Wilkinson's World

Archive for March, 1999

Day 3 - Pofadder to Kakamas

Day 3 – 5.45am in Pofadder. Think of the quietest place that you’ve ever been. The Namib Desert on a Sunday morning? Well Pofadder at 5.45am is right up there. You could hear a feather floating in the still air. If you went deaf in this little town during the night you would never know it in the early hours. Unless, perhaps, you missed the church clock.

So I set off into the silence of the pre-dawn darkness at 5.45am and it was really pleasant to make an early start. It was fairly cool, but that didn’t last very long. The east wind came up with the sun and gathered strength during the morning, so that it was fairly strong by eight o’clock and even stronger by nine. Although I was riding into this headwind, the heat was oppressive and out on the road there is no place to hide from the Namaqualand sun. There were times when, with the air shimmering above the tar, the very road surface seemed aflame.

There is very little of consequence to keep one enthralled as one pedals along the road between Pofadder and Kakamas, although the Orange River and the Augrabies Falls are not too far to the north. Rated as one of the greatest waterfalls in the world, the Augrabies Falls were discovered by a Swedish mercenary named Hendrik Wikar in October 1778. Pedalling through this arid moonscape, one cannot help musing on why Hendrik Wikar was here in the first place. What would bring a man to this arid area in 1778?

I met up with the Orange River and the Orange River Wine Route some nine kilometres outside Kakamas and rode the last stretch between the vineyards with their irrigation canals. What a difference the waters of the Orange River make! The contrast with the waterless areas adjacent is startling. The arid scrubland is transformed into fertile green vineyards fed by the canals bringing the water from the river. We will spend the next few days in the vicinity of the Orange River, between Kakamas and Groblershoop, and are to be astounded time and again at the contribution that it makes to the agriculture of this arid region.

When we reached Kakamas we booked into the Annristo Caravan Park, which was very small, but was pleasant enough. In the afternoon we went and looked at the Orange River and some of the irrigation canals in this area. We also took in the famous Kakamas Egyptian-style waterwheels, which are used to raise the water from the main irrigation canals to the channels that convey it to the fields. It is this network of canals, the first of which was commissioned in 1898, that enabled Kakamas to become the sultana capital of South Africa. The little village was also the first home of the Kakamas peach, the principle canning peach produced in South Africa.

While we were shopping during the afternoon, Avril went to a pharmacy to buy something to treat my sunburn. Her enquiries for the preparation that we would normally use, met with blank stares. Apparently the local treatment for sunburn is Shaving Cream. I tried this and found that it worked exceedingly well. I guess that it follows that people who live in Namaqualand should know a thing or two about treating sunburn.

<< Back

Day 2 - Springbok to Pofadder

Day 2 – This was an extremely tough day. No, it wasn’t. It was worse than “extremely tough”. I rode the MTB the whole way, because I enjoyed it so much yesterday, but I went slowly right from the start at 6.30am. The uphills were long, although not steep, and the downhills were few and far between. Even on the flats the going was slow and many curses were cast into the teeth of the east wind.

It was always going to be a long day, in terms of the distance to be covered (163km according to the map) and the slow pace made it even longer than planned – I eventually finished riding well after 3.00pm. And there is just nothing on the N14 between Springbok and Pofadder to relieve the monotony. Not a town, not a filling station, not a shop. Not even a poskantoor. Nothing but 163km of baking tarmac reflecting the searing heat of the desert sun onto the defenceless legs of the cyclist. The scenery is spectacular, but it is the same now as it was 10km ago and will be 10km hence. Am I getting anywhere?

An interesting feature of this part of Namaqualand is the large nests of the sociable weaver birds, which, in some stretches, adorn virtually every telephone pole. One wonders just where these birds nested before there were telephone poles, for there are not that many trees to be found here. Judging by the roadkill, the surrounding semi-desert supports a surprising variety of mammals as well as the birds. Yellow mongoose, aardwolf, bat-eared fox, rats and mice. All apparently devoid of road sense.

The wind blew east all day today, and it blew hot. Although it was fairly cool when I started at first light, it was blazing by nine o’clock, and it stayed that way until late afternoon.

The last forty or fifty kilometres would turn out to be the toughest of the whole trip. Not that the terrain was particularly difficult. It was a combination of the heat, the wind, the uphill, the fatigue and perhaps also the fact that I was riding the mountain bike rather than the road bike.

But, eventually, I got there. Who would ever think that Pofadder could be such a wonderful sight?

The altitude at Pofadder is 1050m, all of which has been climbed in two days. Little wonder that there has been so much uphill and this, coupled with the incredible heat and the east wind, helps to explain the slow progress. The hills are not steep; it is simply that they are relentless. The length of the cycling day, the heat and the slow pace conspired to cause Avril to seriously doubt the wisdom of what we were doing. If this was the second day, what condition would I be in by the twelfth? These were private thoughts, however, and at no time did we discuss quitting.

In the evening the wind blew quite strongly and it even rained for a few minutes. No sooner had I left the comfort of the tent to tighten the fly-sheet and check that all the tent pegs were secure, when the squall was over and calm restored. Looking around, there was no evidence whatsoever that it had rained. Had it?

But the church clock! Just adjacent to the Caravan Park (it sounded as though it was inside our tent!) it tolled every hour and, just for good measure, every half-hour. And I can both vouch for the fact that on the night of 30^th March, 1999 it never missed a beat.

Two blunders that I made today will have a far-reaching impact on the rest of the trip. Firstly, I didn’t use enough sunblock on my arms or legs. I have never found it necessary before, but then I haven’t spent this length of time in the blazing sun of Namaqualand before. The result is fairly bad sunburn on my thighs and upper arms, with the skin already angrily red and blistered. Sunburn is always self-inflicted through carelessness and in my own defence I can only plead that I was too tired to notice that it was happening.

