Photograph: Lush farmland near George

Further on towards George the town’s vehicle registration letters, CAW, seemed more and more apt: they stand for “cold and wet”.

Downhill freewheels became agonising as my entire body froze down to my fingertips. On the other hand, up hills were more pleasurable as they made me warmer.

Then Mellow Yellow’s rear wheel started to wobble. I lived with the problem by disconnecting the rear brakes but it did cause some degree of discomfort. I began to hope that the seemingly never-ending passes, however beautiful, would be behind me and I would soon be in the streets of George. But that was not to be.

One pass followed the next. I froze going downhill and warmed up going uphill until the road entered the suburbs of George, passing Saasveld Forestry College, which falls under the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University that was once known as the University of Port Elizabeth.

I headed for a backpackers where I leapt into a hot bath, helped myself to an extra duvet from one of the other beds and dived into a pneumonia-fearing sleep.

The next morning I headed into the upmarket town in search of another cycle repair shop where I was informed that my rear hub would need to be replaced and that I should return in the afternoon.

I had other chores to do, such as banking and visiting an internet café as well as treating myself to a breakfast at MacDonald’s.

Sitting down to a hash brown, scrambled egg and coffee I suddenly felt a strange emotion. It was somewhat different to the elated feeling cycling gave me that made me believe a bicycle and good scenery must be the best remedy for people contemplating ending their lives at the Van Staden’s River Bridge.

A Christmas carol, sung by Boney M, blared through the speakers in the restaurant. Suddenly I found myself feeling miserable and desperately missing my children. This was not logical at all. I had been in daily telephone contact with Owen and Wendy; I would be home with them for Christmas. I had a plane ticket to fly back to Johannesburg from Cape Town in time. What was the big deal?

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The cashier at the cycle shop apologised that they did not have the spare I needed but assured me the mechanic had fixed my rear wheel as best as he could.

I had no more business in George so I headed down to the town’s taxi rank in search of transport to Oudtshoorn, start of the next stage of the inaugural Tour of South Africa.

Reggae music blared from one of the many shops that surrounded the taxi rank. It seemed very different from the formal and upmarket rest of the city.

A taxi heading for Oudtshoorn was nearly full. Throughout Africa most motorised public transport works on departure time being when the vehicle is full rather than any timetable.

The driver confirmed that he was indeed going “oor-rie-berg (over the mountain)”, which I took to mean Oudtshoorn, over the Outeniqua Pass

However, he had a problem with my bike.

“You’ll have to pay for a second person,” he said.

That was OK. Still, having its handlebars against my chest and the cross bar intruding on the space of a young mother and her baby in front of me was not comfortable.

As we headed off “oor-rie-berg” I got chatting to a woman sitting beside me.

“Oudtshoorn is not much smaller than George,” she said.

“But there are more businesses in George, and more jobs, especially state jobs. There’s also better shopping.”

She said she had once lived in Johannesburg and nowhere other than Kensington, the suburb next door to mine. We chatted about familiar landmarks.

On our climb up the pass she told me it was in these mountains that disgraced cricketer Hansie Cronje was killed in a plane crash.

On the other side of the pass the greenery and wet of George suddenly gave way to dryness and semi-desert.

In an instant we had crossed from CAW country into the semi-desert of the Klein-Karoo.

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