Day 366 / 131

Date: 13 April 2023
Sleeping location: Surval Boutique Olive Estate, 5km north of Oudtshoorn, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 74 / 22874 / 8037
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1000 / 217100 / 99100
Olives: seven ways
Day in three words: Happy birthday journey

Breakfast was a real mixed bag: they had a “sausage of the day” but it was not used as a breakwater, Alan Partridge style, between the scrambled eggs and beans; there was no fruit salad but there was one of those big toast machines, which are always fun, so overall a confusing 6.5/10. Today we were changing landscape entirely, finally leaving the coastal plain and heading over the Outeniqua mountains into the Little Karoo. 

This required a big climb straight outta George, up 500m from almost a standing start. This was on a big road, the N12, but it was quiet with a good shoulder and actually quite a pleasant ride. As we climbed we got great views back down over George and further down to the sea and round the coast to Mossel Bay, a good 40km away. In the other direction were big lumpy and craggy green mountains. It was all very scenic and enjoyable and we took our time, popping into the many rest areas for photos. Over the summit was a beautiful and fast descent down into Hop Valley*, a sort of hinterland between the lush coastal plain and the dry Karoo where they grow lot of hops and fruit. Here we stopped at a cafe which didn’t actually serve much in the way of hot food, so we had a lunch of one and a half sandwiches, plus a random selection of snacks including something that was just called "crackles", plus a beer and a nice soft drink made with local hops. 

Shortly before this the shoulder had disappeared, as it turned out for the rest of the day. It was quite a narrow road but mostly quiet enough to be ok despite the occasional arsey driver. After a small climb out of Hop Valley we entered the Little Karoo proper. The Karoo is a vast semi-desert region of South Africa, most of which is made up of the Great Karoo to the north, with the Little Karoo a long thin strip sandwiched between two big mountain ranges, one of which we had just crossed from the south. The landscape was noticeably different here, dryer with occasional shrubs rather than the grass and trees of the coast area. There were distant rocky peaks and some train tracks following the road, which gave everything a cool wild west vibe. This section of the route was mostly a long and gradual descent, which was quite fun with some big fast sections. At one point I spotted a zebra mooching around below the road and stopped to point it out to my dad; I think he was impressed.

Oudtshoorn was a dusty scruffy town that felt much closer to the agricultural towns I’d visited in other parts of SA (Vryheid, Queenstown, Estcourt etc) than to the fancy places we’d been going through in the past week. As such the supermarket had a poor selection of goodies for a packed lunch the following day, and also sold a curious thing called "Hot Cross Bunpoeding" which was some kind of opaque unrefrigerated sludge. Oudtshoorn is also known as the ostrich capital of the world, but sadly we didn’t see any roaming the streets or in the supermarket.

At odds with town, our olive-based hotel outside of town was very fancy. In these fancy surrounds I attempted to diagnose yet another puncture in Maggie's rear tyre. This proved impossible for my impatience but dad’s 69-year-old eyes and sagacity identified the tiniest of holes in the inner. The tyre is clearly on its last legs as it keeps letting sharp things through just enough to nick the inner. I patched it and formulated a plan for if/when it failed again. We then had dinner in the hotel’s equally fancy restaurant, which of course had a dish entirely dedicated to olives and of course we tried it. I had no idea you could do so much with olives, but to be fair it was varied and tasty. In lieu of seeing any ostriches I ate one for my main course and that was also surprisingly tasty. However, the best part of the meal was the damn fine bottle of Pinot Noir that had been mistakenly put on the menu at R225 (£10) instead of R525 (well…you can do the maths). The wine version of “bank error in your favour” in Monopoly.

*I am not sure if it is actually called this but I like the name so it is called this in my head