No rain and a cool cloudy morning. It looked like we were going to have a pretty good run to Eshowe. We parted company with Udo this morning after the obligatory photo session, and then headed on our way.
We knew that we would be spending most of the day climbing, but it looked like it would be gradual rather than steep. Considering our history at locating short cuts, it came as some surprise when the road that we were looking for actually existed and was at exactly the distance we had calculated. Even better it was sealed, as there had been some discussion with the guest-house people as to whether it was a dirt road or not.
For 30km we cycled along waving and shouting hello to some of the friendliest people we have encountered in a while. The Zulu people are proving themselves to be very nice. Unfortunately at the end of the 30km we ran out of road! Suddenly we were faced with a rocky muddy track and no idea how long it would remain so. We knew that we still had 25km to go to Eshowe, so we could have been in for a long day.
The road surface on its own wasn't too bad, but we had a few steep climbs to contend with along the way. The views and the people certainly helped and we were lucky that the previous day's rains hadn't deteriorated the surface too badly. Had we have been attempting the road yesterday, there quite possibly would have been a lot of pushing involved.
When we rejoined the tarmac with about 10km to go, having endured some pretty tough diversions, we gave a little sigh of relief. Which didn't last too long with me when I promptly sunk in mud that had been left in the road junction by the previous day's rains! Meanwhile the speedier, more agile and lighter Debs sailed through. The climbing and rough surface had taken it out of us. Suffering from chafed buttocks from riding with wet cycle shorts and damp saddles yesterday hadn't made the trip any more comfortable either.
A little later than we had expected, but still pretty early, we arrived outside the George hotel, that contains within its grounds Zululand backpackers. As we weren't looking forward to putting up our wet tent, it was very nice that we were offered a room at the same rate as camping.
Once we were settled in and our tent had been hung out to dry we went off to the bar to try a pint of local beer. The hotel has its own microbrewery, or at least it did; unbeknownst to us it is currently closed down as they can no longer meet the demand for their 'Zulu blonde' lager. Instead the beer recipe has been licensed to a larger brewery. The popularity for this beer is largely down to the fact that 'Zulu blonde' was voted best beer at the JD Wetherspoons real ale festival in 2010. No mean feat for a tiny South African brewery. The beer is very nice, by far the best I have had in South Africa, a little too nice in fact as I partook of quite a few during the evening.
The niceness of the beer and comfort of the bar meant that cooking dinner got forgotten, so we ate dinner at the local KFC watched on by the locals. KFC seems to be almost exclusively the preserve of black South Africans. Most of the looks were probably because we managed to demolish a whole family feast between us!
Returning to our room I retrieved our now dry shoes from outside and had a bit of a shock when I discovered a dwarf chameleon had taken up residence on one of my sandals! Getting him off proved challenging, but after a little coaxing, I gently placed him onto a nearby tree. We knew that there were chameleons in the area, but we never expected to see one so close.
Tomorrow we will be working off the beer and chicken by having a walk through the forest canopy on the town's aerial board-walk.
No comments:
Post a Comment