Day 352 / 117

Date: 30 March 2023
Sleeping location: Conti Inn, Queenstown, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 131 / 21947 / 7110
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1500 / 208400 / 90400
Dordrechts: 2
Day in three words: Mammals gone wild

I slept soundly in the big comfy bed and was up early for a big day, 130km with the first 55km of that on a dirt road with some big climb. I had a chat, breakfast and goodbye with Johan before he went off to get the lawnmower fixed, then Mitzi insisted I had some toast and some extremely fresh milk.*. They were an absolutely lovely family and I was glad I made the impromptu decision to stop. 

Straight away I was into a long and stiff climb with a surface that was treacherous in places. The landscape was quite beautiful, cliffs, plains and little lakes and very, very empty. Johan had said there were around 45 families in the area 30 years ago, but it was now down to seven families farming the same land. After a similarly treacherous descent I had a long section across flat-ish grassy plains, a couple of small climbs then I hit tarmac again. This makes it sounds short but I was actually going pretty hard for four and a half hours, trying to give myself enough time to do the 70km tarmac section between Dordrecht and Queenstown.  

Along the dirt road I had a series of fun encounters with animals. A hyrax burst out of the undergrowth and appeared to be running directly towards me, and because they have a permanently pissed off expression I briefly wondered if it was going to attack me, but at the last moment it darted off into the undergrowth on the other side. A relatively normal mongoose thing ran across the road in front of me, and at a rest stop some kind of mysterious animal kept making a squeaky burbling noise at me. The best was last - some kind of giant weasel or mongoose sprinted across the road and launched itself into the bushes, failed to see the fence, bounced off the fence, did a somersault, recovered its cool and slunk away. Even more mammal fun came from an army of sheep being herded around, and a few cows that appeared to have escaped from their enclosures and were wandering down the R392 road. 

 

Dordrecht was cute quiet little town, like Lady Grey, and the first thing other than a farm since Lady Grey 110km ago. This was the second place called Dordrecht on the trip, after one in the Netherlands where I met my friend Lorenne, and I think it's the only double name I've had**. I bought masses of high calorie food in a supermarket and sat under a tree with yellowing leaves. It was a bit chilly when the wind blew. Autumn is truly here. It wasn’t yet 1pm and, satisfied with my remaining time, I pulled the trigger on two nights in Queenstown in a cheap hotel to give myself another rest day. 

After lunch I was back on tarmac on a quiet open road through open empty land, with grassy peaks and scattered woodland making it feel very reminiscent of the Highlands. Then I came over a rise and suddenly, same landscape, same grassy peaks, but small houses scattered far and wide across the plain below. I'd crossed the invisible border back into black land. Based on what Johan had said I had perhaps travelled through land belonging to 20 families over the last 140km, and now I could see literally thousands of houses. It was a shock to see the racial inequality in such an clear way. 

The plain had a long drag with slight uphill and slight headwind, which combined for frustratingly slow and effortfull progress, then a couple of medium climbs and gradual descents with that constant nagging headwind - the scenery was moderately beautiful but by this point I was just going through the motions really. My cleat kept slipping, which meant my left leg was peddling at the wrong angle, which meant that my whole body was misaligned and I was developing aches and pains all over, plus I was knackered and bored. I definitely needed a day off. 

I kept grinding away and still made it to Queenstown well before sunset. The hotel was fairly comfortable so I decided not to leave the room, ordered a ridiculous amount of junk food to be delivered, watched euro football highlights on the tv and waded through my millions of unread emails. 

*Including a game of “find the milk” when she put it down somewhere and we had to look for it for five minutes. It was in the sink.

**There was a “London” in the northern Drakensburgs, but that was just a tree plantation with a name on Google maps so it doesn’t count.