Day 114 Saturday May 4 Yzerfontein to Cape Town Last Day of the Tour

 Jeff, Linda and Henry completed their epic journey today! They will return to Spokane on Wednesday.

Day 113 Friday May 3 Dwarskerbos to Yzerfontein

by Henry

The penultimate ride. 

144 km, 725 m total ascent, 24°C maximum.

 

TDA crew work hard every morning at 5 AM to prepare our breakfast.

It is worth looking in the rearview mirror at times; the sun rising as we pedaled due west first thing in the morning.

We passed several seaside communities. South Africans really like the white and black architectural scheme, which was present in every resort town that we passed. 

We had a long gradual climb in the morning with a strong headwind. We were all concerned that if this wind kept up for the whole day, we would be utterly spent and exhausted.

 

Morning cappuccino break. Fortunately, the wind seemed to die down after the coffee stop.

 

Surprisingly, the first McDonald’s sighting since Egypt. The franchise had not established visible inroads in East Africa. KFC, however, has been everywhere.

 

Steel plant in Saldanha. To my eye, it looks like something that could have been built for a Star Wars movie set.

 

Barrier island protected calm waters of Saldanha Bay, with no surf.

Lunch was just outside the gates of the West Coast National Park.

 

Afterwards, we cycled in and rode the length of the Park along the coast.

Baked goods never fails to draw a crowd at our coffee stops.

There was a gin tasting room which attracted many of us like bees to nectar.

 

At the same coffee break, I supported the on-site purveyor of biltong and droëwors. 

 

The rider meeting was moved up to 5 PM from the usual 5:45 PM. Colleen explained the logistics of how we would ride into Cape Town tomorrow. Congratulatory jerseys were distributed.

Libations were provided in the form of sherry and every flavor of boxed wine.

After dinner, most of us hung around to chat for a bit around the campfire, it wasn’t long before general fatigue overpowered us, and we retreated to our tents. The endless pounding surf 500 m away was a soothing tonic as we drifted off to sleep.

Day 112 Thursday May 2 Strandfontein to Dwarskersbos

by Henry

144 km, 765 m total ascent, 25°C maximum. For most of the day, we had a crosswind or cross-head wind.

Definitely chillier by the seashore in the mornings. Everyone had coats and long pants on for breakfast.

 

Lighthouse on the rugged western coast of South Africa.

 

Our last gravel section of the Tour started at 10 km and went on until 58 km. it was rough and corrugated. Very jarring and uncomfortable to ride.

 

Some of the rocks were packed in so tightly that the road almost looked partially paved, but even these sections rattled our bikes and bones mercilessly. 

Having conquered the unruly gravel, we rewarded ourselves with a cappuccino or a milkshake at a Coke stop 5 km after we landed back on tarmac.

Surprise! Alas, Colleen had neglected to tell us at the rider meeting last night that that at 74 km, there would be a SECOND 15 km segment of rough gravel road!

This 15 km section was even more corrugated and bumpier than the first 48 km. It was an ungraded service road for the railway, with the railroad tracks paralleling the road on the left. White beach dunes are to the right. 

After lunch at 89 km, we finally did have the promised tarmac for the rest of the day’s ride.

We have seen several long trains hauling iron ore in the last 2 days, longer than we see in the USA. They have standard diesel engines at the front and rear of the train, but in the middle, several electric locomotive engines are used to ease the workload for the diesel engines.

Our Coke stop in the afternoon at 120 km. The store was stuffed with homemade treats (jams/jellies, baked goods, sauces, pickled fruits and vegetables, sausages, everything one would find in an Amish or Hutterite store), none of which we could take with us. 😢

 

Eva and Linda discussing important matters at the end of the day.

Our campsite at Dwarskersbos was not right on the beach, which was 400 m away. Even so, we could hear the ocean roiling in the near distance as we laid in our tents.

We cleared another hurdle today. No more unpaved or gravel roads!

2 days left . . . 

