Springbok – Vioolsdrif
75 Miles
Steph:
Oh man, today was weird. It rained last
night and was freezing. My sleeping bag rocks. Especially now that I've
figured out how to use the hood. When I woke up, the last thing I
wanted to do was get up and ride 75 miles. But we did. To the awe and
surprise of our neighbors. They thought we were nuts. It started
raining enough for us to get our ponchos, which are not fun on a
bike, btw. The first 1.5hrs we were pedalling as fast as we could to
out run the rain and cold. For the most part we succeeded. A little
later, we had a surprise. A 12 mile downhill (so much better than 9 mile
hill in Scottsdale) into some very strange landscapes (avg speed there was 25mph). The vegetation
disappeared and we were in MORDOR. There were mountains in the
distance but they looked like they had sunk into the ground. When we
finally arrived at the base of the mountains we continued going
downhill. It was so weird. Just crumbling rocks. No plants.
I had been singing The Sound of Music songs all day, but I had to stop at this point. It was almost creepy.
It really was like Mount Doom. That makes me sound like a huge nerd, but there is literally no other way to describe it. Frodo and Sam's last stretch, when they're literally crawling up the mountain hiding from the eye? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
I had been singing The Sound of Music songs all day, but I had to stop at this point. It was almost creepy.
It really was like Mount Doom. That makes me sound like a huge nerd, but there is literally no other way to describe it. Frodo and Sam's last stretch, when they're literally crawling up the mountain hiding from the eye? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
We spent the night at the only hotel by
the border. It cost us a pretty penny, but we figured it was our last
hoorah in SA.
We could look across the orange river right into Namibia.
Erik:
When we came down into the canyon just before the river, the wind really picked up. My bike has a larger profile, so the wind affects me a bit more. So we would round a bend, all going down hill, and I would just stop. Steph goes sailing down the hill tra-la-la-la-la all the way and I would pedal my butt off just to go DOWN a hill. It was only a few km though, so it was all good. I dont know what was harder, a head wind or a side wind. But we made it to Vioolsdrif Mordor. Then we tried to make pasta in a microwave and technology won. Worst pasta ever. It was very sad.
We could look across the orange river right into Namibia.
Erik:
When we came down into the canyon just before the river, the wind really picked up. My bike has a larger profile, so the wind affects me a bit more. So we would round a bend, all going down hill, and I would just stop. Steph goes sailing down the hill tra-la-la-la-la all the way and I would pedal my butt off just to go DOWN a hill. It was only a few km though, so it was all good. I dont know what was harder, a head wind or a side wind. But we made it to Vioolsdrif Mordor. Then we tried to make pasta in a microwave and technology won. Worst pasta ever. It was very sad.
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| Our awesome descent. Look how the road sinks into the mountains. |
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