Day 7: Halfway through the Cancer Fighting Journey

It's day 7 of cycling and we have 2 big days ahead of us to Kimberley. I'm a little sacred actually and hope my body has not gotten too used to being off the bike! We wake up at 03:45 and for the first time pack our pannier bags which end up weighing a ton! I'm also worried about that! As we walk down the dirt road to the main road, we meet up with a local ironman participant from the town and his son and a friend on another tandem. So great that they came to support us by cycling the first couple of kilometres out onto the N12 with us. The young boys even addressed me as "tannie" so this cycling trip seems to b ageing me big time!!
Dries the local cyclist told us the route was flat today which pleased me and the tailwind picking up pleased me even more! After saying goodbye, we faced 178kms on our own!

We were able to pick up some decent speed on many of the long downhill drags but the weight of the pannier bags was taking its toll and our knees began taking strain. Because of the long distances between towns, we also had to fill all 5 cycling bottles plus 1 camelpak plus one 1 litre bottle with water and carry those with us too. So we actually felt like a
2 humped laden camel in the middle of the desert!
We passed through Britstown and stopped for a coke outside the local slaghuis (Jaco was admiring the meat smell) when the owner kindly came outside and gave us a whole packet of delicious droe wors for the journey! How kind-we definitely needed the protein!
Back on the N12 we noticed all the holiday makers on their way down to Cape Town and they all hooted and waved as they passed. The temperatures were now climbing to 37 degrees and we often had 2 stop at the picnic spots on the side of the road to get out of the sun and eat and drink. We were worried that we were running out of water as we were drinking an average of 8 litres every 2 hours! Eventually we reached Strydenburg with a few sips to spare and sat at the garage glugging down cokes and water! Mmm we had definitely arrived at 1 horse town as our guesthouse we had booked into was the only double storey house in the town (aptly named Upstairs Guesthouse) so we could find it easily!
Upon arriving there the owners apologetically told us that there are such severe water shortages that the water supply will only be switched on at 7pm that night! Just what you want to hear after a 179kms ride!! I think they could see the disbelief on our faces so they offered to fill up a 15litre drum with borehole water for us to wash with. Better than nothing i suppose! So I skipped a hair wash and got on with it :-) Our next mission was food as we had no more lovely parents in law as back up. The local corner shop satisfied us with 2 chicken burgers, pap en sous, some white bread and watermelon. Our final mission was a long sleep which was tricky as our outside cottage felt like a roasting oven! Now i know what rotisserie chickens feel like!
We look forward to reaching Kimberley tomorrow, seeing the big hole and staying with another family that we've never met, the Wheelocks.

Todays Stats (will be brief because I'm sms'ing the info to the blog these days, no more laptop).
Total distance: 179kms
Total time: 6hrs30mins
Average speed:35kms/h
Average temperature: 24 degrees
Max temperature: 37 degrees
Climbing: 420m
KCalories: 2085(Jaco), 2300(Christie)
Average heart rate: 120(Jaco), 128 (Christie)

Jaco's highlight: a wonderful tailwind pushing us up the N12.
Jaco's lowlight: no water to shower with.

Christie's highlight: all the friendly motorists waving and hooting (and thinking we crazy!)
Christie's lowlight: the pink and grey fluffy toilet seat we living with tonight (I'm scared it might attack me in the middle of the night!)
We would like to wish our friends in Cape Town, Judy and Eben a blessed wedding tonight.

Thank you once again to Hannes and Johan for their great hospitality. Hannes also wrote a little article about Lize-Mari and the Cancer Fighting Journey which was published yesterday in the regional newspaper, the Messenger!