy town, with lines of rocks arranged across the road and smashed glass everywhere. There was a charged atmosphere and a couple of drunk guys shouted at me half heartedly, but mostly people just stared and I just kept peddling. The protest proper was at the junction with the main road into Estcourt, which was very much blocked off, and a big crowd was surrounding a couple of police officers. Hardly anyone saw me approach as most were concentrating on the police. I hopped off the bike, walked calmly round the barricades and got out asap. I later found out that they were protesting about terrible water and power services, so I may have been fine anyway as it wasn’t a racial thing, but it sometimes feels like everything in South Africa, deep down, is a racial thing.  

At a supermarket I bought loads of food as the room came with cooking facilities. With this added to Maggie’s usual weight I crawled uphill in light rain to the suburban address on my booking confirmation. There was no sign outside, no buzzer and nobody around to greet me apart from two big and aggressive dogs inside the gate. I phoned the number on the booking confirmation but there was no answer. It was dark and raining, I’d cycled more than 130km, I had wet socks and I was extremely pissed off. I swore at the dogs for a bit, then went to a nearby B&B where the man was helpful but clearly did not want to host me. He directed me all the way back into town, which was at least downhill, to the Riverhouse where I was greeted by the owner Karin. She was very sympathetic, helpful and accommodating and after getting me settled in and dried off she let me use the kitchen to cook my food, as there were no facilities in the available room. After all this nonsense it was well after 9 and I went immediately to the very comfy bed and slept like a log.

The next morning I was moved into bigger room with cooking facilities and did absolutely nothing except cook, eat, blog, do admin for Afrika Burn (the festival I'm going to after I finish the ride) and research Lesotho. Conclusion: Lesotho is going to be intense. The other hotel eventually got back to me and, to paraphrase, said that their admin was crap and they had missed my booking, but I’d get a full refund.

*Only available at KFC. There is absolutely no cafe or restaurant culture here 

**In Weenan - site of the massacres that preceded the battle at Bloed Rivier/Ncome

***I looked this up and giraffes actually are the mostly likely animals to be struck by lightning, which is darkly comic