After a long sleep and thankfully a decent breakfast, I began a relaxing short ride thanks to my long ride yesterday to a place called Welkom. Unlike yesterday, the road was a lot more relaxing and the terrain was less strenuous which I was happy about as my legs struggled to find a rhythm and ached a lot.
I cycled through a town called Allan Ridge. I wondered if the town was founded by a man called Allan Ridge and he proudly named it after himself or if in fact it was a ridge called Allan. I think it's quite strange to give a place the exact name as a person but that's maybe what has happened to a town near where I live called Lee-on-Solent. This name may have developed from Leon to a more acceptable (and less chavvy) Lee-on and so that sparked me to think of more places with names of people.
This helped pass the time and before I knew it, I had arrived in Welkom. I was extremely disappointed not to find a big sign saying "Welkom to Welkom" (I'm sad like that) but I was still happy to have finished another day cycling.
I cycled through the town of Welkom quite quickly despite it being slightly bigger than I had imagined. Welkom is a nice place. Clean, well built with a good mix of different people. I was enjoying the ride so much I had cycled through the town and found myself cycling around an industrial site on the exit side of the town.
My plan was to pootle around a little and possibly cycle onwards to the next small town as I still had a lot of daylight left and I was sure I was never going to find a campsite or a Guest House in an Industrial Estate. After a couple of minutes cycling past car garages and machine building hangars, I stumbled across a tiny sign saying "Chris and Sonja's Guest House" I was shocked to say the least but thought it must be a sign. (Excuse the pun)
I pulled up to the garden area of the guest house and had a look around. The place was decent; pool, outdoor projector screen, BBQ and seating area etc. I met Sonja and Chris and found out that all the rooms were sold out and that they were expecting a kids birthday party but they were both very keen to put me up and find somewhere where I could camp for free. We looked around the car park for a safe area but Chris said the big guard dogs may get a bit funny at night if I'm there. Chris had quite a few little dogs running around as well so i told him of my unfortunate past experiences with dogs. I asked him how many dogs he had, "14 all together" he said. 14!! Never mind Hyenas and Elephants. I feared for my life! The majority were only Corgis but its amazing what animals can kill if they hunt in packs!! If Lions can take down Elephants and Helicopters can take down King Kong then I can see no reason why a pack of 14 orchestrated Corgis can't dispose of myself, Beirdre and Nigel whilst we slept. Thankfully one of the guys that was staying in a room (David) piped up and said I could stay in his room for the night. David was studying in the area and his room mate wasn't starting for another week so I had myself a free bed for the night!
As it was Saturday and I had arrived early, I still had all the days sport to look forward to. David was expecting some mates to arrive at the bar so in the mean time I walked to the local shops and got something to eat. The place was pretty derelict but I didn't feel uncomfortable at all. As I walked I got a few shouts in Afrikaans that I had no idea what it meant. I smiled and waved and hoped that they didn't say "if you smile and wave at me I'm going to killing you"
When I arrived back at the guest house I found out that the shops I went to is quite a rough area and not even the white guys that live there go there. When I was told this it did click that there were no other white people but I'm used to living the last 6 months as the only white guy so I never really worried. Another classic case of ignorance is bliss. I wish I could take it as prejudice is void or equality is rife but the truth is that I have felt the most intimidated in South Africa compared to every other country unfortunately. I think this is mainly because they are the only country where there isn't such a majority of one race and from what I've learned by speaking to a range of people and noticing particularly billboards etc is that it seems to me that the South African government are trying to make up for apartheid by flipping the tables and suppressing the white people. It's sad to say and see but racism is still a major factor because of this and when I've sat down with a beer and talked to the locals, the subject of racism doesn't take long to enter into conversation.
I finished the night with Chris, Sonja, Dave, a few of his mates and a parent from the kids party called Jaag. We were having a good laugh and a few beers and Jaag then invited me for a fly on his micro light. If you don't what a micro light is then image a kite with an engine. This was a lovely offer and I'm certainly not the sort of person to pass up an opportunity like that!
The airport was just down the road and Jaag was going to pick me up at 6am so I would be back for breakfast at half 7, perfect! Soon after I hit the hay for at least a few hours sleep before what was going to be a very long day tomorrow.
The joys of meeting new people ay? you never know what tomorrow will bring!
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