Day 111 Wednesday May 1 Garies to Strandfontein

by Henry

160 km (including 27 km of unpaved farm road), 1568 m total ascent, 26°C maximum.

Today is May Day, and seasonally it is the equivalent of November 1 in the northern hemisphere.
 

Leaving the northwest district in South Africa.
 

Gerber coffee shop in Bitterfontein at 62 km.
 

We could not resist stopping there for a cappuccino.

At 81 km, right after lunch in Nuwerus, our 27 km segment of gravel began. 
 

The gravel was often corrugated, at times rather sandy, and there were exposed hard patches where the rocks were compacted into a concrete-like layer. It would seem like riding on this hard surface would be easier, but in fact, it was quite bumpy also. 

When we turned off the gravel road onto tarmac for the last 50 km of the day, we had to unhappily contend with a headwind, so the four of us who happened to be riding together took turns leading.

 
Cresting our final hill of the day, the Atlantic Ocean made its appearance in the distance on our right side.

We arrived at Strandfontein Caravan Park at 5 PM, partly because we stopped to help Montana Pam change a flat tire 25 km out from camp, and in part also because we did not want to rush to end one of the few remaining days of riding in Africa.
 

The coastline has a remarkable resemblance to the Southern California coastline in Orange County. I waded into the chilly Atlantic, just because. 
 

Strandfontein is a vacation resort town, and not really a place where there are permanent residents. 
 

We took our dinner and watched the sun descend below the shimmering watery horizon. 

Nearing the end of this self-inflicted marathon, we all are hoping that our bodies, our spirits, and our bikes will hold up for just three more days of cycling. Nothing is guaranteed. Uli’s Di2 electronic derailleur broke today, so for the next 3 days she will be riding a TDA staff bike to get her into Cape Town.

It was a long tiring day, and I had no trouble falling asleep in my tent listening to the continual roar of the Atlantic surf.

Day 110 Tuesday April 30 Springbok to Garies

 by Henry

117 km, 1339 m total ascent, 26°C maximum. There is an autumnal morning chill in the air.

We ended up having a gusty tailwind or a cross-tailwind most of the day.

 

Cape Town appeared as a destination on a sign today.

 

 

Ostrich near the highway this morning.

   

Three different views of the Richtersveld with mountains in the background. Today’s ride was quite hilly. We started at 900 m elevation, dropped to 400 m, climbed back up to 900 m, and ended up at 200 m. In between, there were numerous intervening ups and downs.

  

The final 10 km of the day was a great downhill cruise with an expansive view of the valley below.

 

Garies, as viewed from the N7 exit ramp. We arrived relatively early at 1 PM.

Colleen had surprised the group at last night’s rider meeting with an announcement that TDA had reserved a guest room for everyone in Garies. This required reserving nearly every room available in town. TDA has also pulled this off in prior years. Normally, the plan would be to camp in the city park, but because of the combination of failed infrastructure and severe drought, there is no plumbing or water for showers or toilets in the park. To help conserve water, we were asked to limit our showers to 3 minutes in our guest rooms. 

 

We stashed our bikes in the congregation hall of the local church overnight. TDA staff members would be sleeping in the hall to guard them.

Our daily bags had been dropped off at each guest house ahead of time, so all we had to do was walk to our assigned guest house and check in.

We were informed ahead of time that there might be electrical “load shedding”, so electricity could be turned off for many hours. It turns out there are national elections next month, and there was no electrical outage today . . .

About six different guest houses were utilized. We were assigned to Die Kleine Werf (The Small Farmyard), which consisted of several buildings.

 

The entry to our room, which was in this building.

The tourist shop next door had delicious carrot cake, and good coffee.

We took an afternoon nap in an air-conditioned room, an incredible luxury.

 

We walked back down the main street to the church for our usual daily rider meeting at 5:45 PM, followed by dinner at 6 PM.

Tomorrow is our longest remaining riding day in terms of distance, at 160 km. We will be greeting the long-awaited Atlantic Ocean.