Despite my protests to have a day where we get to lie in Jenny insisted on getting another early start. We had breakfast with Gavin and Lesley while admiring more of the amazing views from their house. About half way through breakfast we noticed some terrible looking weather headed our way and decided that we should hurry up and get on the road. We set the sat nav to include un-paved roads because it usually overestimates the delay caused. This time however we were in for a surprise.
We started by turning right out of their house onto 6km of dirt roads. We were capable of doing about 70 km/hr on this road but we soon hit sections of road where we could hardly do more than 10 km/hr. It was quite nice to finally feel like we were on a proper road trip, the only issue was that the dirt roads carried on for near 70 km. This meant that the ETA the sat nav predicted was more accurate than we would have liked. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, we found ourselves on a paved road headed to Fricksburg. Just before turning on to the paved road we stopped for Jenny to take a tortoise off the road and save it from getting hit by a car.
Now you would think that driving on paved roads would be much better than the washed out dirt roads of the previous 2 hours. Unfortunately this turned out not to be the case. The roads were so ridden with potholes that we had to weave in and out of both lanes to avoid seriously damaging the suspension of the car. When we had enough of the potholes we pulled over to fill up the car at a Shell station. The last time we got diesel I had noted the milage and we had filled the tank so this time I was keen to see what the gas milage had been since we stopped just short of Port Elizabeth. Turns out that even with the stretch of almost impassable dirt road we were getting 26 mpg!
Jenny decided that she wanted a turn driving and so we switched just after stopping at Shell and she took the last 150 km or so. Because of our delay on the dirt roads we decided to stick the original plan and stay in Ficksburg for the night. We pulled into town around 16:00 and phoned several guest houses to find a place to stay. We stopped by tourist information who were completely useless and so continued our search without using their advice. After phoning a few places who were full, Bella Rosa Guest House had a double room available for R290 a person and we were so tired we took the room immediately.
Once we unpacked the car we realised that we needed some food and so set off for a small cafe Jenny had spotted on the way into town called The Lemon Tree Cafe. It was really lovely inside and had some really pretty pieces of art, all of a similar design. If we had a house Jenny would have certainly bought something! The girl who ran it was very nice and we shared a sandwich, a coke and a milkshake before retiring back to our room for a long session of blog writing and a much needed very early night.
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