January 20, 2021
Back on the road
George to near Sedgefield
The vehicle registration prefix for George is CAW, normally referred to as "Cold and Wet". This is appropriate because, relative to the rest of South Africa, George is colder and wetter. So it was no surprise to wake up to find the day cold and drizzly.
With a very short day ahead of us (we don't want to test Leigh's recovery too much) we waited until about nine o'clock before setting off. It was still raining but this was our first day in two months of being on the road that we would ride in real rain.
George is one of South Africa's smaller cities (I think only Grahamstown is smaller) but it must rate as one of the neatest and best organized. Despite being so small it was a full eight kilometers before we reached the limits of the built up area when it miraculously stopped raining.
This was not a bad thing because we were about to descend the pass into the Kaaimans River valley. This is a nasty section of road we had planned to avoid by going through the Prince Alfred Pass but Leigh's tooth put paid to that idea. The road down to the Kaaimans is four lanes of busy traffic with no shoulder to speak of. Somehow we made it through without any mishaps or having to curse any drivers too much.
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Once we got through the pass we entered the holiday town of The Wilderness. Its name is not that appropriate these days. Despite being adjacent to a section of the Garden Route National Park, it has become very developed, even spoiled.
The highlights of this section of the Garden Route National Park are the series of lakes and the coils of the Serpentine River that flows first from Rondevlei (round marsh) through Langvlei (long marsh) and finally Island lake before joining the Touw River that flows into the sea at Wilderness Beach.
We are spending the night just west of Sedgefield at Pine Lake Marina, a resort at which Leigh's sister's family spent an annual holiday for many years. It has become a bit tired since we were last here (at least ten years ago) and given the COVID situation it was rather silly of us to choose accommodation in a busy resort. None the less, nostalgia can be a brutal force. Apart from wandering around doing a bit of birding and playing a round of Putt-Putt (mini golf) we have had a restful afternoon in our cabin, far away from other guests.
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Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 2,016 km (1,252 miles)
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