Yes I am, cycling to Cape Town

[lars de wit]

Hello hello hello,



What a country Namibia was, how great !
One of the first days in Nmibia I met a farmer on the road, we were chatting a bit and he asked me if I liked Namibia.
I said, wel sir, I am only 5 days here but I can tell you, it's high on my ' list ' , in my top 10 of countries !
He said, it should be nr 1 and I said, yeah well I'll see what I can do for you hahaha.
Now, 3 weeks later he maybe right.

Take sossusvlei, the oldest, driest desert with the highest dunes in the world, an amazing sight it is !

Or Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world, also very beautiful !

Just take every day riding on my bicycle in 36 + degrees with an amazing scenery, seeing many wildlife too like springbok, zebra's, oryx and even 14 giraffes !
It's just such a beatiful country, you worldcyclists, if you do not know your next destination, I have an idea

Crossing the Oranjerivier into south africa.
When I was in the drankwinkel the owner started to chat with me about cycling and this german girl who was there just that morning.
70 km ahead of me ...
I'll see if I can catch up but do not think so. From Springbok, only 110 km from here I will ride this nice route through Namaqueland which Yvette suggested me.
Any way, I asked for a beer and when I grabbed my wallet the man said, no, it's a gift, from me !
How nice huh !?!

I am now in Springbok, this nice lady from annies Cottage let me use her computer so I am typing like a madman to do it as fast as possible, sorry for all the mistypes but I think you are used to that now huh hahaha.

I will ride to Gamoep, Loewisfontein and the rest I forgot

The 20 th of march I will ride with Yvette Heijen for a month, a mountainbike route all the way to Pietermaritzburg ( near Durban )

All the best,

xxx

[lars de wit]

Hai hai,

Yvette give me this very nice but tough route to cycle to her from Springbok, mainly on gravel, sandy, rocky roads, pff, thanks Yvette ...
No it was not that bad, beautiful it was !
Namaqueland is really great !

Nice people too, one day I went to this farm to ask some water and was invited inside to have lunch, it was exactly time for that so why not ?
Home made bread, butter, wors ( beef ) and cool lemonade, mjammie !

My waterbottles and my belly filled I left, cycling for 2 more hours and then find me a camsite, hopefully unde a tree or big(ger) bush.

I cycled through Botterkloof which was superb, what a nice kloof !
Next day was very hard going out of the kloof, over a hill and thereafter Pakhuispas with climbes of around 10 % , no wind and very hot, had so stop every 50 meters to wipe the sweat out of my eyes...

Next day I cycled Piekenaarskloof pas into this amazing valley, mountain ranges all around, the valley a 15, 20 km wide en seeming endless to the south, to Cape Town

And, I must have entered a No Fly Zone somewhere ...
The insects are not that annoying anymore and not so many, thank God !
From Morocco till South Africa they were sometimes bad, very bad.
Almost as bad as in Australia, I think they have the same genes

Today I am in Tulbagh, situated in another great valley, Yvette is lucky she is staying here ...

Tomorrow I will leave for Cape Town, 2 more cycling days and then I am there !!!
I will stay 2 full days in CT and then cycle back to Yvette, for the last month of cycling

Looking forward to it !

All the best

[windinderugfietser]

Vertaling?

[VoorheenRJ]

Nee.

[Shane]

Vertaling?

Lars leeft nog

[lars de wit]

En heeft het naar zijn zin
En ....

Heeft Cape Town bereikt maar daarover morgen meer

[GerdC]

Heeft Cape Town bereikt maar daarover morgen meer

Nu nog even de Tafelberg beklimmen!

Gerd

[lars de wit]

Sorry Gerd, het is de kabelbaan geworden ...

Hello !

First let me write my new cellphone nr ( only here for in Africa ) in case somebody wants to send me a textmessage to congratulate me with my achieved goal, CAPE TOWN
0027716295291
This morning I achieved a text message from my little sister, I was on top of Table Mountain
Perfect timing little sis !

So yeah I made it, there has been times I seriously doubted it ...

But lets start at the beginning.

The road from Tulbagh, through Gouda , was quite busy but with nice vieuws over the mountainranges.
The last day there was a really strong headwind, I knew it because at Yvette's place I checked out weeronline. So I thought to get up early in the morning, most of the times the wind starts at like 10 o clock but not that day ...
A strong headwind from the start.
I saw a flat mountain in the distance and thought, hey, a brother or sister of Table Mountain ?
But when I came closer and closer I was getting pretty sure it was Table Mountain, didn't expect it like 40 km in a straight line from Cape Town ...
So the great feeling I was hoping for, cycling along the coast and slowly but steady see Table Mountain growing bigger and bigger wasn't there ...
Nevertheless it was a great ride along the ocean, if only the wind would lie down ...
Doing like 12 km an hour ...

