The sub-Saharan cycle: rolling through Limpopo

A lift at Pride of Africa

Early into Friday’s ride we knew it was going to be a scorcher. Things became a little trickier too when our back-road route took us through some punishingly thick sand just north of Mashobe. Bad then turned to worse with Amanzi Awethu! trying their hand at the new sport of trans-ploughed-field racing. With the heat baking down and all our water finished, we eventually crawled through the last two kilometres of bush and fields to collapse into the swimming pools at the Sondela campsite.

The back routes of Mashobe

Over the weekend we were joined by university friends Wiebke and Simon. We graciously took the opportunity to put some heavier kit in their car as they drove from Sondela to Nylsvlei Nature Reserve, our Saturday night stop. The ride from Sondela was great; wide gravel road, slight rolling gradient and perhaps two cars seen in three hours. Alas, it seems the gods of cycle touring were watching and decided to smite us for our heinous deed of making others bear our weight. Three kilometres short of camp, just as the mild cloud cover we had enjoyed all day was building into a mighty black mass, Murray had a blowout. We set to work as quickly as we could, broke two tyre levers in the process, but managed to get the new tube in and start pumping. The touring gods weren’t done with us though. A pinch and a pop and the new tyre went flat. When we broke our third and final tyre lever trying to remove it, well, that was it. It was a wet walk to Nylsvlei.

Distance toward Doorendraai

After some cunning lift logistics we managed to sort out the tyre issue early on Sunday morning in the (not so) booming metropolis of Nysltroom. Back on the road we enjoyed a gentle meander up into the Waterberg Mountains to Doorendraai Dam Nature Reserve. Our combined (yet limited) intelligence was stumped when we found a rusty old gate in front of a reception building which had obviously been abandoned for years. Just as we were devising a plan to get bikes and bags over the gate and make camp in the bush, a car came trundling up from the other side of the gate. Looking just as confused as us, the driver explained that the new entrance was on the far side of the reserve, a good 20+km further along our original road. Luckily he kindly let us in and allowed us to cycle through the reserve to the other entrance. At 17h30, with the sun beginning to ease from a sparsely clouded sky, we enjoyed the most beautiful hour of riding alongside the glassy waters of the dam; tsessebe, warthog and impala scattering from the road ahead of us. A popular weekend fishing spot, the reserve had emptied on a Sunday and we had the entire place to ourselves. A dip in the crystal-clear dam and a cup of tea on the bank left us feeling refreshed before night fell and we sat around a fire enjoying that silence that only the African bush can provide.

Dusk over Dorrendraai Dam

We were back on the road early in the morning as our plans for the day had changed somewhat. An old boy of our mutual high school, Paul Shearer, had been in touch to say he and his family run a resort just short of Polokwane and that we should come and spend a night with them. This meant our mileage for the day would be a little more, hence the early start. Stopping in hot-and-heating-up Mokopane for lunch, we called Paul to say we were en route.

‘It’s only 30km from there,’ he said, ‘you’ll be here in an hour.’

Well, we weren’t. Between Mokopane and The Ranch Resort there is a hill. A mean, steep one. It hurt. Two-and-a-half hours later we rolled in, staggered to the bar and ordered a beer. All was forgiven. The Ranch Resort is a beautiful hotel and, though our incredibly trendy strops and salt-encrusted clothes don’t quite fit the ambiance, the respite from ground-level sleep was graciously appreciated.

We ended our first week of cycling on the Great Road North with our total mileage to date being 397 km. Many things have be learnt: it takes over 300 km for Murray Beaumont to fall-off, nothing can get a tyre off as well as a tea spoon and it is humanly possible for one man to eat a large bowl of oats, two helpings of muesli & yoghurt, two boiled eggs, a slice of carrot cake and a steak all in one day. We won’t say how we know this.

Siyabonga umhlobo wam!

Amanzi Awethu!