Afrique 5 – ROBERSTON TO OUTSHOORN

 From Robertson till Ashton, the road is flat and goes by farm land, uninteresting. Then it climbs a bit to join Montagu. And it passes through a defile, made by a river. Well when the mountain growed the river was already there. And it digged the growing mountain to maintain here, and by the way it made the defile. We take a lot of stops to look at the yellow and orange cliffs, at the river bed and at the small bush on the slopes. Then we take the usual lunch in Montagu, chicken chips, and continue way to Barrydale. The road follows between two ranges of mountains, in a large valley, farm land, wineries apples and peers. On right during ten km the cliffs are straight, hight, and colourful. Red, orange, yellow, green, purple. Then it becomes more comun, with slope covered with small shrubs, till Barydale. We camp behind a school, empty as it is saturday.

Between Montagu and Barrydale, the climb is 500 m, but all by steep hills, which makes it very more difficult. Then till Ladismith there are 4 long climbs, in a desolate countryside, a large valley between two slopes in the distance, all that covered by the small shrubs and gravel. Only one plant is beautiful, a smal trunk and at the top a big red flower with large petals, growing by groups. We camp in a farm, 200 cows for milk. Ladismith is a small town, and i see only old people or idiots and blacks laying on the steps of the supermarket. Certainly it i a dead town, without any job, and all the valids moved away.

The shrubs land continue 10 km after Ladismith, and then comes back the farm land, more fields than wineries. We pass two long climbs. We stop first in Zoar, a local village with the meeting shop. Then we continue a few km till the mission. When we see office building, we ask to camp. Well in fact it is not any more the mission. In 1986 the mission sold half to the governemnt, and that half is now a gvnt farm, with 400 cows for milk, and 25 workers. In front the office a restaurant opened 3 months ago, and we camp on the yard. We have a good talk with the owners. And also we eat for supper a big and very good pizza each, and an english breackfast, all cheap.
Then we have two big climbs more, 500 m high climbing. We continue till Calizdorp by the same countryside, farm land with fields and fruit trees, in a large valley between two slopes with shrubs. Everywhere before the irrigation it was only the shrubs. After Calizdorp we have an other long climb till 500 m. Then it turns smoothy hills. The country side becomes again only shrubs between two slopes in the distance. I regret a bit that we didnt choose to go by the gravel road, which goes along the south slope, with farms and wineries. We can see it in the distance. Well some spin shrubs are blooming with yellow small flowers. We stop in the only building we see, apart 2 expensive farm lodges, a primary school. We enter, feed the bottles with water, and go behind, in the field which is used by part as football play field. We go 100 m inside by the bush of grass, and we pitch the tent. The ground is very sandy. During the night it starts to rain, sometime heavily. And it continues to rain all night and all morning.
So we move in the morning, in the cold wind and heavy rain, till Outshoorn, by the same boring countryside. Now i am very happy we didnt take the gravel road, which would be very muddy and wet, hard to cycle. On the asfalt we go fast by the smoothy hills. We arrive all wet in the hostel, where we had booked a comfortable room for 2 nights. It continues to rain all afternoon and all night.