Snow in Little Karoo!

Trip Start Feb 01, 2007
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Trip End May 30, 2007


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Flag of South Africa  ,
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

"Wow!  The snow has come early!" is what the local people here in the Little Karoo are telling us as we bike along route 62.  Lucky for us, the mountains north of us, the Swartberg are dusted with snow which really highlights the texture and makes for nice pictures.  We are still avoiding Cape Town because our flight isn't for a week and the biking here on 62 is much more interesting then the highway.  Route 62 is very nice for biking, not too much traffic and loads of views to distract you from the fact that you're still sitting on a bike seat.  Ow.
We heard the forecast of a big rain and wind storm marching over Cape Town towards us on Friday night.  Had the winds blowing at our backs Saturday and just made it into a tiny town, Barrydale before the rain started.  It rained most of Sunday and Monday but Barrydale was a hospitable town and we enjoyed hanging out in their cafe and talking to the locals.  At one point, when the it wasn't hailing, we biked without our junk over Tradouw Pass to admire more mountain views 01-Wine country near Montagu
01-Wine country near Montagu
 .  Tuesday, hoping the storm had run it's course, we continued towards Oudtshoorn.
Feeling we missed out on a lot of the tourism stuff, always biking to get to the next town, we took a tour of an Ostrich farm.  Got to feed the Ostrich, which is a bit unnerving those long necks with the beak at the end. Sort of felt like feeding a jack hammer.  Matt was brave enough to ride an Ostrich!  This wasn't a "walk around the track while being lead pony" ride.  It was Matt gets on the bird and the guy gives the bird a healthy slap and off they go!  What a hoot!
It was then up and over Robinson Pass in the Outeniekwaberic mountains and down towards the Indian Ocean, which is quite a bit colder here then up in Tanzania.  What a view from the ridge!
We then biked up to George and are planning on getting a bus from there to Stellenbosch.  That way we're about 50km out of Cape Town and can say that we biked into the big city.  Whooie, 6700km (almost 4000 miles) from Moshi Tanzania!  Man, I'm hungry.
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