Thurs 25 June Day 11

I have lost track of what day it is.

One of the things that makes this race doable is the hospitality of the families we stay with. They are absolutely fantastic, they pre-prepared huge delicious meals, do our washing, and essentially give us all the support we need. (dankie Stephanie an familie).

Today Fiona, Greg and I started from Romansfomtein at 6:00. It was bitterly cold, snowing and a driving 40kph wind. We couldn't do the portage over the mountain because it was in the clouds with no visibility. We had to detour around the mountain on the road (50km) We stopped in Hoffmeyer at 14:30 and had some lunch, they are famous for their pies after the Freedom Challenge Tv show. I then bought some plastic gloves from the co-op. The famous SealSkinz gloves are a load of shit. They get soaked after an hour of riding in the rain, then when you take your hands out the inner liner comes out and you can't get them back together easily.

After Hofmeyer we left for Elantsberg. This has a portage over the mountain but due to the strong winds we only got to the start of the portage as the sun was setting and the snow started falling. We had to navigate the mountain I'm the dark. We eventually made it with only one mistake and arrived at 21:00 this evening.

Early start tomorrow as we are going to try and skip a support station.

My cycling shoes have eventually packed up from all the hiking in them. I will be calling tomorrow to arrange for Aileen to send me some more, and a space blanket sleeping bag and may be some waterproof gloves.

  There were no notes attached to this picture from Doug but he is smiling and not being rained on!

Note from Aileen – I managed to get shoes and the space blanket – there is no such thing as water proof gloves.  I also put some choccies and fudge in the parcel.  It should hopefully be in Jansenville tomorrow morning and the farmer will collect it from the town.