Steytlerville - Tiny step 2: A week in the Karoo - CycleBlaze

January 9, 2022

Steytlerville

If you have been paying attention you might have noticed that the start of this mini tour was delayed by two days.  The reason for the delay was that the temperatures forecast for the Steytlerville district for the past two days were over forty degrees which would have made cycling and camping a little less pleasant.  As it turns out, the mercury only reached thirty nine degrees today by the time we reached Steytlerville.  The bearings in the Landrover's interior fan decided to give up the ghost this past week so we couldn't use the vehicle's aircon and had to sweat  it out with the windows and the classic front vents open.

The Landy at our digs with windows and vents open.
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Our base in Steytlerville is the Baviaans Bike Packers.  We were met there by very pleasant and helpful Stacey, the daughter of the owners.  The photos I have used for the cover page of this journal are hers, nicked from their Facebook page.  Her father was a motor cyclist and off road motor cyclists are very much a focus of their business.  None the less, the establishment is more polished than most bikers places and we have the place to ourselves.  We will be back here in a few day's time and then again at the end of the tour.   I feel quite comfortable here and am pleased that we have discovered it.

Baviaan's Bike Packers.
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The garden provided a few birds, this one being an Acacia Pied Barbet (Tricholaema leucomelas) at it's nest hole in the dryish tree in the center of the photo above.
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I had earlier bragged that we have managed to not lose too much fitness since returning from Mexico but by the time we start cycling tomorrow it will be a week since we were last on our bicycles.  At our age our fitness has the half-life of Be-8 so we will certainly be taking easy to start off with.  The next three days will all be on unpaved roads so we will have an excuse to cycle slowly.  The weather forecast suggests a few hot days this next week.  I fear a bit of character building awaits us.

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Scott AndersonYes, I can see your point. 39 degrees does sound much more pleasant than 40!
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2 years ago
Jean-Marc StrydomTo Scott AndersonArbitrary boundaries can be terrible things. Thirty is noticeably hotter than twenty nine as well.
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2 years ago