Boiled brains will make you stupid and blind!

I wake up in my tent with somebody shaking me, telling me to wake up and get out of my tent, I’m half asleep and very drowsy so it takes me a while to get out, too long and I make the person outside angry because I’m taking so long. Eventually I climb out of my tent and in an instant the world goes very dark. I wake again realising it was just a silly dream and that there is no angry farmer outside my tent. Silly really what an over active imagination and a little fear will do to you. But with every night I camp wild I sleep a little deeper and get awoken by strange noises less. One day I’ll get used to it:)

Earlier the same day: After a couple of great days hanging around Prince Albert with Johann from the Freedom challenge team , after using his Aladdin’s cave like workshop, drinking all his beer and using up all his internet time it was time to hit the road again (Thanks for your great hospitality Johann).

I spent the rest of the day cycling on small farm roads that Johann had sent me on, but I guess he hasn’t tried these roads with 30+kg of baggage, that soft sand was a killer. As usual I was too lazy to fill my water bottles up on time at the easy water windmills so ended up with too little water and had to fill up at this thing:

Boiled brains will make you go blind and stupid:

So hot thirsty Shane(30+degrees all day), water supply meet water filter. But the stupid filter didn’t work, it looked like the check valve was leaking, so I took water anyway and planned to boil it if I couldn’t get the filter sorted by torchlight in my tent an hour later. So thinking I was clever I used seam sealer to glue the check valve in place (and my fingers). And went to sleep (and had the dream). At 5am I woke up with first light feeling rested, and my first thought was, the spring behind the check valve means its an overpressure relief dumb ass, which means the filter is just blocked…..Doh Cleaned filter then everything was fine. Too much sun means boiled brains cell.

Facebook and twitter followers will have already read the second “Boiled brains will make you go blind” Incident where my tent pegs where missing for a day, and of course the next morning I woke up fresh/rested and new exactly where I’d hidden them from myself. This all just goes to show that 160km off road in 2 days in summer really isn’t good for the grey stuff up stairs and I should start taking more breaks and drinking more water before I do something really stupid.

A days sitting in the shade, and eating some fresh vegetables in the one horse town of Willowmore did me wonders, the town was throbbing Friday night because it was pay day, Saturday night it once again returned to a ghost town. Willowmore is one of those frontier towns, the high street only 400m long but has 3 supermarkets, hardware stores and about 10 beer shops.

Apart from all that I’ve hit the magic 3 week point, threw out some junk and I’m gradually finding my routine, if I’m looking for something (apart from tent pegs) its usually in the first or second bag I look in and not the last, packing in the morning gets quicker each day and my legs are slowing being forged into steel:).

Tour cycling in the Baviaanskloof:

Many South African cyclists have tipped me that the “Baviaanskloof” (Baboons gorge) is a must see of this trip. I’d read on the internet during my research months ago that cyclists sometimes are not allowed in, so took a chance and cycled the 100km from Willowmore into the gorge to find out.

I was quite disappointed when I arrived at the reserve gate to be told that Buffalo and Rhino where on the roads so cycling was impossible, I would have to turn back (why don’t they post a sign 80km back?). While waiting and hoping for a lift through the gorge I spotted an email hanging on the wall about cyclist policy. The nuts and bolts of it are 1. you need to be pre-booked with written permission, 2. a group of 6 or more cyclists who stay together, 3. have a support vehicle that stays in sight of the cyclists all the time.

So I was screwed basically. Luckily after only 3 hours waiting some people came who had room to take me through the reserve in their 4×4. Luckily I have S+S couplers in my frame so I was able to break my bike down into 2 small bundles within 5 minutes so it fit into the car with my luggage and theirs otherwise I may have remained stuck and had to take a 300km detour. The gorge was beautiful, but I couldn’t help thinking it would be alot better from a bike instead of inside a car.

And the Rhino and Buffalo in the road? didn’t see a single one, I guess they where off playing with the pink elephants or something. This seems to me to be “cover your arse” politics more than a real risk, because a car would have to stop and wait hours too if a buffalo was blocking the road….

Decision time:

I’m now in the rather smelly and noisey Port Elizabeth (bright lights ooh aah and all that), with only 2 months left on my visa I have to either get an extension here (which mean hanging around here for a few days) or plan to rent a car/bus to bridge the 1000km that my time budget prevents me from doing (if I want to do a couple of weeks hiking too).

Still have no idea what I want to do, don’t really want to hire a car or get a bus, but don’t really want to hang around here for a few days either…..

Maybe a nice fatty Macdonalds breakfast will help decide:). This is the first time I’ve seen golden arches since Cape Town so I don’t mind cholesterol boost.

Update: After a 2 hour wait in the queue at home affairs, I was asked to produce a return ticket or 600 euro deposit (returnable in my own country) for a visa extension plus another R425 for the extension itself. So as this option has slammed shut in my face lets see what other options come onto my path in the coming weeks. Strange that they don’ t want tourists spending more money and just want them to leave after 3 months…

Because I didn’t do a blog update last week, here’s the photos from my days hiking and cycling “the Zwarteberg”.