Awake at 6am, packed by 7:15am and on the road. The dirt road that is! It may have been well maintained, but it is still a struggle to get along at any speed away from the tar. Especially when the road is very hilly and unfortunately for the first 20km terminally boring. Unless you have a thing for dairy farms that is, in which case it may have been your ideal ride! By the speed that the mountain bikers we encountered on the road were going, they weren't very enamoured by the scenery either. On the plus point there were no cars or trucks forcing us off the road and to be truly fair, the giant sand dunes were pretty spectacular.
The route improved as we turned inland and cycled through a forested area, which opened out onto rolling hills. By the time we reached the tarmac after two and a half hours, covered in dust and suffering in the heat, we would have to say that the scenery wasn't worth the effort.
As it turned out, we didn't put too much more effort into the day. Stopping at a shop to buy some snacks and a drink we were approached by a nice guy called Keith and his son Jared (sorry may be spelt wrong). Upon asking where we were going, he told us that it was very steep ahead and explained that he was heading to Port Elizabeth and would happily give us a lift. Having expended plenty of energy on the dirt road and with half the day gone and 60km still to do, we accepted his offer.
Taking a lift may not be cycling, but it is a good way to get to meet some interesting people. Which is after all what our journey has been about. We are not so cycle-minded that we are willing to put our heads down and blank out everything around us. Having said that, I don't want to turn the rest of the trip into Matt and Debs' tour of Africa, with the bikes stowed in the back of a pick-up!
It is always interesting to chat to different people, and Keith and Jared were good company. It was especially interesting to hear that Jared, having finished college, is off to Los Angeles to try his hand at becoming an actor. I have heard of stories of people doing this, but never actually encountered anyone who is going to try. All we can do is wish him the best of luck; he fortunately has a university place studying medicine if it doesn't work out.
Kindly Keith dropped us off outside the camp-site at Sunday's River and Debs went to check us in. For some reason she was told that we would be camping in their river mouth site some 3km down a dirt road. Arriving at the site, via a sandy hilly road we found ourselves stuck in the middle of nowhere, having passed what would have been a better spot close to the main gates. A phone call later and we were heading back up the sandy, hilly road to the site that we had previously passed.
Bizarrely we are now joining all the other tents on a gravel based hard standing, while all the caravans are on the grass. The management here seems a little haphazard at best. That said, all of the mainly Afrikaans fellow campers have been very friendly and our kindly neighbour seems to be trying to fatten us up with his sweet collection! We are also now very close to a small supermarket, which makes a change. Normally it is quite a mission to go and get supplies.
We have a few options tomorrow so we will see where we end up. All of them involve a ride on the highway though, so expect tales of eyes closed and fingers crossed manoeuvres through the busy traffic.
