Day 368 / 133

Date: 15 April 2023
Sleeping location: Ladismith Manor B&B, Ladismith, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 68 / 23057 / 8220
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1200 / 220500 / 102500
Excitement levels: 90+ db
Day in three words: Port poort port

In the morning I enacted Operation Sheath on Maggie’s rear tyre: I took out the banged up inner tube and cut it up to create a long thing circular piece of rubber, which I then put between a new inner tube and the tyre. The idea being that this would stop any micro punctures, which had been causing all of my woes, from reaching the inner at all. With this done we had breakfast (three courses, one of yoghurt and fruit, one of pancakes with blueberries and syrup and one of bacon and eggs, all done nicely, though the coffee was merely alright: 8/10) and popped across the road to the Boplaas winery. It was a bit early for sampling but the woman was happy to tell us the history, however her accent was quite thick and my dad and I both heard slightly different things. Either way, the climate is perfect for Portuguese grapes (which were sent here instead of Shiraz, either by mistake or on purpose depending on which of us you ask) which means they can make port here, although they aren’t actually allowed to call it port. We bought a couple of bottles to take with us and also had a sparkling grape juice on their terrace overlooking the vineyard.

Out on the road it was a calm cool and clear morning but hotting up under the sun. The road was lovely and quiet and the scenery was all red rock, green scrub and blue sky. We had a long drag of a climb, followed by a short sharp descent, followed by the big deal, the 400m climb up the Huis River Pass. The road wound its way up, kind of steep but never too bad, through a landscape of big red and yellow cliffs and scrubby green hills. It was some good, scenic riding. After a short fast descent we stopped for a lunch of a "roosterkoek", which was actually just a sandwich, in a nice wild west-y style place with old farm equipment and fun gadgets lying around everywhere. 

It was a short day to Ladismith direct, only 50km, so I decided to make it a bit longer with an out and back to the Seweweekspoort pass. This was down a gravel road in decent condition so dad came with me for a couple of km to get a look at the place, then turned back and I went on for a bit solo. The road became very washboard-y and annoying but it wasn’t far so I pushed on. It was an interesting pass in that it didn’t go over the mountains but instead through them, following the course of a river that had seemingly carved its own path. Big red rock cliffs loomed either side of the road and made a great contrast with the bright blue sky. I wandered up and down for a bit then headed back down, satisfied.

Back on the road the final 20km didn't come as easily as I’d hoped and it was by now quite warm. I got to the guesthouse about 4.30, keen to do some blogging, but this was made difficult as the owner Alex was exceptionally talkative. He knew a lot but it soon became clear that he was something of a white supremacist and seemed to think, as he explained with glee, that the Boer farmers will rise up with their rusty old shotguns and take over again. Sure, the electricity was more reliable before the end of apartheid, but also 90% of the population was treated as second class citizens. It was an enlightening conversation in the same way that looking at an X-ray of your broken arm is enlightening - you’ll learn something but it’s not that fun. That said, he did produce a very interesting extract from a book written by a Zulu chief in 1969, explaining why the Bantu people would be bad at big government; essentially it’s because the way the village is run, with nepotism and creaming a bit off the top, might work ok at a village level but doesn’t at a national level. I’d like to read the full book to see these two paragraphs in context, something that didn’t appear to have occurred to Alex as he used them to essentially say “see, even the blacks think we should rule over them.”

We managed to escape and went out to a local pub for dinner, which involved beer, pub food and the rugby on the telly. It was Saturday night and there was a small crowd in, getting very excited, which made it good fun and a different experience to the last few fancy nights. One time there was so much shouting that dad's smart watch warned him of high decibel levels. After buying two bottles of port this morning, there was also a small bottle of the stuff in each of our rooms. Ports aplenty today.