Progress Report 8 - w/c 12.01.09

week two shows no sign of the pace slackening!

after lunch with jani and family, julian and i headed back to the farm on our motorised horses!


and in the evening we went boar hunting!



the following morning (my penultimate day in south africa) we finally headed to the cederberg mountains! the 90 minute drive to clanwilliam started at 0630, so we had breakfast once we had hit the gravel road and offloaded the bike. the 158km route over gravel roads and rough tracks took the best part of six hours to complete, including a rooibos tea break in wupperthal and lunch on a pass overlooking cederberg....oh yes, also included my painful effort to remove my repaired number plate which i managed to completely destroy this time around!

my bike loaded up on julian's bakkie on the way to clanwilliam



breakfast



wupperthal



this really was the highlight of my trip in the western cape, as it was a journey into a completely new area of south africa, over 3000ft passes, with wild country spreading out as far as the eye could see in every direction. even at that altitude it was around 28 degrees, so the landscape was very arid, dry, dusty but covered in thick bush and rooibos.





wild country



cruising along the gravel road to algeria


on the last day we headed to stellonbosch for some wine tasting; first stop was the meerlust wine farm, one of the oldest and most famous in south africa. meerlust means "more lust", i like their style!

julian has been a massive support. his generosity, hospitality, patience and encouragement was fantastic. these two weeks away turned me into a knew man, i'm fitter, my knee is stronger, my biking skills have developed massively and i even learned a little more of the mechanic side of things. thank you so much julian : ) i will be back - my honda is oiled up and sitting in one of the barns until i return (gilbright, please look after the bike).

my arrival in london was ahead of schedule, but at 0813hrs, we flew through very thick, very grey and very low cloud and landed on a damp runway....it was only 4 degrees....an english welcome home!! there were south africans on board who looked visibily traumatised by the experience......why they would want to come to england at this time of year i will never know!!!