Photograph: My cousins who dragged me up Table Mountain

I had a budget that was the equivalent of living at home in Johannesburg for the time I was cycling. It ran dry in Ladismith. I was also running out of time to more-or-less complete the inaugural route of the Tour of and South Africa.

I therefore decided to leave out the rest of the route of the tour. This would involve leaving out the remainder of the Klein-Karoo stage, to Barrydale and Swellendam, as well as the section between Hermanus and Stellenbosch.

I took off the front wheel off Mellow Yellow and laid out my luggage on the road out of Ladismith, towards Cape Town.

Towerkop was shrouded in mist, which showed little sign of clearing. So much for the intense heat of the past two days. It was chilly standing on the roadside until a Cape Town-bound mini-bus taxi, pulling a trailer, stopped.

The driver loaded up Mellow Yellow and I took a front seat.

The taxi sped through Barrydale, Ashton, Montagu, Robertson and Worcester and finally reached the Mother City. 

How strange it felt covering that distance in three hours when, on Mellow Yellow, it would have taken about four days.

COMMENT: Do you ever think about what a powerful source of energy oil is; how slower life must have been before oil-powered engines came into existence?

On reaching Cape Town my cousin who I met there said, “You must be fit enough to climb Table Mountain with us tomorrow.”

“Sure,” I replied.

We made an early start using the pathway up Platteklip Gorge, which is a steep route and close to the famous cable car.

Cape Town can get very hot around Christmas so we needed the coolness of the morning. Coming down it was very hot and we felt sorry for people who had slept in and were having to climb in the heat.

I found to my horror that the leg muscles used for cycling and those used to climb up and down steep mountain paths do not get along well with one another. I spent the next four days in agony!

It was also a hot day when I cycled across Cape Town to the airport to catch my flight back to Johannesburg in time for Christmas.

I checked in for my flight sweating like a pig.

“The poor dude who has to sit next to me,” I thought.

I ripped out another shirt from my panniers. It was still damp because I had washed it the night before.

When I put it on I realised it stank worse than my sweaty shirt. It was just another type of pong.

So went in search of some deodorant.

The only stuff available was more expensive than I had hoped, but I felt I had no choice. For the sake of whoever would be sitting next to me I had to smell of something more pleasant than a damp shirt, which had been close to growing mould on it while wrapped up in my panniers as I cycled across Cape Town.

When all the passengers were on board and I was seated at my window perch, no one was next to me. The plane was half empty. Most people were obviously already at their Christmas destinations.

I could have been in my sweaty shirt after all!

— THE END —

COMMENT: Should the author have gone to all the trouble of changing his shirt and buying deodorant?