During my second break I sat down and after a few minutes a woman on a bicycle saw me, stopped and we started chatting. She came all the way from England !
Pretty amazing huh ?
So the last what was it, 10, 15 km into town we cycled together.

She had a great idea : to go to waterfront and celebrate with a beer !
It turned out to be 3 beers and then she gave me, one of her last, cards with her name and website on it.
Helen Lloyd
www.takeonafrica.com
Some of you might know her, I'm sure Maarten and Charles do
During my trip through Morocco and Mali we looked at het webiste several times, quite interesting !
So I almost fell of my chair and said, ' I know you ! You are the girl from Take on Africa ! I visited your website sometimes !
What a coincidence huh, after Maarten the only cyclist I saw was a dutch guy, just outside of Bamako, Mali and the last few kilometers before the ' end ' of my trip I meet her !
It was so cool !!!
She decided to stay in the same hostel as I booked a dormitory and together we did go up Table mountain today, the easy way with a cable car, hey, it is my resting day

Cape Town is nice, very nice !
The location is one of the best in the world, like Vancouver, also very nice with the mountains almost into the city.
And we discovered a very nice Asian food centre with lots of very good and very cheap food !
Perfect for two hungry cyclists.

Helen will leave for Enland in a week orso, and me ?
Again a change in plans; I will cycle to Jefferson or Jeffreys Bay, forgot the name, it's west of Port Elizabeth where I will meet Yvette. Together we than cycle to Johannesburg and, hopefully, together we than fly back to Holland around the, ships I also forgot, and no, I didn't have a beer yet, around the 7 th of may. Too late for the ' hemelvaarttrektocht ' but Yvette had a great idea, to arrange a weekend short after we arrived, to meet our friend of the ' wereldfietser '

Later today we cycle to Castle of Good Hope, than back to the waterfront for a ( or 2 or 3 :- ) beers at this great english pub with nice vieuws over the bay.

Sounds great huh ?!?

Have fun, so will we

To be continuated

[fiets-ster]

Gefeliciteerd!!!

Leuk dat je een maand met Yvette gaat fietsen, doe haar de hartelijke groeten.

[lars de wit]

Hoi fietster en anderen,

Ja zal ik doen en iedereen die me een smsje heeft gestuurd, hartelijk dank !
Het was teveel om iedereen een sms terug te sturen ...

Thanxxx

[jimvandenberg]

Gezellig, je gaat nog met Yvette samen fietsen. Nou, dan is het met de rust gedaan, haha. Nee hoor, het wordt vast reuze pret samen!

[lars de wit]

Hello hello,

Helen and me left Capetown for a ride around the peninsula which was awesome !
Picture perfect beaches, little villages and beautiful villa's along the coast, it was a more then great ride.

We camped at muizenberg and the next day my plan was to split up, me going to Hermanus to visit some friends I met in Botsawna and Helen going to Stellenbosch. Just befor the turnof to Hermanus I got a phonecall from Shane, he said they weren't home that night, sunday was good to come by.
So I decided to join Helen one more day, ending up drinking wine ( some nice winetastings ) and a couple of beers.
Actually, can't remember Helen drinking water, only beer hahaha just kiding

Anyway, the next day I left on my one again, cycling back to the coast, a village called Strand ( Beach ) with a beautiful beach indeed !
And furter, riding along the coast, saw many dolphins, such a great sight !
Hermanus and the waters around are famous for whalewatching, in the good season that is, from july to november so I have to come bck one day ...

I met a lot of other cyclists and after a short chat I left with : ' It's a nice day for cycling '
Which made me thinking ...
Cycling for 7 months now, almost every day was good for cycling, in spite of the harder part in western africa ...
Guess I'm a lucky man, cycling around the world

Hermanus was nice, great to see Shane and Maria again and we had a great evening together with some of their friends.

I cycled north to Franschhoek which was so so; maybe because of the clouds I didn't like it so much, it is very nice situated, mountains all around.
Had a very nice stay at a dutch, retired couple who lived in a great villa.
I checked out a guesthouse if I could camp there but that was not possible, there was no camping and cycling back to the centre of the village I saw this huge garden, nice green grass so I rode into the garden to the villa and asked if I could camp in their garden for the night.
It was okay and I even could take a shower, drink a beer and was invited for a 4 course dinner !
Lovely people, he was an retired ambassador or something like that, high class people !
But he forgot to turn of the sprinklers in the garden at 1900 hours.
At 1905 hours he told me and I ran to my tent, one pipe rose 10 cm from my tent, spraying the water straight into my tent !
I covered the pipe with my hands and sat there, shouting ' help, help ! '
He shut down the water and we looked at the ' damage '
It wasn't that bad, thank God my sleepingbag was still dry.
In one corner of the tent the water was 10 cm high but because the ground was not even it was only one corner; we dried my sweater and a jacket in their drying machine and had a great laugh about it !

