Day 10: Brazil to Port Nolloth

I left later than I had planned that morning as I ended up watching some of Timmo's GoPro footage of them doing some diamond diving the day before. Was good seeing how it looks under the surface. How it works is that they go out to the area they plan on harvesting from and unload this large pipe into the ocean. It essentially works like a large vacuum cleaner with the entry point of the hose being controlled by one or tow of the divers on the ocean floor and the main system doing all the sucking back up on the boat. They have to move around any large rocks and gravel that could get caught in the suction or prevent suction of smaller stuff, whilst trying to get as much of the smaller finer gravel sucked through the hose. This is all collected on the boat and stored in shipment bags which as I already mentioned, are sent away for processing and separation. After this informative video session I was off again. Part of me dreaded the gravel road seeing as it was so bumpy in the police car, but it proved alright. Getting to Kleinzee was pretty boring again as I had already ridden that section of about 17kms two days before. Thankfully I had my ipod to help me through.

Brazil in the distance.

Hello again Kleinzee.

Pretty empty.

Like a ghost town.

Goodbye.

It was then a 3km ride to Grootmis before turning onto a 50km dirt road heading towards Port Nolloth. The day turned hot and clear again, (so much for the cool Autumn weather hey) and the road was again slow going. Enough hills and sandy patches to keep me busy for a couple hours.

Sandy patch. A small taste of things to come a little later.

Looking back.

Looking forward.

Finally hit the tar road and it was about 16kms to Port Nolloth. I was so relieved to be back on tar again but man that last stretch felt like it took forever. Maybe I was just tired from the gravel road? Once in the town of Port Nolloth, I took a slow ride along the main road headed towards the coast looking for places to stay. The caravan park was too far so skipped it. I mean at the end of a day’s riding, an extra 4kms is pretty far. I stopped for some fish and chips plus a coke which was super tasty seeing as I was super hungry and ended up chatting to some guy who offered to let me stay at his place. I was stoked. He then felt that it wasn’t, how shall I say ‘accommodating’ enough and decided to get me a place somewhere else after leaving and coming back again. I was a bit confused. He had just offered a room then turned me down for some reason, which to be honest I didn’t care about as I just needed a place to sleep or camp. No fancy bells and whistles. He said I could stay at his friends place so that's where I went. I was expecting a free place to stay thinking that is what he had organised, but ended up staying at a self cater place. Maybe the guy I met just wanted to give his friend some business and saw me as the perfect client. So I settled in for the night glad happy to have arrived. Tomorrow I would hit Alexander Bay and with that complete the first main section of my journey. Or so I thought.

Distance: 78kms