It was with great excitement that me (JD Van der Berg) and my two fellow travelers, Lodewyk de Wet and Stefan Mostert left from Cape Town this morning to start our Circling the South tour after months of planning.
Our aim is to cycle round Southern Africa, starting in Cape Town and then north towards Namibia and from there through Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland from where we plan to enter South Africa again and follow the coast all the way back to Cape Town.
It was past 7 this morning when we finally got going after greeting all our friends and family who came to see us off. We left from the lighthouse at Mouille Point and finally we were off. As we cycled along the beach front towards the Waterfront there were loads of pretty girls jogging and taking in the fresh morning air. When we passed them Lodie tried to wheelie his bike but it was too heavy. Stefan did not even notice a thing and I just remained calm. We cycled out of Cape Town towards Blouberg and from there on to the R27 towards Yzerfontein. The trip to Yzerfontein turned out to be a long and tough one. Despite months of planning today was actually the first day we cycled with our full loads on our bikes. Needless to say it was a bit of an adjustment, since each of us carries roughly 30 kg of baggage on our bikes.
The heavy baggage combined with the sweltering heat made our first day one we will not soon forget. After about 75 km we finally got to a road stall where we could get something cold to drink and relax for a while. It was about noon when we got there, at that stage we measured a temperature of 38 celcuis in the shade! From there we headed to Yzerfontein and made our way into town just after 3 PM, by that stage we were staggering rather than swaggering into town. The total distance we covered was 91 km.
We were hosted by Pierre Malan and Marlene Basson where we were treated to calamari on arrival and lovely snoek for dinner. It seems that the hospitality of the West Coast one hears about so often does truly exist. What a day!
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