Day 14 - I am free (wheeling) again

Gerrit left Joburg at 3pm and arrived at our support station at 1:30am on Sunday morning. I hadn't slept much until he arrived but once he was there I slept like a baby.

Kevin and Stephen also arrived after 11pm so we were all slow to get going and only had breakfast after 7am. I also had a lot of catching up to do with Gerrit so we sat drinking coffee for ages.

Then the moment of truth...was everything I needed in Gerrit's bag of tricks? I headed off to the workshop armed with spares, tools and bike. 30 minutes later, everything was reassembled and working as new. All the additional spares I loaded into my backpack so I have extra chains and gears if needed.

I am still overwhelmed by Gerrit's actions and I will need to find some way of returning the favour someday - Gerrit says, "pay it forward".

Eventually we said our goodbyes and left for the next stop. The route was through a valley of desolation with nasty thorn trees and difficult riding. After that, it was into real game farm country - high fences and lots of wildlife to see. At one stage I stopped to let 6 kudu cross the road in front of me.

The weather was real Cape weather - sometimes drizzling, sometimes raining, sometimes sunny and sometimes chilly. It just can't stick to one thing which makes clothing a problem.

I arrived at 5pm to find Andy and Earl here - they made a navigation mistake and lost touch with the big group so they took a shorter day and we will all travel together from here. Stephen and Kevin haven't arrived yet so it's another long day out for them.