The next day I was lucky again, asking for a place to pitch my tent in the garden of a guesthouse, I was invited in, in a wonderful room for the price I wanted to pay, the ' normal ' price for camping here, around 5 euro. Had a great sleep !

Now I am in Montagu, a lovely small village.
Tomorrow I will cycle towards Oudtshoorn and then south to the coast, Mossel Bay, then up again, thinking of cycling Baviaanskloof.
But that's for later.
For now ...

All the best !

Greetings

[Rutger]

Great story again Lars. Keep on cycling. All the best,
Rutger

[Shane]

En nu? toch geen motor kopen en door fietsen

[lars de wit]

Hello hello,

A shorty because I do not know what to write, not that it isn't interesting here

The day before I left Montagu I went to two wine tastings, for free !
Many vineyards here and many do wine tastings, mjammie !
So I was at this wine tasting and tasted some pretty good wines; I wanted to buy a small bottle of very sweet red wine, very special. The woman packed it in a nice paper and said, a present.
I said, yeah, but a present for myself !
No, she said, it is a present from me for you.
Why I asked and she said that she liked what I did, sort of admired me and therefore wanted to give me this small bottle, how nice huh ?!?
The second wine tasting had many port wines, and big glasses too ...
So a little drunk I tried to cycle back to the camping hahaha.

Next day on the road again to Mosselbay where I stayed at a camping almost on the beach, very nice !
I met some nice south africans ( again ) and had a nive glass of whiskey with them.
They also gave me a bag full of cookies and an invitation to visit them in Parys ( near Jo burg )

From Mosselbay to Plettenberg Bay and Wilderness which was very special too, a very nice backpackers place in the middle of the forest.

Now I am in Jeffreys Bay, again a very nice backpackers, Island Vibe, overlooking the beach and the ocean, stunning.
Here I wait for Yvette who will join me tomorrow for the Grand Finale, cycling through Drakensberge to Jo burg.

All the best !

Cheers

[Shane]

Ik ben erg jaloers jongen!!, Maar ja, nog 7 maanden dan ben ik aan de beurt

[Rutger]

Hoi Lars en Yvette,

Camping De Hartjens in Azewijn is geregeld van 13 mei tot 15 mei. Mogelijkheid tot barbecue en wijnproeverij!!! Ik zet het ook bij jullie topic.

Dus iedereen dus jullie weer eens willen zien, kom dan naar de Achterhoek.

Groeten,

Rutger

[lars de wit]

Molo ( Xhosa voor hallo

Yvette and me left Jeffrey's Bay one week ago; the first days we stayed at friends of Yvette which was very nice ( and cheap and safe.
What wasn't that safe we learned 4 days ago.
We cycled through a National Park where are elephants, rhino, zebra's, buffalo's and lions.
The guy at the gate was not sure what to do but Yvette and me really wanted to cycle through so we kind of talked ourselves into the park, talking about the wheater and how beautiful Africa is.
After filling in our names in a book we cycled into the park.
Half way we saw one elephant, far away, maybe a 150 meters and the elephant was grazing happily and was at a safe distance so no problem.
A little further we were stopped by a ranger, he asked if we knew there were wild animals in the park.
Yes sir we said.
Also elephants and lions he said.
Yes sir, we know.
Don't you want me to give you a lift was the next question.
No sir we rather cycle, it's such a beautiful day !
And we saw one elephant, no problem and lions ?
Well, in broad daylight we think we are safe.
So the ranger let us cycle on.
2 km before the end of the park we were stopped again by another ranger, a white guy and he told us a short story about an accident 1 month ago were a lion attacked a motorcyclist and if we didn't want a ride out of the park ?
I tried it with a joke, showing him my stick but he didn't laugh and said, no you do not understand, these are dangerous and fast animals.
Yvette and me looked at each other and discussed what to do; the gate only another 2 km away and the ranger said that we had the most dangerous part behind us so we decide to cycle the last 2 km as well.

At the outgoing gate we had another chat with the ranger, this time longer and more accurate; he said there were 2 groups of lions attacking everything ...
And that only 2 weeks ago over that hill over there a man on a bicycle was attacked and thrown of his bike, the lion kept coming at him, over and over again and the man thought he was going to die so he did what you are supposed never to do with lions : he ran away.
Luckily for him the the lion choose for the bike to attack and not him so he survived ...

I am not sure, maybe I was a little white around my nose ...
If we knew this before we sure would have had second thoughts ...
But what the hell, sometimes you have to have a little luck, right ?

