4. RV3 (Loxton) to RV4 (Sutherland)

RV3 (Loxton) to RV4 (Sutherland)

RV3 - km614 - 03:15 - 07:45 - 4,5hrs stopped
WP7 - km668 - 10:45 - 11:10 - 25mins stopped
WP8 - km789 - 19:10 - 20:30 - 80mins stopped
RV4 - km827 - 22:40

photo credit: Jack Black from Gravel and Tour

I left Jakhalsdans in good spirits after a brief but sufficient stop for the night. The day before had been a long day; just about 21 hours out on the bike but I did have some decent breaks at the various water points and excellent sustenance at Jakhalsdans (again that venison pie!) with a very comfy room for my short stay. I couldn’t afford to mess around anymore by stopping for ELEVEN hours at a race village, so I got up, had some coffee and a slice of freshly baked farm bread, made myself 2 sarmies with said farm bread for the road, and then I headed out.

I was on the R356, a district dirt road leading all the way from Loxton through Fraserburg to Sutherland. The road surface was excellent and the going was good with no real wind yet to speak of and the early morning weather was quite pleasant. Around 09:00 I pulled off the road for the first of my morning sarmies and to shoot a video for the supporters on the whatsapp group.

I finished my sarmie, got back on the bike and put on some tunes and just stayed the course, battling with the aches and pains in my bum and hands respectively. I had had my emotional rollercoaster ride the day before so today I was back to my usual stubborn self and looking forward to getting to Sutherland where I could crack on into the Tankwa, a road that I had recce’d with my friend Christo earlier in the year. I would then be in familiar territory and this should give me an advantage, this is why we decided to recce that section. In my mind, if you are tired and feel like giving up but you then get to a familiar piece of road, it should provide some motivation because you then know what is lying ahead and you can apply yourself accordingly. At least that’s what my thinking was.

I was cruising along when I pulled in to WP7, also known as Saaifontein. The turnoff from the R356 winds past the main house on the farm, through the outbuildings to where these 2 light green containers are stationed. It’s a permanent setup that had been erected specifically for the Munga I believe: the 2 green containers about 8m apart with a steel canopy built overhead affixed to the top of the containers. The one container hosts a small kitchen and some bunk-beds and the second container is just filled with bunk beds – quite a wonderful setup. The farmer’s son and his friend, who both seemed to be around 13 years old, were hosting me upon my arrival. As I pulled in under the cover of the steel canopy, they greeted me and offered me something to eat and drink. I had settled for 2 quiches and some coke and was just about to plonk my sore body into one of the comfortable looking chairs when I heard the 2-way radio go off and the son had a brief exchange with presumably his father on the other end. Junior came over and had the following to say in a rather urgent voice:

“Oom, my pa sê Oom is op die cut lyn!”  [sir, my dad says that you are on the cut-line!]

I almost died on the spot! How was that possible? I was sure that as long as I left the race villages ahead of the 12:00 cut-off time each day that I would be fine. And I had left Jakhalsdans way ahead of the cut-off! My mind was racing! What does that mean though, will I be cut from the race and removed from the course? How does that work? Do I just go on until someone says stop, or do I remove myself from the course, or do the people at WP7 do that? Or do I just throw in the towel now, it was a good effort anyways and it’s ok because my hands were hurting and I was sommer gatvol all of a sudden as well. All these thoughts raced through my mind in a matter of seconds.

Eventually I decided no, this won’t do. I have come just about halfway, I wasn’t going to be chucked off the course. I scoffed down the 2 quiches on my paper plate, asked for 2 more and another 3 glasses of coke, filled my water bottles and was out of there in 25 minutes flat. It was time to get serious and I reached for the heavy stuff in my iTunes library.

In the time that followed I was riding like a man possessed with that scene from “Any Given Sunday” playing in my head where Al Pacino gives that great speech just before the big football game where he says to the team that they are in hell and they have to dig themselves out, 1 inch at time, clawing with their fingernails for each and every inch because when all is said and done, the difference between winning and losing could just be that 1 inch. What a great scene from that movie!

I was now in the zone and powering ahead.

Lucky for me the road surface was still great and the breeze was slight, not that it would have mattered anyway. When I calmed down after a while and common sense returned, I realised that I needed to find out from someone in the know what the state of affairs were. Cue Oom Floors: he came up from behind as if he was sent, rolled down his window smiling like a naughty schoolboy, and shouted: “goodness you are in a hurry!” while cruising next to me.

