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.

Day 380 & 381 South Africa 17/11/2011 - 18/11/2011, Budget Backpackers, St Lucia. Chiropractors, whale watching and a lovely walk.

Whale watching morning arrived and with it rain, cloudy skies and very high humidity. We had no idea whether this would effect the whales, after all they are already wet, but it didn't seem the best weather to be going in. By the time the vehicle picked us up the skies had cleared and it looked pretty good. Better still, the sea didn't look too bad.

Having been given some safety instructions, which basically amounted to hold on, we headed out through the surf and into open water. I would love to put a nicer slant on the next three hours, but to sadly it was one of the most underwhelming experiences I have ever had. Debs bless her couldn't cope with the waves and the seasick feelings stopped her from being able to see much. Not that there was much to see. We followed a female humpback and her calf for quite some time, but it's difficult to get excited about seeing a black back and fin occasionally rising from the water. We had viewed as much from the beach in Mozambique.

With the whales a bit of a bust and Debs feeling ill, it didn't look good. Fortunately there had been mention of dolphins and sea turtles, neither of which we saw. Instead we stopped for a while looking at a wreck and then headed back to shore. The best bit was getting off the boat and the worst bit had to be the parting with the money.

We were aware that it was late in the season, but the staff had assured us that there were still lots of whales. Perhaps we were just unlucky, but compared to the whale watching tour that I took in New Zealand, this was a pretty amateurish affair. Surely using echo sounders to find whales, as in New Zealand, is better than sailing round the sea randomly looking for an occasional water spout. We are now officially ocean-going boat retired! It took quite some time to cheer up a disappointed and queasy feeling Debs.

Back at the camp-site we encountered another cycle tourist. Udo is from Germany and is travelling round South Africa for six weeks. A combination of less time and a lighter loaded bike, means that he is moving at a considerably faster rate than we are. He has been good company during our stay and a few beers have been shared.

Aside from the whale watching, we have been on a walk round the town, taking in one of the shorter hiking trails along the way.

At many places along the river it is possible to get quite close to the resident hippos and crocodile, assuming of course that you are that brave/stupid. There have been tragically at least two fatalities around the area, most recently in December 2000. We saw several hippos and a couple of crocodiles from the safety of a raised board walk. There was also plenty of bird life living in the riverside reeds.

It was a very nice walk, but the high humidity drove us back to the hostel after a couple of hours.

Last night just before we went to bed the weather broke and the heavens opened. Hopefully this will mean that we have a cooler day to be cycling in tomorrow.

Day 379 South Africa 16/11/2011, Hluhluwe – Budget Backpackers, St Lucia. 43.48miles/69.80km, 3hr43minutes, Av 11.6mph.

The weather was pretty warm again this morning and we didn't set off quite as early as we had planned. Heading out into a thankfully wind-free day, we rode the 5km of dirt road until we reached the main highway and then happily rejoined the smooth tarmac.

Our intention was to locate a dirt road short-cut that would knock about 20km off our journey to St Lucia. We had been given all sorts of advice last night about where the road was and we had checked the internet to get the exact distance. All of this was to no avail, as somehow we missed it. We did see several tracks leading into the forest, but none of them looked overly promising.

Instead we carried on to the town of Mtubatuba, bought some lunch and then pressed on, sadly into a strong headwind, towards St Lucia.

Despite the less than ideal wind conditions and a hillier than expected road, we still arrived in the town at 12pm. Budget backpackers was easy to find and it has a large shady camp-site.

Having settled in we went to get some lunch and then had a brief walk round the town. Debs fortuitously found a chiropractor and after a quick session is on the way, to getting her back sorted. While Debs back was being manipulated, I went to see about going on a whale watching trip. I know that we had said no more boat trips after the ill-fated whale shark trip, but this is on a much bigger boat. This is probably our only chance to see humpback whales in South Africa, as by the time we get to the Cape the whales will have already gone. The trip is pretty expensive but there are supposedly still plenty of whales and the chance of seeing a humpback breach is too good to pass up. Fingers crossed that Debs survives the trip, as she is really keen to go!

Back at the hostel we got invited to join a large group of people for a braai. We had already got food for dinner, but it will keep until tomorrow. In the end we had to go and get some food from a nearby takeaway as no one seemed in any hurry to cook and with a cycling day behind us we were obviously hungry! The food didn't actually get cooked until well after Debs had gone to bed. By then I had had quite a lot of beer and was ready for bed. It was a shame it was so late as the food when it arrived was very good. It was still a good night though, just possibly not the best preparation for an early boat trip!

Day 378 South Africa 15/11/2011, Mkuze – Bushbaby Lodge, Hluhluwe. 39.39miles/63.30km, 3hr37minutes, Av 10.8mph.

