Long Tom, Hazyview, White River and Back

We woke up in the morning refreshed from a great night's sleep on really great beds! We've concluded that a holiday cottage needs four things to make it a success: It needs to be clean, have good beds, good bath/shower, and basic but decently equipped kitchen. Gunyatoo had all of these!

Our plan for today was to explore and cycle the Long Tom, explore Sabie and then drive the scenic route through to Hazyview and White River and back with Theo and his dad riding part of the road from White River back to Sabie.

We headed out after a hearty breakfast and up the Long Tom, stopping to explore a replica of the famous cannon. On the other side of the top there is some stone-pile grafitti that Theo remembered all the way from a school tour he did when he was 12. Unfortunately it has become a bit overgrown and not nearly as dramatic as it used to be. (You can see a "tweaked" photo here...) What is striking is how well the lettering on the stone "writing" has been done - the letters even have the serifs (the little pointy bits on the "U" and other letters!) Maybe it will be tidied up some time...

Then we did the ride down to Sabie. It wasn't particularly challenging from a fitness point of view and we will still have to come back some time to ride up, but for now it was nice to be able to ride the pass and enjoy it from the bicycle.

While we finished the ride, Caleb and the ladies explored Sabie and the second-hand bookshop and then we went for a delicious lunch at the Fig Tree restaurant where we had a lovely meal and Theo and his dad were able to connect through their Internet hotspot and deal with crucial mail and such-like.

After lunch we hit the road to Hazyview and then to Whiteriver. These are really pretty drives that reveal the terrain and forestry very nicely. Then we got onto the bikes again planning to ride the 40kms back to Sabie, but we realised that we were running out of daylight (and steam!) and so we phoned the backup team who came to fetch us. We did about 20kms and we climbed nearly 500m.

We caught a stunning sunset over Sabie and headed back to Gunyatoo where Theo braaied while his Dad and Caleb showered at the donkey! We were good and hungry. It was a great day!