Day 359 / 124

Date: 6 April 2023
Sleeping location: The Beach hotel, Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 25 / 22368 / 7531
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 100 / 211400 / 93400
Maggie: restored
Day in three words: Dad’s in Africa

I didn't sleep that well, being in the same room as another person (who snores) for the first time in a while, but my dad at least got mostly over his overnight flight. We hit the hotel buffet breakfast, a mighty spread but as we weren’t cycling I didn't go big today - that will come tomorrow. Dad then reassembled his bike after the flight and I gave Maggie some TLC. The wooden heart from Piet and Ronel was strapped on the front rack just above Yoshi. Then I carried out a massive reshuffle of things in order to ship my camping and cooking gear ahead to Cape Town, since I won’t need it whilst cycling with my dad, saving me about 12kg.

With bike reassembled we took a test ride out to a bike shop so I could use their tool to fit Maggie’s original chainset, now restored by the inner chainring my dad had brought out from the UK, thus consigning the cheap, clunky, crappy hybrid bike chainset and Maggie’s radical two-tone crank colour scheme to the bin. It did its job. On the off chance I asked if they could check my chain for stretch and it was absolutely dead after 2000km. The usual lifespan for Maggie is 3-4000km, which shows how hard I was working in Lesotho and the other mountainous sections of the last month. I was ready to do everything myself to save on labour costs, but the owner Wayne insisted on fitting everything and cleaning Maggie for free, which was a nice touch. As a bonus I also found a replacement pair of the sunglasses that I bought in Harare and trod on in Mlilwane.

With our chores (mostly) done we went for a dip in the fresh sea and indulged in some classic wave jumping/diving/body surfing, bringing back fond memories of childhood holidays, then had a lunch of a pint, a pizza and peri peri chicken livers at the same bar as I went to the night before. After that we got on the bikes and cycled down the coast to Cape Recife, which is allegedly the south eastern point of Africa (is that a thing?) At the end of the land, in a lovely atmospheric setting amongst the dunes in a nature reserve, there was an old lighthouse surrounded by drifts of white sand. It was a beautiful spot and very peaceful.

After another pre-dinner dip and the last dregs of admin we went for dinner at the restaurant attached to the hotel. It was very fancy, in fact the fanciest I’d been to since leaving Europe. Still, two tasty courses times two, plus a bottle of good wine, a fancy bottled water and tip was less than £50. 

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