Day 383 South Africa 20/11/2011, Empangeni – Zululand backpackers, Eshowe. 36.36miles/58.54km, 4hr44minutes, Av 7.6mph.

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.

Day 382 South Africa 19/11/2011, St Lucia – Panorama guest-house, Empangeni. 56miles/91.20km, 5hr20minutes, Av 10.5mph.

The rain that started last night certainly cooled the temperature down, unfortunately the rain didn't stop. In fact it was still so heavy at 5:30am when we woke that we were uncertain whether we would actually be moving on. By 7am it had eased enough that we could put the tent down.

While dropping the tent, a mystery was solved. The day before, we had lost a bag of malaria tablets and were unable to find them anywhere. It seems that one of the towns monkeys must have grabbed the bag from the tent thinking that they were good to eat. Having discovered otherwise, somehow they got shoved back under the tent. We hope that no ill effects have come to the monkey, although it looks like it realised that they were inedible pretty quickly. With the tent packed away and our bikes loaded we were pleased to see that the rain had pretty much stopped. By 7:30am we were good to go.

For the next hour it was going pretty well and we arrived back in Mtubatuba in good time. We bought some snacks at the local supermarket and then set off to join the main road. Having checked the right way to go with four locals, we ended up doing a 6km detour down completely the wrong road! We have now finally learned that there is absolutely no point in asking a black South African directions. They either don't know but still guess, or are just completely clueless. The most annoying thing about the detour was that Debs was fairly certain that the road we needed was the one right beside the supermarket.

When we got back to the road we were supposed to be on, we set off at a decent pace. The weather however was determined to make our day on the road as awful as possible. The morning's rains returned with a vengeance and we were soon thoroughly drenched.

At one point the rain got so heavy that it was unsafe to continue. Despite having a flashing rear light, the spray was so heavy that we were concerned about being hit by a speeding vehicle driving in the hard shoulder. Fortunately the rain eased again and we carried on towards Empangeni.

We may have had to endure rain and soggy clothing, but somehow we managed to keep in good spirits all day. Shortly after 2pm we arrived at the Panorama guest-house, which is of course up a steep hill, and got checked into a nice room. Our lovely host has let us use her tumble drier, so we will have some dry clothing to wear tomorrow. Our shoes however may be a different story.

While Debs was resting, I headed back into town to get some dinner and food for breakfast tomorrow. The continuing rain means that we will be holing ourselves up in front of the TV for the rest of the day.

Udo, who left St Lucia much later than us, arrived shortly after 5:30pm having ridden hard all the way here. It will be good to have a beer with him tonight, before we head our separate ways tomorrow morning.

We have a shorter day to the Zulu town of Eshowe ahead of us. What it loses in distance it makes up for in altitude and we have a day of climbing. We will be hoping that the rain has stopped by the morning, not least because we should be camping again tomorrow night.