Day 414 South Africa 21/12/2011, Buccaneers – Buffalo Backpackers, East London. 22.82miles/37.11km, 2hr51minutes, Av 7.9mph.

Having said a slightly sad farewell this morning to all of the great people we have met, we set off up the dirt road. The temperature and humidity were through the roof this morning, not a good day to be tackling what turned out to be a very hilly route.

Things certainly improved after the first 2km when we got to the tarmac, but it was certainly a struggle in the heat. Often the shorter days turn out to be more difficult than the longer ones. It is very easy to dismiss them as an easy ride and to be honest we weren't really prepared for the day ahead.

While stopped at a small supermarket, we met a guy who had been camped beside us at Buccaneers. He offered us a lift most of the way to East London, which was nice of him, but we politely refused. By that point we were halfway there, plus there was no point in arriving too early.

Hills aside, the remainder of the journey was pretty uneventful. The road we had been on was quite narrow which made riding in the traffic a little unnerving. More so for Debs, when she was forced to head for the verge when a van came past and gave her no space at all. The same driver then beeped his horn and waved at me, you have to wonder what is going through some people's heads!

At a little after midday we arrived outside Buffalo backpackers and got checked in. Debs then tried to phone the people who would be looking after our bikes while we are away for Christmas. Having tried unsuccessfully, we headed out for lunch to a nearby pub and sports bar. The food was very good and of a suitably cyclist sized portion. By the time we had eaten it all and washed it down with a couple of beers it was all we could do to make it back to the hostel for a rest. Luckily Debs had managed to get through to Serene who would be looking after our gear and she had kindly offered to come and pick it all up. Neither of us really fancied heading out again today anyway.

Rather than hanging around the hostel all evening, we had arranged to join Christine and Jesse at a nearby art gallery. Dragging ourselves out we were picked up at about 7pm and proceeded to have a fantastically peculiar evening. Christine and the wonderfully bonkers Jesse are great.

It is not every evening that you get to make and wear an ivy crown; read the part of Puck in a scene from 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'; play with sparklers; thankfully not burn the tree down that Chinese lantern crashed into; listen to some poetry; drink plenty of free wine and watch a grown man do a fairy dance!

Occasionally life takes a brilliant yet surreal turn!

Day 409 - 413 South Africa 16/12/2011 – 20/12/2011, Buccaneers, Chintsa West. A nice place with some great people and a lot of laughs.

Sometimes you end up in a place where you can just relax and have a really good time. For us Buccaneers has been just such a place. We have joined in with as many of the free activities that we could and I have even become respectable at volleyball. There have been no more prizes of free dinner though. Having said that we have been more than willing to help drink the free wine.

Of the people we have met, special mention has to go to John and his son Alex who we joined for a lovely meal at a a nearby restaurant. They have been very good company even if playing table tennis against Alex proved that it is not just volleyball that I am poor at!

We also have to say a big thank you to the staff and especially to Lucy who has organised most of the activities. Being South African holiday season means that there have been less backpackers and more families staying. Getting participants for the activities has been a bit of a struggle, as it seems that most South Africans just do their own thing while they are here. I think the staff have quite enjoyed having us around, especially as they think we are mad to have cycled here!

Talking of mad, to the sound of much hilarity from the staff I signed us up for a three hour mountain bike tour. The first part involved meeting the completely bonkers, 92 year old, Mama Tofo. The lovely local woman explained to us about Xhosa culture and showed us around her home. We may have only understood about half of what she said, but it was both interesting and hilarious at the same time.

The mountain bike part of the tour turned out to be a bit of a disaster. The main problem was that the bikes were rubbish. Mine was stuck in about 20^th gear, Debs chain continually slipped and our guide had forgotten his tools so our seats were at the wrong height. Better still when one of the group got a puncture, I had to take the wheel from the guide as he was trying to put the badly repaired inner tube back in with a pair of scissors! These were the same scissors that earlier he had attempted to undo the hex bolts that held my seat in place with. He was obviously unsuccessful!

