Day 26: Upington to road rest stop on R360

Got up early but not too early and loaded my bike big time as I had a long ride ahead of me for the next two days before I would hit the next town. Said cheers to my pal Warren and was off.

Cheers Warren. Good seeing you again bru.

Now I had initially planned on carrying on up the N14 through to Vryburg then up to Mafikeng, but after riding for about 15mins I stopped and paused, for about 10mins. I was still playing it safe and sticking to my old plan. If I wanted to get as much perimeter riding done I would have to head North. That meant my next town was Askham, which was 176kms away. This was just a little further than my plan to ride to Olifantshoek along the N14. I had been debating on taking this route for the past week with me going back and forth between the options. Now originally I thought that it would be awesome riding along the river again based on my Orange River experience as there were also roads that went along the Molopo and Kuruman River, but I was disappointed to find out that these were rain rivers and were actually dry at the moment. Wow, what a bummer I thought. I would be riding along a dried up river bed. Sounded kak boring to me. Having found out that little buzzkilling factoid I then decided to just go along the N14 as planned or at least see how I felt when leaving Upington. Clearly something was telling me to go North. So I said, ‘fuck it, let’s do this’.

So I headed for Askham. Having made my choice I now felt entirely different having broken away from my planned route. It felt good somewhat, as I was beginning to actually adventure in some weird way with feel leading the way a bit. I had changed plans and even now looking back, it was the right thing to do. I was a little pissed off at myself though as I now had this extra bit of riding do to going back into Upington to search for the R360 heading North. That on top of the moerse long distance I had to cover over the next two days. Finally I got onto the R360 and headed towards Askham. There was no going back now. (Easy Jones. You not riding into war now. Just riding a bike is all)

Why not just a round 200kms Askham? I mean you so far already.

On top of the long distance to Askham I was met again by my arch nemesis, Mr. Headwind. Though not as bad as it had been when I left Port Nolloth. I still felt that this was now going to be a slog of note these next two days.

As I left Upington, my ipod on random, as always, wisely selected Sia’s ‘Breathe Me’. I was immediately choked up by emotion and brought to tears alongside the road sobbing big time. Wow, thanks a lot Ipod. Of all the songs to have chosen for me to begin a long ass ride into the wind you choose that heart aching gem. All my heavy metal rock loving credibility gone, just like that.  So I listened and cried (that’s it Jones, don’t hold back, let it out) as I rode for a while before stopping at Spitskop Nature Reserve to fill up some water. I was being pedantic as I was on the road for less than an hour but like I said, the next town was only at the end of tomorrows ride.

Tiniest tortoise I encoutered. Should just leave these things alone as this one ended up peeing on me and my bike.

Not much to say about the road. It was long, fairly straight with the usual open spaces for the area. Very quiet. The wind kept up its job of adding to the suck. But I was determined to cycle at least more than half way before calling it a day which I’m glad to say I did. As became the routine, when it was time to call it a day, I would just take it slow till something comes up and I was glad to found a rest stop beside the road. This was perfect. It was off the road so it was safe from passing cars but other than that, nothing. So, I guess not safe. So what? I was pretty much in the middle of nowhere so who would care about a dude camping here. I would only find out tomorrow morning.

Miles and miles of more open space. Perfect for panorama shots.

Distance: 95kms