Day 405 South Africa 12/12/2011, Flagstaff – Jungle Monkey, Port St Johns. 51.87miles/84.18km, 5hr44minutes, Av 9.0mph.

The water came on, we were in the right room, the price was as quoted and eventually a very drunk staff member came to the room so that we could pay and get checked in. All in all it was a very strange experience, which we are happy to say ended with us having a restful night's sleep.

Leaving the hotel, it was onto the road and back into the hills. Thankfully there was a little more cloud cover than yesterday, so the temperature wasn't too bad. In theory today should have been an easier day. We left Flagstaff at a little over 1000m above sea level and were heading over the next 80km to Port St Johns which is at sea level. It doesn't take much thought to realise that we should have been going downhill. Why then did we seem to be climbing for three quarters of the day?!

The hills continued relentlessly as we headed towards Lusikisiki. Seeing a petrol station we decided to stop and have a cold drink. While we were parking our bikes a young Indian guy, who may have been the owner, came over for a chat. He asked us if we were alright and enjoying cycling through the area. We told him that we had only encountered friendly people and so far everything had been fine.

He then went on to tell us that another cyclist had stopped there a week or so ago, who had had to fight off a local from trying to steal his bike, when he had stopped to shelter from the rain. Enquiring further, it seems that the cyclist must have been Udo from Germany, who we had met in St Lucia. Having had such a good time so far, it is a bit of a cautionary tale and reminder that we still need to be on our guard. We hope that Udo is alright, from what the guy said he had obviously managed to fight off his assailants. As a nice parting gesture, the guy gave us a chocolate bar each saying that he knew we needed to keep our energy levels up.

Perhaps the Indian guy's comments were playing on our minds, but as travelling through Lusikisiki the people didn't seem as friendly as they had earlier. Shortly after we stopped for lunch on a hillside, a pick-up pulled up and two guys introduced themselves as off duty police detectives. They told us that this was a very high robbery area and we should move on as quickly as possible, preferably not stopping until Port St Johns a further 30km away. To illustrate the point, they went on to tell us that a shopkeeper had been recently gunned down in a robbery around the corner from where we were stopped. Explaining that we had to eat fell a bit on deaf ears, and they weren't happy until we started to pack away our stuff. Shoving bananas and whatever we could we could into our mouths, we set off again; it hadn't been an ideal lunch!

Having cycled up and then down several more hills, we approached what looked like the steepest yet. While we were mentally preparing ourselves for the climb I heard a hiss coming from my front tyre. What luck, three punctures in three days and once again the glass littered roadside was to blame!

Having been warned about the area, we really didn't need to be stopped on the side of the road fixing a puncture. Fortunately I have become well practised over the last few days and we were soon back on the road. The best thing I can say about the hill was that at least it didn't mess about. It just got on with going up and as quickly as possible. By now we were nursing pretty tired limbs but slowly and surely we got to the top, only to be greeted by another a few kilometres further along. Thankfully it was the last up of any length and we were soon heading down rapidly to Port St Johns, which to be honest looks like a dump! It is however pretty dramatically set, surrounded by steep cliffs, jungle and the sea.

To be expected, Jungle Monkey backpackers is up a hill; their camp-site is fortunately, unlike some others, not on a slope. Having got our tent pitched, we sat down to a well earned beer and the bar is where I pretty much stayed. Any further exploration of the area will have to wait. If it hadn't been for meeting Debbie and her partner, from a nearby dive school, we would have been having a very early night. As it was we both drank rather more than we planned and hit the sack a lot later than was probably wise.

Tomorrow we have to try and arrange a transfer out of here, we would really rather not cycle the 90km up, up being the operative word, to the main road.