We all managed to lose the guide as he showed no real desire to keep up, and had to find our own way back to camp. Arriving back at the camp we left the bikes and eventually our guide turned up, having got a lift from the transfer guy who had taken us out to the village. He claimed that he had a puncture and had told one of our group to go on without him; which is a lie as there were only five of us and no one had seen spoken to him since the ill-fated puncture repair moment. It looks like in typical African fashion he just didn't want to go to the effort of actually riding. Despite all the disasters, we actually had a pretty good time. Even though the bikes we were on were rubbish, it still reminded me how nice it is to ride an unladen bike. The stupid thing is that we could probably have taken our own bikes with us.

Sleeping in a tent, normally ensures an early start to the day, so we haven't spent too much time in the bar during the evenings. As this is our last night and we don't have too far to go tomorrow, we will have to make a bit of an effort. Before that though we are heading into the village across the way to meet up with Christine and Jesse who we met in Graskop. They had offered their lawn to camp in, but we have become pretty settled here. It will be very nice to catch up with them though.

Our afternoon meet up over a few drinks, set us up well for the rest of the day. There was no volleyball, which was probably a good thing as I pretty much ache all over. Instead we were roped into helping Lucy decorate the bar with Christmas decorations; the payment being more free wine!

Our planned big last night never really came off, as everyone in the bar was treated to probably the two most awful alternative folk singers that we have ever encountered. Considering that they have struggled to get people to come to the bar, booking the spectacularly dreary duo to play can only be described as a mistake. Clearly some people must have enjoyed their music, but from the expressions on most of the people we have met over the last few days, it wasn't very many!

Back on the road tomorrow for the short ride to East London.

Day 408 South Africa 15/12/2011, Mthatha – Buccaneers backpackers, Chintsa. 27.26miles/43.79km, 2hr15minutes, Av 12mph.

Up at 5am this morning, which is fine as thanks to the noisy workers staying in the next tent we wouldn't have been able to stay asleep anyway. Shortly after 6am we loaded the bikes onto Angus' car roof rack and set off towards Butterworth. We were immediately thankful that we had taken a lift when we were greeted by a thick mist obscuring the road and surrounding hills. The main roads are fun enough as it is, without the added risk of being barely visible!

Despite being for the main part very rural, we don't feel that we have missed much by not riding this section. The landscape was certainly not as dramatic as we had been cycling through for the last few days. Passing Nelson Mandela's house was a bit of a highlight. We had obviously planned on stopping on the way through to ask if we could camp in his 'Ground Force' prepared garden, had we have been cycling. Having seen the fence and security outpost, it would be fair to say that the answer would have been no!

Passing Butterworth, we stopped for a coffee at the bottom of the Kei Cuttings. The cuttings were originally a border post separating the Transkei into its original two districts. Now it is a good place to stop for a coffee, especially if you are cycling. The steep nature of the cuttings makes it a good place to fortify yourself for the climb out. Obviously we didn't have to worry about that, as we were dropped just the other side. At a little after 8am we said a very grateful thank you to Angus and pedalled on our way towards Chintsa West and our home for a few days, Buccaneers backpackers.

Thankfully by now, the mist had lifted and we had a pretty easy 40km ride to our destination. The steep, rocky, dirt road down to the reception was a little unexpected and is going to be fun on the way out. Fortunately that isn't for a few days though!

Having checked in, we headed down to the camp-site and found ourselves a shady spot under some trees. Once we were settled in, we headed to the pool restaurant and had lunch and then sat down to wait for the advertised treasure hunt to start.

It wasn't so much the treasure hunt that had attracted us, as the promise of free wine! On top of the beers that we had had during lunch it looked to be a fairly drunken afternoon. Showing our true competitive natures, we are pleased to say that we won the treasure hunt, by quite some margin. In truth we didn't have a huge amount of competition, but you can only beat what is in front of you. We certainly attacked the challenge with plenty of enthusiasm, especially in the case of our team leader, the very excitable Debs. Better still the prize was a free dinner in the restaurant, which was great as we currently have no supplies with us at all.

The treasure hunt was followed by volleyball at which I have to confess to being pretty terrible. The wine and beer was probably why I seemed to spend a large amount of the match on the floor with the ball bouncing unreturned beside me.

The Mexican dinner in the restaurant turned out to be pretty good, but for two people who had been up at 5am and then had a rather full afternoon, it proved to be the last act of the day. To say that we have enjoyed our first day at Buccaneers is something of an understatement.