Heart & Sole Tour – Day 31: We hit dirt… and our bubble bursts!
Day 31? Mmmm. We don’t really know what day it is – and sometimes even who we are – on this magical mystery tour but, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m thinking that means we’ve been on the road for a month. Yowzerness!
And wonderfulness. We’re loving this. Some days more than others.
Coolness is our best friend on The Heart & Sole Tour. Take Tuesday (Day 30). Cool. Rainy. Make that very rainy. Perfect. Yesterday (Day 31) was hot. Extremely hot. Hard. These pictures may help to illustrate how it looks to unicycle in the two extremes of weather…
Day 30: Rather moist on the road, I'd say, but The Heartman revels in the coolness and ploughs steadily forth...
Day 31: Met eish, ja! Old Heartie cools off with drops of water melting from the ice he uses to pack his knees. It was so darn hot!
But… never mind the weather, we always have fun. Supported by “local knowledge”, we tried a shortcut yesterday. Heading towards Queenstown from Cofimvaba (thanks for the interview and your beautiful support, Warra and Heather!), we swung off on a road which would purportedly knock a lot of kilometres off our route and take us to Cathcart. About 12km of passable dirt road, we were told, and then about 30km of tar to Cathcart.
Dirt always appeals to two quite agricultural overgrown boys. Yeah, right. We discovered that the road, all 40km of it, was dirt. And rutted. With large dongas decorating it in the middle section. Unpassable.
Still, it popped us out of the “Heart & Sole Bubble” we have to occupy on the hard shoulder (if there is one!) on tar roads because of the traffic that hurtles past us. We were freed up to boss the dirt track. I, as back-up driver, left Heartie to monowheel safely on while I stopped to wave my camera at everything that moved.
And this is what moved me…
Oh, dear. Old Heartie seems to have fallen back... and is walking! Too much of heat. Too much of hill. Too much of holes in the road. Too much of tough!
So I turned my eye towards Mama Nature. And, as always, she was very giving. I called this little chap Ringo. He looks like one tough little beetle, doesn't he?
And then there were these two... playing, er, the giddy goats. Juicy leaves make a nice change from grass, don't they?
When the road became totally un-unicyclable, The Heartman and I got down to really having us some fun…
Um. What can I say? OK. I thought the late afternoon golden light so sublime, I thought I would try to embrace it. Whoo! Pic: Heartman
And we couldn’t end without the now almost statutory pic of old Heartie riding off into some kind of sunset, could we? No. That’s right…
OK. So it's not quite sunset. But The Heartman is up and at it and doing his thing. And just dig the cow and goat adding their bit. Nice, hey? Pics: Hatman
It’s more than nice, I tell you. We didn’t realise that the Eastern Cape could be so beautiful. It’s scenery such as this that keeps us going at times. You just have to take the dirt road to uncover the real beauty. Wait. I’m feeling a profound moment coming on. Somebody (who?) once said something like this: “It is better to experience the detours, the curves and the zigzags of life than to hurry to your final destination.” Something like that. The Heart and Sole Tour is something like that. And Geoff “The Heartman” Brink and I are truly privileged to have this experience.
* The Heart & Sole Tour would like to thank both Rotary clubs in Queenstown for their wonderful hospitality and generosity. To Bruce van der Meer of Queenstown Rotary… thank you for the potjie evening and your club’s kind donations! And a big thank you to Kruno and Goga Fuzy of the Lukhanji Sunset Rotary Club for the beautiful accommodation and breakfasts at their homely Novel Lodge! Rotary rocks! No, seriously.