We left Toekomst farm this morning @ around 06:30am and headed off to go around Darlington dam & thru Addo Elephant park. We made it past the dam without incident, but unfortunately made a navigation error shortly thereafter and headed up a district road on the wrong side of the koppies. It cost us an hour but we worked out the right way and turned around. 
To make matters worse the heavens opened up and rained steadily for the next 5 hours. It's soul destroying to have to ride in rain & mud up an old disused jeep track for almost 2hrs and then have to cover the next 70km up some long steep inclines on muddy roads ! We eventually made it to Kleinpoort @ around 16:30pm and decided to stop for a pie & coke. We were starving from riding so hard in the mud. Fortunately the last 30km was fairly flat & Brett, Estelle, Erol & myself made good progress to get into Bucklands farm @ 19:00pm.
It certainly wasn't one of our better days, what with navigation issues and two time consuming mechanicals to sort out. Nonetheless we made it in safely to a welcoming coffee from Hannes & his daughter Lisa, hot soup & a great Bucklands farm dinner which included venison pie.
We rode an extra 15 km on top of the 95km of the stage today, but what's a few extra k's between friends ? Tomorrow is not going to be fun either (95km) with a number of portages around the Baviaans area.
PS: Gerrit dankie vir jou sms'se. Die aanmoediging beteken baie vir my veral op die moelike reen en modder dae waneer my knie so seer raak. Ek wardeur dit vreeslik dat jy die tyd vat om te sms. Weereens dankie.
hey gadget boy thank you SO MUCH for the regular updates! please kep it coming, it's so good to hear that you all are still going strong ... good luck with the river crossings in the baviaans, water might be cold after last week - will be thinking of you!
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