Heart & Sole Tour – Day 40: Roll up, roll up, to the AmaOneTyre circus!
I have so many stories to tell on this rather neglected Heart and Sole Tour blog that I don’t know where to start.
So I’ll start here. I am staring out of the window of yet another B&B at a beautiful bougainvillea. Its flowers are a rich colour. I don’t know. Purple? Pink? Possibly crimson red? All of those. Magenta. Yes, that’s it. Over and above this abundant diffusion of magenta is the lichen-encrusted slate roof of what I think is St Bartholomew’s church in Grahamstown.
This view is enriching. As it is to be in Grahamstown, which seems terribly civilised after days of hard and sweaty slog on the hills and mountain passes of the road which brought our unicycling madness down from Cathcart in the Eastern Cape.
It has been hard. It has been beautiful. And it has been, yes, enriching. When Geoff “Heartman” Brink and I rolled out of Durban on December 28, we did not dare to dream that this magical mystery tour would bring us so much enrichment. And, thankfully, this has brought me a theme for this post. Children. How much they enrich our lives!
And how they have enriched this Heart and Sole unicycle tour from Durban to Cape Town. Most of us see our first unicycle when the circus comes to town, ridden as it is by a clown called Charlie with a big red nose, pancaked face and blue pantaloons. We appear to have reached places in South Africa where no circus or unicycling Charlie has gone before. For these children, The Heartman’s “bicycle that has lost a wheel” is greeted with disbelief and no little delight.
Allow me to illustrate this for you, may I?
See? The Heartman and his "AmaOneTyre" have this kind of effect on children...
We saw this little school in the middle of a field outside Queenstown and rode down the dirt road leading to it. This is the welcome we received!
These Balmoral schoolgirls, fresh from a swimming gala, were waiting in biting cold at the top of a mountain pass to cheer us on!
The Heartman was asked if he wouldn't mind telling the children of Yellowwoods Primary, near Fort Beaufort, what on earth he was doing riding a unicycle from Durban to Cape Town. He seized the opportunity to tell the kids that, when doing something to tell the world about the horror of landmines, it's worth attempting to achieve what may at first appear impossible!
This little sweetheart seemed entranced by The Heartman's tales of derring-do! Pictures: Hatman
Children. Too much of beautifulness. If this Heart and Sole Tour has inspired just one of these children to begin to grasp that riding a unicycle 1,900km across South Africa (or doing something similarly unconventional) can help a little to improve the world in which they live, then our crazy and wondrous roadtrip will have achieved a lot more than simply alert some people to the devastation that landmines continue to cause.
This, for us, is enrichment on a grand scale.
* Old Heartie and I are about to perform live on behalf of the Rhodes University Live Music Society at an “O Week” event for new enrolments on campus. More on that and how a wonderful couple – Jonathan and Jane Roberts – lifted us up and then carried The Heart & Sole Tour over the notorious Ecco Pass and into Grahamstown later!
February 4th, 2010 at 12:26
wonderful wonderful WONDERFUL
have been waiting despretely for some news – this is just awesome and love hearing the stories.
indeed enriching – indeed.
i too know how heartman and hatman (yes you two) LOVE THE LITTLE CHILDREN, how heartwarming for you both – much like the little children that captured your hearts in mozams affected by the landmines as we’ve seen in the footage.
hope all goes well today in Grahamstown and Varsity
chat to you later my heartman
big loves from myself and our 3 other 4 legged children at the bush palace
MWHHHHHHA !
February 5th, 2010 at 08:30
All fantastic. Great pics. Wish I were there. Keep it up boys!
February 5th, 2010 at 20:42
I just want to let you know that I look forward to each and every posting. As someone living in the U.S. now, most of the news I read about SA is depressing and chips away at my hope for the country-that-could-be-great. Of course what you’re doing to spread awareness of landmines is important but for me, personally, what has been even more important is that your blog is restoring my hope. Thank you, thank you.
February 6th, 2010 at 14:23
Just beautiful, Susan! No matter how good things are, it is easy to find fault. It is the nature of the media to report on the bad news which is far more easily accessible to it. It is when you go out into the wondrous country that is South Africa and engage with the people who are largely unheard that you are truly embraced by the beauty that is in their hearts. Rich, poor, black, white, Christian, Muslim, young, old… South Africans must have the warmest hearts of anybody anywhere. We are constantly blown away by the beauty of this wonderful roadtrip! Spread the love, Fred
February 6th, 2010 at 14:27
How lovely to see you turn up on here, Darj! Wish you were here to share in this special thing. We’ve just been asked to not sleep under a tree in a game reserve but to come inside and kip in the staff lounge. Apparently the Big Five roam freely around here and management was a tad concerned that we might have our toes nibbled on while we slept! Too beautiful!