The second blunder was continuing to cycle once I began to chafe, without stopping to take some corrective or preventative action. I don’t usually take any kind of precautions, but the number of hours in the saddle and the heat, which encouraged more sweating than usual, contributed to the abnormal circumstances. By the time the day was done I had rubbed two patches of skin off my backside, which made sitting down exceedingly uncomfortable and even painful. These were not to heal during the course of the trip.

<< Back

Day 1 - Port Nolloth to Springbok

Day 1 – I started off from the Richtersveld Experience in Port Nolloth at 6.15am, while it was still dark, and cycled the few hundred metres down to the waterfront. The idea was to ride from coast to coast and there seemed little point in starting a few hundred metres short. I waved to the Atlantic Ocean, turned around and headed east on the R387 feeling rather daunted by the prospect of what lay ahead. The reality of setting out to ride across the country all the way to the Indian Ocean was very different to sitting comfortably at home and planning the route on a road map. Two thousand kilometres from coast to coast. If you say it quickly, it doesn’t sound very far. Sitting on a bicycle at the start of the first day, the reality is somewhat different.

There was little traffic on the R387 and I made good progress for the first 50 kilometres as I headed across Namaqualand to the initial drinks stop. The weather was cool and overcast when I started, but became very, very warm as the morning progressed.

We had decided on this pattern and it worked fairly well throughout the trip – start very early in the morning and ride the first 50km or so, then take a five-minute break to get off the bike, stretch and have a decent drink. I am conscious of the fact that I never drink enough while I am actually riding, in spite of having a bottle readily available. A sip here and a sip there is simply not enough and one becomes steadily more dehydrated as the kilometres tick by.

I would then push on for another 50 kilometres or so and take a longer break to have a cup of tea and something to eat, then ride on to the end of the day’s stint. Rather a comfortable schedule, I thought. The intention was meet Avril at the second stop so that we had “breakfast” together, which gave us an opportunity to compare notes on the morning’s events. We could also plan to vary the routine for the remainder of the day’s ride if conditions dictated and start to think about where to stop over for the night.

If all went well, this pattern would allow us to finish cycling in mid to late morning on most days, leaving the afternoon and evening free for us to be tourists, travellers and campers. This was, after all, our annual holiday. Avril, who quickly assumed control of logistics, would travel ahead as I approached the end of the day’s ride and locate a suitable caravan park or B&B, then return to the outskirts of the town to give me the necessary directions.

But, back to day one. From the fifty-kilometre mark the warm east wind blowing over the Kalahari picked up in force and became a very definite impediment. It was a gradual, continuous climb from the start at Port Nolloth, becoming very steep only at the Aninaus Pass, which is about six kilometres long and reached some eighty-three kilometres from Port Nolloth. The vegetation is sparse at this time of the year – it is probably sparse at any time of the year – and the soil is very sandy. Not surprising, as the area survives on annual rainfall of just 45 millimetres. There is something incredibly appealing in the vast barrenness of the semi-desert that is Namaqualand. I have always loved wide-open spaces and they don’t come much wider and more open than this.

Once over Aninaus Pass I rode on past the outskirts of Steinkopf and then turned south onto the N7. Also known as the Copper Way, what is presently the N7 was originally the main route from the Cape to the copper-rich areas of Namaqualand. It is now part of the main route from the Cape to Namibia.

I had ridden 103 kilometres when Avril indicated that she had located a scenic spot for us to have breakfast, just off the N7 on a little side road. As I turned off the tar and onto this dirt road, the front wheel cut deeply into the soft sand and the bike came to an instant stop, throwing me down onto the road in startled surprise.

Of course, if you have to fall off, you can do a lot worse than falling off on a soft, sandy road. Once I had dusted myself off – and was somewhat relieved to find that no skin had been lost – I tried to wheel the bike over to where Avril had parked the car, only to find that the front wheel was badly buckled. Not a very auspicious start – this before breakfast on the first day! So the mountain bike, brought along more for insurance than with the serious intention of being ridden, was brought into play on the first day. I swapped over the saddlebag and water bottle, fitted the pump and the cycle computer and the fat-tyred bike was ready to ride. After breakfast and several cups of tea I set off down the N7, wondering how, and more particularly when, I would be able to get the road bike repaired.

I was heading south now, so the wind from the east was little bother and I made really good time, helped by the fact that this section of the route included a fair amount of downhill. In fact I started to really enjoy the ride for the first time in spite of the warmth of the day and the increased volume of traffic.

There is very little between Port Nolloth and Springbok to break up the ride except the settlement at Steinkopf, and although the desert scenery is spectacular, the lack of intermediate objectives makes the ride seem longer than it really is. A few kilometres before reaching Springbok I passed the turnoffs to O’Kiep, Nabapeep and Concordia. Names familiar to most of South Africa’s schoolchildren, this is the centre of the copper mining area of Namaqualand, the very area visited by Simon van der Stel in 1685.

When we reached Springbok, which we had planned as the end of the ride for the day, we went directly to the Namaqualand Cycle Shop. They were not able to repair the damaged front wheel on my road bike, but supplied a new rim and rebuilt the wheel at a cost of R80.00.

We booked into the Springbok Caravan Park, which is really quite comfortable except for the mosquitoes, of which there are hundreds in the ablution block and more than enough at our campsite. There are also plenty of flies (and a few chickens). There were quite a lot of folk staying in the camp, Springbok being well placed for visiting the Richtersveld and Namaqualand, but fortunately we were able to find a shady campsite, which helped to keep our tent cool. Out in the blazing sun we would have been incinerated.

<< Back