Tour d' Afrique - Cycling Cairo to Cape Town

I have sent some time Namibia before, but had forgotten how beautiful it is.  Most of our journey through Namibia has been on secondary dirt roads.  The roads have been quiet and we have gone for miles without seeing cars.  The dirt roads have been a really good quality so we have been able to move fairly fast on them and have done some good times over long distances.  The days have been tough though.  We have been covering distances of up to 174km which is huge on dirt even if the quality of the roads are good.  The rain continued for two more days after Windhoek, and we had the most awesome day from Weissnenfels camp to Solitaire.  We went over a pass in the rain with the thunderstorm building and spectacular lightening all around.  The sky was so amazing – orange, red, purple and pink. The downhill of the pass was so steep you had to sit on your brakes or get off your bike.  Fortunately no serious incidents in the dangerous conditions.

The quiet roads also allowed for the naked mile to take place which has become a TDA institution.  A group of ladies had a puncture, and there are some very interesting photos of them changing tubes.  I think I will refrain from putting them on the blog.

Riders morale is great as we spend our last off day on the Orange River and cross into South Africa tomorrow. I can sense that everyone is making an effort to mingle with everyone, and saw riders who have had lots of conflict and arguments along the tour standing with their arms around each other.

Quite a few relationships have formed, and now decisions need to be taken as to where they go from here. I know I will miss them all a lot and don’t look forward to the next few weeks as we say goodbye and try to adjust to normal life again.

This will be my last blog post before we arrive in Cape Town, and I will do a final wrap up after our arrival.  If anyone reading this is in the Cape Town area, we will be arriving at the Waterfront between 1pm and 2pm on Saturday 15 May.  Do come and welcome us in – we are all so excited to get there.

My bike, tent, sleeping bag and other accessories are still all performing well after really putting them through their paces over the past 4 months, and I again want to say a big thanks to Omnico for the GT avalance bike and Tess at Circle cycles.  Also to Cape Union Mart for their great gear.

See you soon in Cape Town!! I can’t believe we are nearly there.