My strategy for today was the same: ride the train at a low pace and conserve as much energy as possible. I ended up in a train with Pete, Elaine, Jerome, Mike and Tom. We were riding strong, taking breaks after ever 30k. Somewhere during our 2nd stretch I was up front and a car comming ahead was on our lane, overtaking a truck comming ahead. The guy was riding at an insane speed and wouldn’t brake or diverge. Our options as a train were limited too, because with 30k an hour we can’t just ride our bikes of the road and into the gravel...
I yelled “car ahead!” to inform the riders behind me about the oncomming car and braced myself for the gush of air that would come from the passing car. The car passed and as it did I heard one of the riders behind me come down, which gave me quite a scare because the last thing we want is someone to be hit by a car.
We pulled over on the side of the road and when I looked back I saw Jerome already standing on his feet again. Apparantly Tom and Jerome had touched wheels, which was enough to bring Jerome out of balance. He came off with just a scraped knee, some sprained muscles and a good scare. Having come this close to being hit by a car left him a bit shaky though, so we called Tallis for a pick up. Once he was loaded up we continued our way, taking extra notice of idiot cars...
We made it to lunch oke and after that had a 23k ride to the Town of Gobabis, where we had drinks and ice cream. Tom was getting tired and decided to finish the day by himself, so after Gobabis our train had 4p left. We took a right turn an rode straight into the wind, which had gradually picked up during the day and by now had become quite gruelling. 30k before the end of the ride Pete and Elaine decided to continue on their own because Elaine was struggeling with the wind a bit. Mike and I joined another train, but it had a lot of tired people in it, which I could tell by how some of them swayed and own they kept accelerating and slowing down again, continuously.
Cycling in this train with tired people didn’t feel comfortable to me, so I left the train and decided to pound my way through the last 30k of wind. At this point my energy consuming strategy of the last week paid of, because I had more than enough energy left to make it to camp :-)
4 days done of this insane 5 day stretch. However, mush say that my bum starts to hurt after some 670k on the bike during the last 4 days :-)
We strarted the day with mist!
Impressive sunrise
Later skies turned blue again though :-)
Riding the train!
Still flat, with bush on both sides of the road... colors are changing a bit though...
German church in Gobabis...
Trans Kalahari Railway
Reaching Witvlei, which seems to be built around this petrol station....
Beautifull sunset...