There’s nothing quite like a good day off to lift one’s spirits. We arrive at the green oasis of Deon’s farm to warm greetings and a quick tour. It’s the kind of farm you readily imagine, the kind marketing departments for industrial farms want to evoke. There are chickens pecking around in the vegetable garden, goats happily munching leaves and crates of raisins being brought in by busy workers that Deon greets by name. The perfect place to relax for a couple of nights.
To make it even better, Fabio (another cyclist) arrives just as the sun is going down. He’s pushed hard so that we can share our day off together. We’d been in touch since Tanzania but our paths never crossed until today. Fabio’s been cycling for a few years already, from Europe across Asia and then taking wilder routes than us around East Africa and he and his bike exude that experience. He not only wins the prize for lightest setup, but also most stylish with a Bialetti attached to his bike with bikepacking straps. The rest-day drifts by pleasantly with a lie-in on cool grass, the exchange of stories and the fanciest café we’ve had since Europe.
On the day we leave, Deon takes us all for coffee and brief tour of some of his fields, explaining his sustainable farming practices and experiments with different crops to find which varieties work best for his land. Fabio joins us for half a day of cycling before our ways diverge, he to the north and we to the south. The Western Cape sees us brave our final gravel roads, and after being sufficiently shaken to pieces we can heartily say “goodbye to all that”.
Once we reach the quaint seaside town of Lambert’s Bay our final section begins, as we’ll just be following the coast until we reach Cape Town. Everything seems influenced by the ocean; numerous seafood restaurants, cold foggy mornings, tacky nautical decorations on houses. More than once in the last week we’ve been reminded that we’re coming to the end of Africa. Baristas ask if we want macadamia milk in our lattes, quinoa is usually on the menu and we hear things like “we’re cashless now” when pulling out our crumpled Rand notes.
As we trundle our way southwards we meet more and more generous South Africans and we receive more invitations to come and stay than we can accept. Whilst cycling to one of our hosts (Margaretha) we’re approached from behind by a speedy road cyclist (Thomas) who offers us a place to stay. We regretfully have to decline as we already have somewhere but ask if we could stay tomorrow, he warmly agrees but in the understanding that we’ll have to tolerate a big braai (barbeque), comfy beds and a warm shower, which seem like things we’re willing to risk.
On the day we plan on coming into Cape Town (to stay with a lovely lady we met back in Namibia) Lina falls ill. It’s clear she can’t cycle, but between our various hosts we arrange transport and Ben cycles on, not wanting to miss the coastal cycle path. On our separate journeys we each get our first good view of Table Mountain across the bay. It dominates the horizon and it’s hard to not feel emotional seeing this landmark that’s been in the back of our minds for the last 12 months on the road.
As we wait by the road for Anna-Maria to pick us up, we learn about another change. As head of security for the nearby building where we’re standing, Thomas receives a WhatsApp message with a photo of us. We’ve triggered an anti-loitering system and the security team are “monitoring the situation” and “will send the armed response vehicle if needed”. I guess they really don’t mess around here. Thankfully he can call off the hounds and our next host arrives to take us to her house without any drama.
With Lina in need of a good long rest, we’re very happy to be mothered by Anna-Maria who insists that we can’t leave until she’s healthy again as she plies us with traditional South African food. We look forward to trying to make the most of our final week in Cape Town. There’s so much to see and do, and we still want to cycle to the Cape of Good Hope before we can say that we’re finished. Yesterday Thomas (our host) opened a bottle of champagne and so we can say that the end of trip celebrations have started already.
