6am Saturday morning the alarm goes off and we get up and start packing up the tent and loading up our bikes. The night before we had debated whether or not to order the cooked breakfast on offer at
Pioneer Camp, since the earliest they could serve it was 7am, and we had a long way to go. Of course as things worked out, we were not ready by 7am ourselves, we did very much enjoy the full cooked breakfast, and we only got away well after 8am, by the time we remembered to fill water bottles, put on sunscreen etc.
Peter warned me that a full English breakfast was not actually a good start to a cycling day, really you want pure carbs that are easy to digest. I'm not so sure, but we had barely gone 15mins when we hit this locked gate, which warned of a weak bridge, and we wondered if we should indeed have skipped breakfast, especially as my dear mother had sent us off with enough food for a week. I had just carefully zip-tied my panniers tight to the frame in multiple places to avoid them coming off, which proved rather irritating when Peter popped off his panniers in 2secs to lift over his bicycle, and i had to empty all the contents of mine on the ground, and then re-pack. Across the bridge was another gate. In between we had cycled back to the village before (up a steep hill) to see if anyone had a key (no), so all in all, in the first hour we made progress of only a couple of kilometers on a day we were aiming to do 90+km. And we were still in Lusaka, and all the 'difficult' terrain was ahead.
We battled along a dusty dirt road untill we came round a corner and lo and behold, tarmac! The tarmac led directly up to some large impressive gates, and we wondered which politician lived there- it turns out it's the President! - it was State Lodge. We liked the motto of the school just down the road:
Not long afterwards we hit this crossroads and decided 10am is not too early for a cold coke. As we sipped the cool nectar and chatted with the owner we had no idea how good a decision it was.
We had a GPS and map but every good traveller knows its a good idea to also check directions with locals. Also that its a bad idea to phrase the question as:
"Is this the way to ___" as you of course get the answer "YES", even if its not, and the conversation can only get more confusing.
The advice we were given ranged from:
"you will never manage" to
"it will take you 5 hours"
to this optimistic bunch who assured us:
"you look strong, you have gears so the hills feel soft, so maybe 1.5hrs" (we had 80km+ to go).
It wasn't just the distance - we had a strong dusty headwind that pushed us back and coated our throats, combined with roads that were sandy, or worse, loose fine silt that sapped the energy out of our legs. We battled along for hours and about 30km before we even reached the turn off south down the escarpment.
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| loose silt - awful |
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| dusty headwind and chain so dry it crunched |
We finally set off down the escarpment road around 2pm, having drank all our days water already, and were very relieved this village's well had just been fixed the day before and these cute kids had fun filling all our containers for us. The escarpment was magnificent with trees in spring new leaf, and an exciting road ahead of us.
As you will see below, the roads would only be moderately challenging if unladen and on full suspension mountain bikes: but with the weight we had, and bouncing around, it was very tense technical riding, and my fingers were cramping from braking so much. My front panniers also had a habit of jumping off and into the spokes on particularly steep bumpy sections which i did not appreciate. And at least mine is a mountain bike - Peter's touring bike is made for eating up smooth tarmac miles.
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| take me back to the nice tarmac roads in New Zealand |
We hit a semi-dried up stream around 4.30pm, and debated the merits of pressing on or camping there. We were both exhausted after 75+km of brutal riding, somewhat dehydrated, and very low on energy as we were too thirsty to eat - we were running out of water and there were no villages in this area. We estimated we had 30km to go, which would take at least 3hrs, and could maybe get into Kiambi with an hour or so of riding after dark. The 3 course meal waiting was a significant incentive too. However we concluded it would be wiser to camp and start afresh the next morning - and so set up camp on this lovely site next to some abandoned buildings. Only later would we hear this road had been landmined in the Zimbabwe independance days and this camp would most likely have been targeted!
It wasn't a brilliant night's sleep - there was a bush fire in the hills around us, we were terribly thirty and rationing our water, and worst of all, my thermarest was totally flat with 2 holes in it, and the ground was extremely hard. And Peter had a super-luxurious thick mattress beside me.
When we went down for a wash in a pond, I discovered that what I thought were nicely tanned legs, were in fact 'African red dust fake tan'.
Trying not to think of the 3 course dinner currently being served up in our absence, we cooked up a pretty tasty soya 'spag bol', but were too thirsty to eat much.
We set off at 7am the next morning hoping to be on the river fishing by mid-morning, but were immeadiately met by a monster hill that went on and on. In fact considering we were going 800m DOWN the escarpment, we did an awful lot of UP. This hill in particular - too steep and loose to cycle - was very tough even in the early morning cool, and we would probably have ended up sleeping half way up it had we attempted it the night before.
This is a junction at the bottom of the escarpment. Nice there was a sign, but it was a little confusing as it lay upside down - should we follow the direction it pointed now, which seemed right to us, or the opposite (wrong?) way if it was the right way up??
Chief navigator just wanted to go back to bed.
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| We arrived at the metropolis of KAMBALE, which even had a sign, but seemed a little under developed and under populated to us |
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| take a deep breath, more sand |
We were severely thirsty by the time we finally reached a well that had some water in it (some are dry) and could hardly wait for the 10mins for the purification tablets to kick in. Never has warm, chemical and plastic tasting water tasted so good! We drank a lot.
Please support organisations that put in water wells in villages!
We finally hit the 'main road' thinking we were there, and were very discouraged to find it was another 9km. Worst of all, the road had just been graded and was thick loose gravel, and yes we had a headwind. Its official: when cycling there is only one type of wind- a headwind. That was the longest 9km ever, as nice folk in air conditioned 4x4's blasted past us, waving curiously, and leaving us in dust, as we battled away at a pathetic 8-9km/hr.
As we got near, we picked up two out-riders who guided us on a back-path that was not exactly a shortcut, but was not sandy, to the welcome gates of
Kiambi. At one point the leader, who was carrying 20l of petrol, called out nervously over his shoulder to slow down as there was a gentle slope down. After what we had just come down i was puzzled, but then saw his method of braking: foot pressed on tyre.
We had made it - 50% late, but we made it. The 90km, one day trip, was in fact 114km and took an additional 5 hard hours on the second day. We wanted to hug the guard on the gate as we told him how happy we were to have arrived, how we had battled with sand and he joyously assured us there was no more sand, it was only a couple of hundred meters of "hard stony road" to reception. We set off round the corner, to be faced with about 1km of, yes, sand. Thanks guard.
Anyway, we were soon met by the wonderful Janine Woods who heads up the staff at Kiambi (they all seemed relieved to actually see us), she immeadiately organised us some food, and we cant thank her enough for looking after us so well - more to come.
Ahh the banks of the mighty Zambezi River..
.. and a long dreamt of cold drink (quickly followed by another :)
