All the Karoo passes, part two

Amidst the mountains en route to Port Elizabeth, I'm going to encounter a myriad of fascinating creatures, some slightly scary. There are also some that I will try hard not to meet.

Views continue to be amazing all the way though.

Trip map created with Wanderlog, a trip planner on iOS and Android

To the coast. Twice.

Starting this part of the trip on the northern side of the mountains, on the very first day I'm jumping over the pass and going south. It's mostly down, but today's ride down is going to be anything but easy. It's going to rain and the wind is so strong, that going downhill I'm pushing hard in the low gear and barely moving at all. 

What's at the end of it? Mordor? Nope. It's Shire. Listen to the squeak.

Hobbit house is a good prize for the struggle. 

My Hobbit house is inhabited though. It comes with this little friend. I'll have to politely ask him to leave the house for me for this night, just this one night please.

New day, new friends? 

In my previous post about South Africa I complained about the fences. This is an exception. I'm very, very happy to have a fence between me and them.

There's something I've just learned. Road closed doesn't really mean that's it's closed. It only means that there will be no cars there and that it has been transformed into a bicycle-only road. Pure pleasure.

My closed road leads along what's called seven passes road between George and Knysna, not too far from the coast. As the name suggests I shouldn't expect flat surface. 

Coming to Knysna on the coast I'm reminded that Christmas is just behind the corner. 

In order to hit the coast twice as promised I need to go back north again. I'll be going to the Prince Alfred Pass. 

Hot beer, lousy food, bad service, rubbish marketing. Angie's G Spot is a kind of legendary place here. 

Refreshed by the lousy food I'm on the road again. 

By the end of the day I reach Uniondale, a town famous for its... ghost, that according to the legend hitchhikes somewhere on the road here. 

This is how you encourage cyclists to visit your cafe, especially if they don't intend to do any kissing. 

Entering Baviaanskloof, a reserve which has a kind of a special status amongst locals, but is not very well known by foreign tourists

There's one small difficulty in the Baviaans though - water bufallo and rhino have been recently introduced to the reserve and park rangers are not very keen to allow cyclists. Not that I'm very excited about testing if rhino runs faster than I cycle. Trying to devise an action plan with the owner of the accommodation where I stay just before crossing the gate proper. Visitors in my room are welcome as usual.

Ultimately he gives me a lift over the gate and 15km further to the end of the valley, a place where the likelihood of meeting rhino or buffalo is very low. Views are so much worth it. 

Even without rhinoes chasing me the route is not without challenges. I alrealy gave up the thought of dry shoes long time ago.

There's some climbing in Baviaans too. Maybe it's not too long, but steep and rough. There's couple of cars overtaking me here, cheering and wishing me luck. 

They would wait for me on the top to offer me a can of ice-cold coke. I'm also being given THE energy bar, apparently the first, original energy bar ever produced - they are working for the company that produces them.

Coke + energy bar and some hours later I'm back to the coast again. I'm in Jeffreys Bay where I'll take some time to decompress.

From now on my plans change slightly. Originally I was thinking of jumping from Port Elizabeth to Maseru in Lesotho to cycle there for some time, but the weather spooked me. I kept following the weather there and it was raining pretty much every single day for last two weeks. The forecast was not any better, so I'm dropping the idea. Instead I'll retrace part of my way towards Cape Town, along the coast this time. 

Back to Cape Town

It's a now or never when it comes to trying how ostrich tastes. I don't think in became a big fan of ostrich meat.

My decompression continues on a farm close to Jeffreys Bay. Early in the morning I hear something behind my window. I open one eye and see these.

The farm is a good place to explore a little. This hole looks strange, let's see what's in there.

I think I'm being watched. I was standing there for a while . Mutual admiration.

A windmill - one of the most emblematic views of this part of South Africa. Historically they used to be employed for water pumping or irrigation and some of them are still in use today.

Remember the nests I saw during the first part of the trip? Here's a close up. The host and architect is called cape weaver.

Fully recovered, 100% recharged, itching to continue cycling. This is how I fell.

The road back along the coast is nicer than I thought, at least the beginning of it. It's still windy though, and magically after two weeks of consistent Eastern winds it blows from west now, in my face again. 

I'm taking my time now. Having arrived in Stormsriver, in the Tsitiskama National Park I decide to stay here for a couple of days and explore what the park has to offer.

Right in the middle of high season, it's little difficult to find an accommodation. That's how I end up in an apartment situated right above the pizzeria. With the smell of pizza coming from there all the time it's impossible to contain oneself. 

At least I can catch up on books - my pizzeria apartment has a terrace just perfect for reading. 

Actually, there's even more reasons to do some reading during the trip. In majority of places where I'm staying there's a planned daily blackout for a couple of hours.

There's so many things one can do when there's no electricity. Forest walks and a good alternative to reading. 

    

No, this is not the pizzeria. I was lucky to keep finding unusual accommodation, like a hut in the forest, one of my last nights on the trip.

An unusual accommodation and plenty of guests too. There's my last guest and I'll be ready to go back.

On my way to Mossel Bay, my last stop. From there I'm simply taking a bus to Cape Town. Ok, maybe "simply" is an understatement, because it took quite a bit of effort to organize this, but in the end it worked.

Somewhere between twenty and thirty passes since I started I'm happily back in Cape Town

As a bonus I have a chance to check what's the deal with rugby, when I realize that there's an important game just around the corner from where I'm staying. Ten minutes to read about the rules of the game and I'm ready to go.