I said yes, I’m on the cut line and I need to be not there. I need to get going. We had a brief exchange where I inquired about the situation and he said as long as I leave the race villages ahead of the cut-off times I would not be cut from the race and that the virtual cut-off line was just an indication of where riders needed to be to avoid these 12:00 cut-offs. In other words, the virtual cut line won’t be used as a means to remove me from course as long as I stay ahead of the 12:00 departure times at the RV’s.

I felt TONS better. But I still needed to make up for lost time and seeing as though I had built up good momentum over the last hour or so, I needed to make hay while the sun was shining.

The R356 is flat and boring, have I mentioned that already? 

So, with all that going on, eventually I could see Fraserburg in the distance and it was a good thing as well because with the hard effort I had been putting in I had run out of cold water from my camelback and the ambient temperature had risen notably, turning the water in my water bottles ready for a cup of tea. Had it not been for the asphalt in the town of Fraserburg, I would have had another dust cloud following me in just like those rally cars…

I stopped at a corner shop where I bought 2 ice creams and a 2 liter of coke and proceeded to find probably the only spot of shade in town as the sun was now right above me as it was 13:00.

During this stop I caught up with some of the many messages of support on my phone, and returned one or two. There was one message of encouragement from my golf partner that stood out, which drew an emotional reply from me. Emotional because I was feeling the self-inflicted pressure for the first time and the fear of failure had finally reared its ugly head. And in that moment the pain was also real for the first time: my hands were not in a good way and my bum wasn’t any better, the wounds were not yet open but I needed to keep it moist by regularly re-applying bum-cream. I knew it was just about raw down there.

I downed about half of the 2 liters of coke, refreshed my water supply with fresh water from a plastic bottle (huh?), rode up to a local walking with his grandson (presumably), handed them the remainder of the ice cold coke, told them to enjoy it and I rode off, leaving Fraserburg behind me.

I was on the R356 going from Fraserburg to Sutherland initially when after about 12km my GPS instructed me to hang a left into the mountains… this looked like it was going to get interesting: nice mountain climbs with 700 odd kms in my legs and the sun was out in all its glory!

That was pretty much how it went initially, but my legs were rock solid as soon as I got out of the saddle, which happened more and more as sitting and pedalling just became too painful. I was surprised at how strong my legs felt but very happy that it was indeed so. It seemed that I had guessed right with regards to my training and I had plenty of firepower in the tank, much more than what I was used to. I hadn’t tested myself at all leading up to the Munga, I was just focused on training and getting in as much quality riding time as possible. I was climbing the steep short sections without any issues and it felt great to be in a position of strength so to speak. If only my bum was not in the state it was.

The farm road that turns off of the R356 winds its way through a valley initially and then the climbing starts. But it’s not just the climbing, it’s the terrain that changes as well, now becoming loose with small to medium sized rocks on top of hardpack with not much vegetation around; it really is like a lunar landscape this plateau to the south of the R356 between Fraserburg and Sutherland. If I had to describe this area in one word, it would have to be LUNAR for sure. Oh, and there was no wind, so it was warm!

This lunar plateau section from where you leave the R356 to where you join it again is about 35km in distance, but it took quite a while to cover that distance because of the loose rocky climbs and descents past abandoned and dilapidated old buildings (Sheppard’s huts?) and then the several dry riverbed crossings, aka the Sands of Time, where riding is nearly impossible it is that soft!

There is an unofficial water point in this section at one of farms. I can only imagine what it must be like to live on that farm because you will be completely snowed in in winter, with 1 road out to the west (Sutherland), but the scenery must be spectacular, it must be like little Switzerland or something. I must find out who lives there…

Anyways, that unofficial waterpoint in Little Switzerland was in the last quarter of this 35km section, so it was a pleasant stop and a good opportunity to refill my camelback and water bottles with cold water and set off again. More sand was to follow but eventually I re-joined the R356 and started praying for WP8 as I was properly hungry by now. I had only eaten the couple of sarmies, 4 mini quiches and 2 ice creams all day and by now my engine was looking for solid fuel. I might have been fitter than ever before but I am still heavy on juice and I needed solid food, so it was time. Otherwise the Karoo farmers might be missing a lamb in the morning.

