Cycle Day 4 Hartenbos to Hermanus

Cycle Day 4 Hartenbos to Hermanus

As planned we were on the go very early with a 6am breakfast and then onto the bus for a 3 hour drive west. 

It’s not the most comfortable bus and even at that time of day it was quite warm warm but it was nice to see the scenery changing from a different prospective. Today we have seen cattle farms, cereal farms and wineries in the space of 150 miles or so. Its getting much drier as we head towards Cape Town where Im told they are currently in drought.

After about an hour and half we stopped for coffee and the locals were all excited about us taking part in the ride on Sunday, it’s clearly a big thing in South Africa and they all say we will have a fantastic time.

We got off the bus about 40 miles east of tonight’s destination with a promise of rolling roads and a tail wind but what actually transpired was a series of quite testing climbs followed by very steep descents as we headed  towards the coast. What we didn’t account for was we were gradually climbing all the way until the last 10 miles or so. However the tail wind was not quite as predicted as the road curved its way across the various valleys and at times we were either side on or into it and as it was blowing a fair lick it was quite a challenge to stay upright at times.

Cat and I had headed off together as Martin wasn’t feeling too good and at the first water station we found him in the van having been sick at the side of the road. He was gutted as its the first time in all of his trips he’s had to ride on the bus.

Today has been the hottest day so far, my Garmin was telling me it was 91 Degs so if you add on the heat generated by the reflection from new tarmac etc it was officially “bloody hot”. At one point my drinks were like warm tap water, not very pleasant but you have to keep drinking or you’ll just run out of gas.

After about 33 miles we stopped for a nice buffet lunch at a roadside garden shop/restaurant and then we finished off the last 8 or so miles in pretty short order, although the last 3 were directly into the wind.

The hotel today is on the coast with beautiful cliff top views across the bay. Its an old asylum so I guess its suited to us.

Martin has gone to bed, which is about 6 inches from my bed so tonight should be interesting! I’ll catch up with my admin and do my charging etc and then head into town for a look around before dinner.

We have all agreed to cut down tomorrow’s distance as a few of us have felt the heat a bit today. The thinking is we’ll be fresher for Sunday and it will also give us more time at the Expo in Cape Town tomorrow evening.

Todays Stats 41miles 3800ft climbing…..hot and very windy.