February 5, 2017
A dry run for the dry run: Testing out the camping gear
We've never done camping while cycle touring so we felt that we needed a dry run. The campground at which we're staying near Port Elizabeth (Pine Lodge) was full for this weekend so we needed to find alternative accomodation for two nights. A glance at the weather forecast suggested that a ride in a westerly direction on Friday with a night at Oceanview Resort near Seaview followed by a ride back to Port Elizabeth for a night at my mother's house would make the best of the prevailing winds while giving us a chance to test out the camping gear.
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The short ride to Seaview was a breeze - 40km/h tailwinds made it as effortless as it could get. The climb up to Oceanview was a bit different. A dirt road followed by a brick track that quickly climbed over 200m in less than 3km meant it was hard work. I'm so proud of Leigh for riding the whole climb, especially after the resort owner had suggested we would have to push due to the steepness of the climb.
John Webb, the owner of Oceanview, is the former owner of a well known bike shop in Port Elizbeth (Webb's Cycles) and was a very good cyclist in his youth. He and his three brothers were regular representatives for the Eastern Province cycling squad. He and his wife twice to cycled down to Cape Town by tandem to take part in the Argus Cyle Tour (nothing like an 800km warmup before a 120km race) and he and his brothers had cycled to and from Cape Town a number of times together. At the age of eighty he is still very fit and vigourous.
Although we had no real glitches, we realised that living in the little 3 person tent is going to be a bit different to living in our off road camper. All the equipment seems fit for purpose but we will need to get ourselves a bit better organized, so I guess the dry run served it purpose.
Soon after 4am in the morning we got a call from my son to say that his wife had gone into labour and an hour and a half later we got another call to say that mother and daughter were doing well. So we packed up and cycled back to Port Elizabeth to meet our third grandchild.
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