Freedom Challenge-pt II

Day 2+3: Allendale-Ntsikeni-Masakala
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At 4am we were gently woken by Xavier Rudd singing from my phone:

John and I were fairly slick and on the road within 40 minutes or so, John B was still sleeping, so we let him rest, I didn’t see him again until he came out to meet me at the finish line.

“The footpath swings around the spur heading west as it climbs up to the ridgeline where it meets a fence with a gate. At the fence line stop. Look to your right as the fence line runs northwestwards along the ridge. You will be following this fence line for some distance……….Go through the gate and keep the fence on your left, the track drops gradually down into the valley.”

Reading this at home it didn’t make sense, and didn’t really match up with the map, I hoped in real life it would make more sense. The exit from Allendale is notoriously difficult in the dark, many riders have wasted an hour or two for the first 2km.  Without too much faffing around John had got us to the main footpath that contours around the spur, much to my relief  as I was pretty disorientated up to that point.

We found a small gate bang on the 2km mark. I couldn’t see the fence mentioned in the narrative and John was already heading left uphill. This didn’t make sense. I was pretty sure we were supposed to go through the gate. John said he didn’t recognise this part and remembered going uphill last time. This had the potential to be the first conflict in our new relationship. I was 90% sure I was right, but John had already saved my bacon so much in the last 24 hours I thought I’d let it go. I thought ” Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy”. An important question in any relationship.

We pushed on uphill for 10-15 minutes. By which time I really was convinced we were heading the wrong way and insisted on a nav conference. Left below us was the farm we’d left almost an hour ago and we were heading SE. John conceded, appologised and swore at himself several times. No harm done, we headed back down hill and passed through the gate, once through the gate we spotted the fence on the left we needed, it had been just out of range of my torch I guess, I’d been looking for it on my right.

The rest of the morning was fairly uneventful. I was well rested after my sleep and slightly faster than John. He insisted I ride my own pace so I did. Generally he was only 1-200m behind me so I stopped at each turn off for a second opinion, it made sense as the woods around Donnybrook are also notorious for nav errors. Had I been alone I would of screwed up at least one of the turn off. It had been a good choice to stick with John at Allendale.

We dropped into Centecow for an early lunch and were moving again within 20 minutes. The nav become a lot simpler for most of the afternoon.

John slowly dropped behind so I spent most of the afternoon riding alone. As I approach Ntsikeni Reserve I’d already been out of water for about an hour, I figured that with only about 5km to go I shouldn’t take the chance of filling up from a tap at the last village, last thing I needed so early in the FC was a stomach bug.

Much to the amusement of dot watchers I posted a photo on Twitter of what I thought was the mountain behind Ntsikeni lodge. This was the first in a series of mistakes that I must have made because I was so tired after another 100km/2500m day in weather too hot for an Englishman. Looking at the map again now it seems impossible that the next hours could of become such a farce…..Long live 20/20 hindsight.

Crossing the boundary fence into the reserve was more challenge than I’d ever considered when reading other blogs. Using jelly legs to climb those wobbly steps was quite worrying when carrying a bike in such high winds.

At some point the track went right when I was heading for what I thought was the saddle because I was trying to get to a non existent lodge behind the wrong mountain. What followed was an hour of bush wacking, backtracking, getting disorientated (sure the dot watchers loved it). By now I’d been out of water for close to three hours and was starting to feel the effects of dehydration, it was cooling down fast and almost dark. For the first time in a long time I felt fear and mild panic. I eventually decided to backtrack again and continue along the original route. 300m further up the track I found the saddle I should of been looking for instead of the one my stupid brain tried to convince me was right. I’d wasted more than an hour and lots of energy because of a stupid conviction that I was right and my map was wrong. The map is never wrong.

Soon after I descended into the correct valley I could see the lights of the lodge in the distance, such a relief to know I was almost there, it was now dark and getting cold. A little stumbling around in the dark later I only had 1km to go. My chain kept falling off my chain ring. Frustrating to say the least, I figured I could just push the last 1km to the lodge and fix it there.

“Wait……whats the point in waiting, it’ll be dark and cold there too, Don’t be stupid, fix it now.” With a little fiddling and inspecting I found out my chain ring was bent. Probably from one of the crashes in the dark during the previous 1km. Luckily I usually use steel chain rings when touring so I was able to bend it back with my Leatherman and continue without problems.

I arrived at 1815 to a warm fire and warmer welcome from Mr Ncobo and his family. John rolled in 20 minutes or so later. Again it was 5 star touring, a tough tough day, but good food and cold beer waiting at the end, and the nice ladies were kind enough to pluck the 1000’s of blackjack thorns out of clothes before washing them. Easy life.

During dinner John started with his signature phrase again. ” We need to box clever tomorrow morning.” I agreed, the exit from Ntsikeni has left many riders stumbling around in the dark in the past. As the wind picked up outside Mr Ncobo entertained us with his stories, and we interrogated him on how not to miss the turn off. 5.5km from the lodge.All’s well that ends well. I’d survived the toughest day of the Freedom Challenge. Only 22 toughest days to go……

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Alarm at 0515 and out the door at 6am, We’d decided to “box clever” by leaving later. This meant we would hit the turnoff at 5.5km at sunrise, reducing the chance of missing it. The killer headwind took its toll on John so I had to wait briefly for him at the turn off. We stuck together for another 20-30minutes or so during the tricky nav then I shot off once on the plateau. I wouldn’t see him again as he pulled out of the race later that day to head home due to his house/town getting burned down in the Knysna fires. John, it was a pleasure to ride and laugh with you and learn some well needed tricks from you. Good luck sorting your stuff out. 

I picked up the track at the forrest edge at the 10km point and started to relax and had a quick coffee break. The headwind was horrible but I was fairly confident the nav for the next section would be easy. I’d seen many people mess up the Polititque kraal section which didn’t make sense as it looked so simple on the map. Because of this I’d spent hours memorising the google earth images of the valley and studying the map, the narrative seemed long winded for something so simple, maybe thats what causes the problems. I dropped down to the kraal, turned left along the valley floor, small climb and descent then the tiger line across the scar then took a celebratory second breakfast and cup of coffee once I hit the main track. The descent down to the main road wasn’t as smooth as I’d expected but all told things were going well and the views were stunning.

A quick lunch at Glen Edwards then I was moving again, what should of been a quick section on district roads was an energy draining demoralising ride into a serious headwind. Around the 60km mark things got interesting again, once again trails, single track and trickier nav.