Today was a cold snow day. We tackled the mountain portage @ around 07:30am after leaving Stuttgart farm @ 6am. The freezing conditions made riding easier because all the mud & slush from the previous days bad weather was frozen. (Stuttgart is beyond the peak in the centre of the pic above which was taken almost at the top ! ) 
The portage involved crossing a snowed up mountain - basically pushing and carrying our bikes up & over, although some of the decent was ridable if you were brave enough. Conditions were cold (the dam in this picture is totally frozen over !!!) & wet with gusting winds right at the top. Our decision not to continue on yesterday to do this section was correct because the fellow that tried turned back & slept over @ a farm at the foot of the mountain.
Unfortunately we are still a day behind schedule & Fiona & Doug caught up with us at DeDoorns this evening. They certainly are charging along. Nonetheless we made DeDoorns at around 16:00pm today after taking an easy day. This gave us much needed time to clean & maintain the bikes especially after all the mud ! 
The vista's & scenery are spectacular around here. I would never have guessed that the Karoo region was quite so beautiful. Tomorrow we hope to get to Toekomst covering two stages of around 120km in total. I just hope the weather plays nice so we can ride ahead strongly instead of mucking around like we have been !
PS: Annie Jane you would have loved the decent off the mountain in the snow today. A serious adrenalin rush with a sheer drop off just a metre or so away from the edge !
PS: Annie Jane you would have loved the decent off the mountain in the snow today. A serious adrenalin rush with a sheer drop off just a metre or so away from the edge !
Am sitting here with a roaring fire and a few Amarula's thinking of you! Glad you are managing to keep your blog going so we keep in touch with your progress. Must be quite an experience in the snow. Hope the weather improves for you. Take care!
ReplyDeletewell done for keeping up the spirit and the daily blog too....looks like the hardest stuff is over now and it's blue skies up ahead
ReplyDeletesteve b rasa08
wow awesome pics!
ReplyDeleteno, no, stop telling me about all the nice downhills and singletrack and snow and everything that i'd love .... i can't start dreaming about doing this funride!