We smoked it today

Finally, we had a brilliant happy day of riding.

We started out at 5.20 am with General Carl Crous marshalling his 10 troops. We had caught Derek (Gadget) and Sean (the Gardner) who had started the day before us. So the SS was pretty full.

We all trailed in Carl's wake as he charged to the Struishoek descent. That was a wicked descent as good as it gets on any mountain pass. Thanks to Dave and Verity for the extremely well marked white stones showing the way down through the thick bush.

Sean, Doug and I headed out from the bottom of the descent making good time by riding in an echelon and constantly rotating.

We reached the SS at Vandeventerskraal by 13H15 where a good lunch waited.

Mindful of the light left, we headed out to crack the last 50km.

What an awesome ride. The three of us had a ball. The descent off Kadoekop was an unbelievable 14km which was really wicked.

Then it was a final 15km to the legendary hospitality at Toekomst.

The weather was fantastic, the route stunning although a serious amount of pushing but another two stages in one day.

Thanks to everyone who sends messages and to Jean, Wendy and the Alexanders for the messages in my boxes.

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