Tour de Kruger - Getting there

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We needed to be in Rivonia by 06:30, which meant getting up at 04:30. Phil forgot to correct the time on his mobile to the local time-zone which is 1 hour ahead of the UK. This isn’t a major issue unless you’re using your phone as an alarm clock, which we were! Fortunately Ella wanted to go back to bed and knocked on our door at 05:00 to say good-bye. A short mad flap ensued which, as it turns out, was unnecessary as the mechanic joining us was 45mins late.

Our bus got under way shortly before 07:30, progress was pretty slow, and we lost a piece of the bus along the way. No one knows quite how or why, but driving through the Magoobaskloof Mountains, our driver noticed an excessive amount of sparks in his wing mirror. The side panel to the engine bay had come loose and was dragging along the road, brute force helped rid the bus entirely of it’s unsightly encumbrance and we were on our way again.

We reached the Phalaborwa gate of the Kruger National Park at about 14:30, another 2 hours through the park got us to Mopani Camp at 16:30. There was no stopping for game viewing, so those who were in the Kruger Park for the first time trying to take photos whilst traveling at 60kph are going to have a tough time convincing friends and family that the grey streak in the photo was in fact a bull elephant!

Once at Mopani we had to register for the ride and assemble the bikes straight away as they were being taken to the Giriyondo Border Post first thing in the morning. We had a little bother trying to pump up the tubeless tyres on the bikes (we’d had to let them down to get them in the bike boxes) but we were done and dusted just before sunset at 18:00.

That evening we had a fantastic meal in the Boma along with all the pre-ride speeches and route information etc. We were both extremely impressed with the quality of the organisation that went into putting an event of this magnitude together. 122 cyclists plus catering, medical, vehicle support, massage therapists, camera crew, camp set-up and breakdown to mention but a few.

Bed by 22:00 and another 04:30 start tomorrow. Yes we have remembered to correct the time on the mobile phone!

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Photos

Setting up Laura's bike
Phil getting to grips with the Scott Genius we hired from Fritz Pienaar Cycles

Comments

[Haydn]

nice choice in bikes dude
Hey Phil. It looks like you bought the same sort of bikes that I have. How much did they set you back in RSA?

[PSC2000]

re: nice choice in bikes dude
We rented the bikes from Fritz Pienaar Cycles, they were second hand but we were assured that the list price of the Scott Genius was R30000 and the Ellsworth Truth R48000. Both were fantastic bikes.