Bike of good hope

My journey continues through the landscape towards Cape town. Up and down. Not much on the flat. Very few towns. I see melons growing along the road, a black flat snake and three owls. I started a bit late from Picketberg. It was just such a nice breakfast with Martin the churchman. So I cycle on all day. My goal is to visit the lady Ina, who has contacted me through facebook, who would love to be my host. That is great. She is retired and wants to show me a bit of the area s

Tough that 320 km distance. I struggled 15 km in the morning to the nearest town, Clanwilliam and found a great small guesthouse for a reasonable price with a great careing host. Elephant River guest house. Town is small, old and with some victorian architecture making it really cute. I only take it slow, do internet, draw a litle on a architecture project, blogg and eat. I eat loads of cakes, muffins and yummie stuff, ribbs at a nice bar. Where I come back for a beer and tir

Distance: 320 km Time: 19 h and 8 min I wanted to lay this distance behind, since it is the distance of a great bicycle race in Sweden, Vättern Runt. My way of doing it was in a way easier because of the perfect temperature, about 25 degrees. But with a slight side and sometimes head wind of 2-3 m/s. The road may be more scenic and unic here, as for me beeing Swedish, but that also means huge climbs up, and great long, fast hills down. I divided the distance in four legs, 80

Hi, I'm Luise Smigay. A midwife from Germany, who was mentioned once on this blog at the end of Dec./Jan. I was working as a midwife at Ishaka Adventist Hospital in Uganda and had the pleasure to travel a while with Christian and Fredrik over Christmas Holidays. After a bit of jointly cycling, I showed them my working place. Although I'm not in Uganda anymore, I am still in contact with some of my best friends and colleagues from Ishaka. They told me, they started a project t

This is South Africa! Welcome Fredrik! We let you start with 30 km uphill!! Yes, it is true apart from two small downhills on the way. O boy that makes you a bit tired as a start of the day. Anyway I go along this landscape still semidessert just like in Namibia. Still some wild horses. As I reach the top of the long hill I see two cars by the road. They see me and happily wave and congratulate me with cold raspberry flavoured water and ice cream. We all take photos and I fee

I leave some of my luggage at the guest house and cycle to the canyon. It is longer then I thought and I can feel that it was a good decision to make this a resting day. The viewpoint architecture is nice. It is making the canyon more interesting. And from the WC on the bottom floor you also have a great view. The canyon is very deep and big, allmost no water now. I have my breakfast at a table. Some guide asks me about my trip, speaking loud and making it a show. I think he

Like an eagle in the sky, sang a good friend ones on an open mike on Havheld. It is a beautiful song and He is a great singer, David Sjölund. Anyway I sing on it as I fly down the hills and eye the vast stretches of the Namibian plains. And when climbing, what must be one of Namibias longest uphills, I meet a classic Volkswagen bus. I wave, they wave. I see it go up again and over the hillside. As I reach the top I am then received as a winner! Oh what a cermony! I am so happ

I cycle a light day for a change and stay at this guest house where I meet a construction worker. A days rest became a great short fast cycling day. I did not like the place yesterday. They were only letting hotel guests use wi-fi and pool. Doesnt make you feel very welcome. So instead of rest I decided to go another 80 km to the next town. Thankfully the dirt road is hard and smooth, better then a tar road. And the wind pushed me fast to my destination where I could finnish

99 km today. Wow this is pretty tough. I have taken a smaller road back to the road which I was suppose to go on from the start. But since I missed a turn on the map yesterday I ended up on the wrong road, a very bad road. The funny thing with the "small" road today is that it was better then the road I am on now, the "right" road. It was a day of beautiful landscapes but also of seeing death. I saw at least five dead wild animals and felt the smell of a couple more. Also saw

I start my day by writing the blog, a jump in to the pool and packing up. Then draging my heavy bicycle through the loose sand out of the campsite and over to the gasstation. I buy wi-fi time by the hour and it takes me precisely one hour to upload all images for the blog and post it on Facebook. During the time I have breakfast and finnish with a cappuccino and an apple pie. I get a six pack of beer and walk over to my friends from yesterday with the six pack as a present. W