Day 360 / 125

Date: 7 April 2023
Sleeping location: Stone Olive guesthouse, Jeffreys Bay, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 85 / 22453 / 7616
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 700 / 212100 / 94100
Welcome: wild
Day in three words: Gusts with gusto

Shortly after waking up a feisty gust of wind blew my sandwich bag out of the window, which was a taste of things to come (It was heroically rescued by my dad). The forecast was for strong winds, and not helpful ones. We stocked up on calories at the breakfast buffet (great selection of cold and hot items, good coffee, yoghurt and muesli served in wine glasses for some reason, beautiful timber and painted ceiling: 9/10)*, packed up and headed off into chaos. The wind was gusting at about 50kph from our front left** and blowing us all over the place. At times it was impossible to keep on a straight line, especially when we went from a sheltered area into an open one. One guy got pissed off at me for this (and apparently for daring to cycle on a big road at all) but most cars were thankfully respectful, the road quiet and the shoulder big, because it was a potentially dangerous situation as the wind was mainly blowing us out into the road. 

PE isn’t a particularly huge city but it took a couple of hours to escape it, through a long series of affluent and very affluent suburbs, then scattered industry and retail, then finally after about 20km back to rolling farmland. Progress was slow because of the wind and because we were gradually climbing. The cycling was fairly uninspiring, even ignoring the wind (which was impossible), and the road was medium busy. A little bit of excitement came in the Van Stadens nature reserve, a deep valley where we quickly dropped down then climbed back up 120m through forest and rocks. A further bit of excitement came with my first road sign for Cape Town.  

There wasn’t really anywhere to stop for food so we ended up having lunch at a pub in a town called Thornhill: acceptable burger and chips with a beer. There were ten dogs roaming around the pub, getting excited about random things and setting each other off so a chorus of barks rang out every few minutes. 

Shortly after this we dropped down from the hills to the coastal plain via a cool old iron bridge next to a gravel road cut into the cliff by the river. On the plain we were now cycling directly into the wind, which had eased a bit but was still going at 30-40kph, meaning we did 12-15kph on flat ground. We could see Jeffrey's Bay for ages whilst this was going on, taunting us by being near yet far. 

J-Bay (as the cool kids call it) is a surf town but also a fairly affluent seaside resort with a beach several kilometres long. Our guesthouse was a cute little place up a very steep hill, a nice end of the day for tired legs. We got there about 5 and after a quick shower walked down to the beach for sunset. There were lots of people fishing in the wave and beautiful views of distant headlands. Near here we went to a tasty, casual fish restaurant and had some tasty, casual fish and calamari with a pint of nice local beer. On the walk back to the guesthouse we saw the moon rising over the water, all big and orange. The bit after we stopped cycling was by far the best part of the day - poor dad’s introduction to cycling Africa was not a pleasant one.

*We’re staying at so many B&Bs that I’m going to start reviewing the breakfasts

**If it had been a straight headwind we'd still be cycling.