The next day we cycled through another National Park, thank God without lions

Everything is cool here in Hogsback were we are now, l and wet ...
Since we arrived yesterday it rains !
But we made a nice fire in the fire place and Yvette, wonderful cook as she is, made some delicious home made breads for me, mjammie !
We are having a great time and lots of fun together;

A grand finale indeed !

All the best,

Nkosi

[lars de wit]

Molo !

The resting day in Hogsback was filled with rain, so bad we slept into the communual area where the bar was and a huge fireplace, not too bad

Next day we cycled out of Hogsback on an endless climbing road, rewarded with endless vieuws.
Beautiful mountains, forests, streams,coloured trees and awesome valleys !

When we cycled into Queenstown many cars were blowing their horns at us,nice we said but why do they not offer us a place to sleep ?
A car drove by, lowered its window and the man inside asked,are you looking for something, maybe a place to sleep ?
We looked at each other and said, wel yes, we do !
Just follow me the man said and so we did.
We followed him out of town and I joked to Yvette, maybe he has a huge villa with 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms
It was even better.
We stopped at a very nice villa, swimming pool, fitness area, jacuzzi, sauna, you name it !
Then he showed us were we could sleep ans use the kitchen and even better the bar.
4 different kinds of whiskey and a fridge filled with heineken !

But the best part was actually outside.
From his huge veranda we had a great look at this pool where at night ...
Rhinos came !!!
We saw 6 rhinos that night and elands.
15 meters below us ...
Enjoying it with a glass of whiskey it was a night to remember

Next day we cycled towards Barkley East and slept at a nice farm with warm people in our cold tent, freezing cold it was !
From here we followed next morning a gravel / mudroad. With the rain that poored down it became muddier and muddier.
Over a 2000 meter high pass we saw rain everywhere around us,some poored on us as well but not too bad.
What was bad was that Yvette her backwheel stopped working, the freewheel broken ...
We turned the bike over, removed the wheel and couldn't fix it.
Looking at each other a car turned the corner, stopped and asked if we were ok.
So not ok with a broken bike and the next place 40 km further so we gladly accepted the offer for a ride.

Now we are in Aliwal north ( we took another ride this morning ) and as I am typing this, the wheel it getting fixed

In a few days we are in Lesotho, probably no internet facilities so enjoy this one

All the best,

Lars

[lars de wit]

Hello hello !

I left you with a broken wheel, Yvette's freewheel wasn't functioning anymore.
Now, that is fixed !
We had to take a taxi to a bigger city, a 110 km away and were lucky this guy could fix it.

Returning to Barkley East we found out that the B&B where we stayed was fully booked that evening so we had to move to another place.
Now, cycling around town we had seen this little castle, or huge old villa and on our way to rthe camping ground we cycled past it again.
Yvette said, why don't we ask if we could camp in their garden and maybe see the house ?
So we did, the owner was still at work where we payed him a visit with our request.
He smiled at us and asked if we could meet him in front of his house at 5.
We smiled too and went to the pub to kill some time and a beer
It turned out we were invited in, got a full tour inside this little castle, were invited for dinner and nice conversation !
And we could sleep inside as well !
Lovely people ...

Next day we left Barkley East to cycle furter and further, on our way to Lesotho.
But not without one of the best day's on our trip, Yvette's birthday.
We had two parties, first her birthday and second this amazing route through mountains so green, a green I have never seen before, so bright !
It seems it is particular for the Drakensberge.
Awesome it was !
Oh I have to be careful here, Marco send me a mail saying I have to stop writing how beautiful it is here
A little jealous he was ha ha ha
Well sorry mate, it is magnificent here !

We had this plan of cycling into Lesotho and do a nice tour, leaving Lesotho via the Sani Pass.
But the first day we met three guys on motorbikes who told us our planned route wasn't 180 km ( 3 days ) but 450 km (7, 8 days ) ...
And it was very hard cycling on this road with 6 km hairpins, all day long. A little frustrating cycling 6 km for 500 meters ' as the crow flies ' ...
All that and the fact we both liked Drakenberge even better we decided to leave Lesotho at the next borderpost, which was only 15 km away.
It took us almost 3 hours ...
Very steep climbes, around 15 % and up.
But we made it and cycled into South Africa again.

Now we are in Underberg, a nice little town.
Yesterday we went to the pub were a few locals were already a little drunk and so was the bartender.
It was like fucking this and fucking that and that guy there is my fucking boss bla bla bla.
So after my first beer I shouted : Can I get another fucking beer here please ! Leaving them all in laughter ....

Tomorrow we will cycle to Lower Loteni and Loskop where I hopefully will meet some of my family here in South africa

All the best !

Lars