From where I re-joined the R356, it took me 3,5hrs to cover the ±35kms to WP8. THREE AND A HALF HOURS. The road was dragging uphill all the way but I was cooked: my bum was not being a team player anymore and standing and pedalling wasn’t sustainable and the kms just did not want fly by. I remember a couple of times I got extremely irate with the situation because it seemed like I was pedalling for an hour just to look up at my GPS to see that I had covered a mere 5kms or so it seemed. I lost my cool more than once and just got off the bike and pushed it for a bit, mumbling (read swearing) at how stupid it is that I can be pedalling for an hour and only cover like 5kms, and how time seemed to be rolling forward but the odometer seemed unwilling to move. I was not in a pleasant frame of mind and if the Karoo farmers knew what was travelling down the R356 they would be hiding their livestock. It didn’t help that a very friendly farmer stopped at some point, offered me some fresh water and a cold drink and told me no to worry, Elandsberg (WP8) was just 20kms down the road – which it wasn’t, but when you are sick and tired of everything you will believe anything. Bless them though for stopping and offering me some sustenance! 

Lucky for me and Karoo lammertjies, by the time I did start to notice livestock, I had calmed myself down again and I had WP8 visible in the distance. The welcome sight of the Munga banners greeted me and I was just so happy to be arriving at WP8. I needed food urgently!

It was around 19:00 and the sun was setting, which meant cooler temperatures. It was only about 40KMS to Sutherland so I was really happy to be that close. I scavenged the available resources but nothing was to my liking (not the host’s fault, I was just miserable and wanted a proper Sunday roast in stead of the light meals they had on offer). I struck up a conversation with the rather large young man in charge of the WP. He was farming on his parent’s farm, even though he could not have been much older than about 21 or so – he would make a great lock forward or even an 8th man! He was very friendly and we had a pleasant conversation that provided temporary but necessary distraction from my discomfort.

When I decided to leave for the last stretch to Sutherland, I noticed my GPS was just about running out of battery life. I removed it from my handlebar, plugged it into my newly acquired powerbank (thanks to the Munga goodie bag) and started up my backup GPS and loaded the route so I could make my way to Sutherland, which was basically a straight road anyways. But I wanted to keep my primary GPS running to record my metrics, which I was able to do thanks to the powerbank.

The ±40kms to Sutherland was not getting any easier. It was still dragging uphill but I somehow found the resilience to just keep plugging away. It helped that it was now dark and I couldn’t see the road in front of me beyond where my light was pointing, which was 5m ahead.

There was another rider on the same stretch of road as me, roughly from about the time I had met the friendly travellers about “20”kms from Elandsberg. He had caught up with me and was dealing with the slight uphill drag much better than me. I rolled in to WP8 a couple of minutes behind him and he set off again ahead of me. But we basically had sight of one another for the last couple of hours of daylight. During that time he had offered to ride with me but I replied that I am battling demons and that he was better off going ahead although I did appreciate the gesture. When I left WP8 he was not visible in front of me, until it became dark enough for the bike lights to take effect and I could see his red light in the distance.

It must have been around 20kms from Sutherland when the uphill drag turned into more of a mountain pass. I was able to get out of the saddle more regularly and I eventually caught up with the rider from earlier as he was now having difficulty with the sharper inclines which suited me better because I could get out of the saddle – it doesn’t seem to make sense, but standing and pedalling on shorter sharper inclines was easier than on longer less steep drags. This was somewhere around the time where the dirt road turned into asphalt, and this made me feel more positive about the road ahead.

Incidentally, I didn’t know it at the time, but where the road changed from dirt to asphalt is where the turnoff was to the South African Large Telescope. I only found it out at the time of writing this blog when I studied the route in more detail, go figure!

I could finally see the lights of the beautiful town of Sutherland! Man that was a good feeling, it had been another tough day of digging deep mentally albeit at the opposite end of the spectrum when compare to the day before. Anger was the dominant emotion of the day. But I had made it, and it wasn’t even midnight which meant I could have a good rest.

22:40 saw me pull into the RV at the White House Inn. I signed in and sat down for 3 servings of warm food and plenty of Super M’s, coffee and coke. The friendly people just laughed at my desperate state but I just shrugged it off as I knew how hard that was riding all those kms basically on an empty stomach. I was starving and the spaghetti bolognaise was hitting the spot with every single bite! While I was tucking in to my 3 servings of food, I was chatting away with the gentleman in charge of the RV. It seemed as if I had become known as the "SPCA Guy" by then and people were starting to take an interest in my progress. They were happy to see me get ahead of the cut-line which for a large part of the day was right on my virtual tail.

He showed me to my digs for the night: another well equipped room with en-suite where I could have a shower and sleep naked in peace until the battle resumed the following morning. The Tankwa was waiting for me, but more importantly, I was now just 300kms from Doolhof!!!