Sossusvlei, Namibia to Felix Unite, Namibia

Day One - Sossusvlei to Betta

Distance: 137.14km

Ride time: 6:27

Climb: 887m

This morning was a pretty hard section. There were a couple of 5km or so 1-2% long climbs. Those combined with the bad sections of road were tiring. Having another four big days of this stuff to go is a bit daunting. My hopes of the last two weeks being a cakewalk have totally evaporated. We have hundreds of kilometres of dirt and TWO mando days in the next four days. Not going to be easy.

Riding meeting today was good. I got my plate for winning the stage into Sossusvlei. Hooray. Actually, it was pretty good. Maybe I will become addicted to not being a mediocre rider.

Day Two - Betta to Some Lodge with Chocolate Cake

Distance: 152.93km

Ride time: 7:20

Climb: 942m

First mando day of this stretch. We did a bunch of climbing before lunch. I couldn't get my heart rate up at all and really suffered. Grinding it out. For a lot of the climb, I could see the same rider in front of me. Normally, I can reel that guy in easy. Especially on the hills. Today I had nothing to use to even catch him. Let alone keep him back once I passed him.

Surprisingly, a lot of people were still there at lunch when I turned up. All my experience at lunching quickly was handy. I jumped back on my bike… wait a minute. I didn't jump back on. When I got into lunch, I couldn't unclip my right foot so I just unstrapped my shoe and walked around in my sock. When I went to get back on I tried keeping my left foot on the right hand side of my bike and re-strapping my right foot. This left me in a pretty precarious position. I couldn't swing my left leg over, get going and steer around the other bikes on the ground. Luckily, Canadian Dave was there to help out. He held my saddle while I got going, at the same time that Gerald cleared the bikes for me. Thanks guys!

After lunch, the day got a lot better. There were a few me climbs out of lunch but after that it was a -1% or -2% grade all the way to camp. Plus, the gravel road got much, much better. By the end, it was basically like riding on a paved road. I even saw their grader out cleaning up the road. Namibia seems to be really serious about maintaining this road. I guess it is because a lot of the overlander trucks use it. Every day we see a couple of those tin cans packed to the brim with tourists. I can't imagine what it would be like to be stuck in one of those for endless days. Especially since they are full of people. On the bike, you have a bit of freedom. Like, you can stop and take an emergency break when you need it. Plus, you can ride by yourself if you need some time away. Maybe overlanding appeals to a whole different type of human. One that likes other peoples' body heat and second hand air.

The best bit of the day was the lodge that we stayed at. Delicious homemade food - including ice cream - at really low prices. The milk tart (custard tart) was good, but the chocolate cake with coffee ice cream and chocolate liqueur was awesome.

Day Three - Some Lodge to Seeheim Hotel

Distance: 126.07km

Ride time: 7:24

Climb: 351m

An easy day today. A short distance plus 90km of pavement made for an untaxing day. At the end of the 30km dirt section was the town of Bethane. There was a pretty awesome coffee shop there. I had a couple of cheese toasties and a few cups of coffee. A pretty nice way to start the day. It turned out to be a long day though. 7+ hours.

The camp tonight is strange. Seeheim seems to be just a small collection of buildings near a railway station. And the railway station seems to be used only for cattle. There is one crush and a loading ramp. Not in use today. But the hotel for this town is pretty amazing. Multi-storied, turret, thatch roof. Pretty cool. So out of place though - I can't imagine why it is here. If I wasn't feeling so strangely tired I would ask the owner.

Day Four - Seeheim Hotel to Hobas Camp at Fish River Canyon

Distance: 108.9km

Ride time: 3:43

Climb: 481m

Another short day. I dunno why, but I felt like pushing it out a bit. I'd left it until nearly everyone else had left before I set off. Straight out of camp there was a fairly steep climb and my heart rate went straight up to 160. It didn't come back down for around 20km. I was hauling along ok, going past people, but I was definitely feeling it, so I had to wind it down a bit.

By the time I was getting close to lunch I had passed most other riders. I could see a bunch of riders in the distance though and wasn't really making up much ground. Stuart still hadn't caught up to me yet though, so I pushed it out a little bit more. When I rolled through lunch, I saw Sunil and Marcel sitting there. There was still one more rider in the distance though, so I didn't stop and kept on going.

At the 76km turn I caught up with Tim. I still hadn't seen Jethro though, so I figured I had to crank up the Slayer and push even more. The turn had swung us out of the tail wind and into a cross wind, so things also got a lot less pleasant. Every 1km I had to stand up and mash a bit to loosen my back. I also snuck a look behind to see if Stuart was gaining on me. I could see a dark blur back there but I couldn't tell who it was or whether they were closing. I figured that there wasn't too much point looking back there. Could I ride any faster than I was now? No.

Around 10km out, I heard a voice coming in over Slayer. I turned around and found out that the dark blur was Jenn, and she was calling my name. She had found out that she had unexpectedly come into the front of the pack as well. We both kept on pushing, not with any expectations, but just to see if we could. At 100km I dropped my bottle. I thought about stopping to get it but decided I had to keep going. Top of the last hill, I dropped my chain and had to get off and fix it. I looked back and saw another 2 dark blurs about a kilometre of two behind.

Jenn and I dropped down into camp. A couple of camp staff pointed us in the right direction and we checked in. I just had enough time to win the stage.

Just kidding. The locals pointed us in the wrong direction. They were standing in front of the trailer with the check-in machine on it. We rode off into the park looking for the trailer. When I got to the edge I realised that we'd been given a bum steer. "FUCK" I yelled and turned around. I rode back looking for the truck. Rode to the truck and found that the scanner was on the trailer was back up the rode. I threw my bike over my shoulder (not sure why, I guess I was pretty angry) and ran back to the trailer. I saw that Stuart was checking in already - I'd wasted whatever lead that I had fucking around looking for the trailer. Stuart hadn't realised what was going on. He asked if I was angry that he'd checked in. "No. I'm angry at the TDA", I said and booted my helmet across the camp ground.

By then, it was just after 10 am, so I decided to have some breakfast beers.

13 beers later, I went to see the Fish River Canyon. Surprisingly, the only effect I felt from the beers was that my legs were a bit wobbly.

And that was how the day was.

Day Five - Fish River Canyon to Felix Unite

Distance: 178.90km

Ride time: 6:53

Climb: 1235m

Second mando day of the stretch. Some might think that I had set myself up for failure by drinking 13 beers the day before. I felt fine though. Not fine enough to ride fast, but fine enough to finish the day.

It was a pretty strange day. There were two super long climbs after lunch with super long descents afterwards. The only downside was that the second descent had a massive headwind. Even on a -4% grade, it took effort to get above 30km/h.

Two notable things about the day:

1. Adam and I had our sprint. Adam outsmarted me and won.

2. Tony and I thought that we had taken a wrong turn so we turned around at 178km. Turns out that we should have kept going over one more hill. Instead we rode some extra kilometres.

And that was that.

Instead of a picture of the Fish River Canyon or Namib Desert (which you can get off Googles), here is a picture of me, sitting in a tent because someone started to take it down because I was taking too long to get ready in the morning. Safe for work: I am wearing pants.