It is always the way, you have a nice room and end up having a rubbish night's sleep. At least I did, apart from aching from her falls and the exertions of fighting the wind, Debs had a good night.

Waking to a fairly calm day raised my tired spirits, although Debs spotting that she had a puncture in her rear tyre dampened them a little. Instead of fixing it there and then, we went to breakfast and decided to sort it out later. Having had a good breakfast we returned to fix the puncture. By now I am pretty professional at it and we were soon loaded and on our way.

There isn't much to say about the road to Hluhluwe (sort of pronounced shu-shloue) except that it was pretty rolling and fairly uninteresting. Riding on the N2 highway means that traffic is our constant companion, which doesn't make for the most peaceful of rides. Fortunately we are generally given plenty of room although, as I have previously mentioned, it is quite common to drive in the hard shoulder here.

At around midday we turned off towards and then rode through Hluhluwe, stopping in the local Spar supermarket to get some lunch and a few supplies along the way. Leaving the town we had a 8km ride along a generally good dirt road to reach Bushbaby lodge.

The dirt road went without incident except when we had to negotiate our way round a huge lorry that had clearly got itself stuck. We have no idea if the truck was supposed to be on this road, knowing Africa the driver probably just felt like a change. It may well mean that he gets a change of jobs as well!

The bush baby lodge is very nice and we are the only ones in the camp-site, possibly the only ones staying. The pool was a little bit cold, but we still braved a dip. Later this evening we should get to see the owner feed the resident bush babies and there is always the possibility of a cold beer to round off the day. Tomorrow we should make it to St Lucia wetlands park where we plan to stop for a few nights.

The bush-baby feeding turned out to be a total highlight. We had been told that the feeding would start at 7pm and sure enough as the time arrived several incredibly sweet bush-babies arrived. We were able to feed them pieces of chopped banana that, the older one at least, delicately took out of our hands.

The other younger ones were a bit more eager, but were still very gentle. Photographs were difficult, as they are obviously nocturnal animals but we did our best.

It is not every day that you get to feed bush-babies!

Day 377 South Africa 14/11/2011, Pongola – Biweda Nguni lodge, Mkuze. 26.61miles/42.77km, 3hr11minutes, Av 8.3mph.

Our day started very early this morning when I spotted Nandi, the lodge's resident spotted eagle owl, sitting on our balcony. I was a bit undecided about waking Debs up as it was only 5am, but I figured she would be a bit upset if she missed seeing the owl.

After a bit more sleep we headed to the restaurant for breakfast and then after saying our thanks and farewells to Gavin, we hit the road.

Our day on the road started pretty well, despite being sunnier than we had expected it was still fairly cool. With a long day ahead of us, we certainly didn't want the same temperatures we had encountered when we returned to South Africa.

Having checked our route, we knew we had a one fairly long climb and then the road should be at worse rolling. Riding along in the wide hard shoulder we found that we were not alone; early on at least, we had to share it with dung beetles, lizards, millipedes and at one point a leopard tortoise.

It was all going so well and then the wind strengthened. As we neared the town of Mkuze, having been fighting the wind for the last 2 hours, we began to realise that we were unlikely to make it to our intended destination. During some of the stronger gusts of wind we had almost been brought to a halt.

Turning off to the town, we stopped at a tourist office to find out if there was anywhere reasonably priced to stay nearby. We couldn't describe the staff member as informed, or even attentive, but we did get some vague directions. Arriving outside Biweda Nguni lodge it looked fairly promising and with no sign of the wind abating we weren't exactly filled with options. On the plus point the room is enormous and the lodge/B&B is very nice. For some reason however South African guest-houses charge ludicrous prices. Rooms seem to run at a very similar price to what you would pay for a decent hotel in central London. We have always accepted that occasionally we may have no choice, but at this rate our funds are not going to last the distance. Thankfully it looks like from now onwards we should be able to find camp-sites, cheap backpackers and even better we have several offers of accommodation.

Needing to get some food from the town, we got a lift in with the woman who is running the B&B. Just outside the local supermarket we encountered not one, not two, but four cyclists from England! They were on their way to Swaziland and had the benefit of the terrific tail wind. Once again we were reminded what a small world it is, when it turned out that they had all been students at the UEA (University of East Anglia). We gave them as much information about the road ahead that we could, but they are on a very tight schedule so are going to have to miss most of the sights. It is quite sad how unrealistic a timetable people give themselves sometimes. Although in their case it seems that they have just miscalculated. Wishing them well on their trip, we headed into the supermarket to get some lunch.

Back at the room and we have just holed ourselves up in front of the television. With any luck the wind will have died down a bit tomorrow. We have a shorter day ahead of ourselves now, thanks to our enforced early stop. So even if the wind doesn't drop we should be fine.