South Africa - The Lions on the Road: Cycling London to Cape Town - page 279

the exact same panniers that I had. His however looked spanking new but were just as old.
He introduced himself as Wolfgang Hauf from Switzerland.
IofferedWolfgangsomecookiesandanappleandwestartedtocycletogetherside-
by-side chatting about our travels thus far. We continued until 5 p.m. and pulled off onto a
side-road where we approached a farm to ask the farmer if we could camp on his property.
Mr. Wessel Strydom welcomed us with open arms and introduced us to his family.
After setting up our camp, we were invited inside his home for a beer. Soon, we
were singing and playing the piano and guitar. Within the hour Wessel invited us to join
them for an amazing brai (barbecue.) I never had so much meat at one sitting. Our con-
versation hovered around Africa's politics which took us late into the night. We decided to
turninandreturnedtoourcamp.Thecoldairencouragedmetosettleintomysleepingbag
as quickly as possible. I wrote in my journal mentioning my great fortune on meeting such
a kind family and a friendly cycling companion. The last thing I remembered before I fell
asleep was looking above me to see the night sky full of stars. Welcome to South Africa.
In the morning, we were given some sweet coffee and by 7:30 a.m. we started the
day's adventure. The traffic was intense from the very start and the drivers gave us little
room as they passed us. Insanely, Wolfie would cycle almost in the middle of the lane
shouting at all the drivers who came near him…it was actually psychotic but entertaining.
We proceeded on flat terrain but as we approached the town of Louis Trichardt, we
started to climb the Soutpansberg Mountains. It began to rain near the top but by the time
we started our decent the rain stopped. We coasted into Louis Trichardt and stopped for a
coffee, to buy supplies and to change money. Wolfie mentioned that he wanted to head off
totheKrugerNationalParkandthattheturnoffwouldbecomingupshortly.Itwastoobad
for we got along well and he would have been an excellent riding partner.