Day 35: Bray to road camp.

Shortly after leaving Bray my back tyre went flat again. What?! Had my nigh perfect patching skills revealed themselves to be nothing more than a sham lie. I stopped. Pumped my tyre and went on. Unlike a bloated corpse filling with gas, my back tyre decided to once again go flat. Clearly the patch wasn’t working. So everything was unloaded, bike turned upside down, and I commenced bike surgery. Turns out the sludge from inside the tube had found a way to leak out from under the patch. Clearly it was a big thorn I had ridden over yesterday afternoon. I decided to use a different patch as the quick patch was clearly no match for this job. So I used the old school one, where you use glue. Yeah, that one. After pumping my tyre and loading my bike I was off. What a waste of time I thought. I could have been way further.(Further to what Jones? You have days of gravel road ahead of you so just chill ok?)

Thanks again you lovely people.

Again! Really? Just gotta pit stop and sort it out.

My target for the day was a spot called Moloporivier but I just decided to ride till 5pm and stop wherever I was. That worked out fine. I came to a fork in the road whereby I swung left following the border some more. Stopped at a café before heading on. After a while I met a guy walking towards me during one of my food stops. His name was Brian and he was from Zimbabwe. He was also surprised by what I was doing and he wished me well. Also quite a friendly chap. I asked him where he was going with his big luggage sack and he told me some farmhouse that I had passed a little while earlier. I think he mentioned something about playing soccer there. So I bid him farewell. 5oclock came and I pulled off to the side of the road. 

Trees. Dead or alive. Always interesting.

Keep moooving two wheeler!

During dinner I was surprised to hear someone walking past outside and talking to me. Immediately my stranger danger alarm went off but I stayed calm and carried on eating all while answering the stranger’s questions. (Good plan Jones, No fight, no flight, just eat instead) He addressed me as his friend and asked what I was doing? I told him I was busy eating. He spoke with a feint acknowledgement of who I was, but I had honestly no idea who the hell I was talking too. I wished him gone to be honest. Stranger danger, in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, remember?! So he bid me farewell and carried on walking to wherever he was going. I slowly released the blade from the leatherman I had been clutching in my hands for the last few seconds. Then I finished my meal.

I decided to also just replace my back tube that night instead of doing it the next morning as it had gone flat again. Better just get it over with seeing as the other patch wasn’t working to well either. So under the cover of night, like a ninja, I changed my tube. Then I fell asleep, with the grimy hands of satisfaction.

Distance 55kms