A note from Sean Keener, BootsnAll Co-founder: Alastair Humphreys is an old friend of BootsnAll. He sent us these dispatches as he cycled around the world. In 2004 he came through Portland, stayed with us for a few days, and we hosted an event at our office to help him raise money along the way. He kept going, and he has done so much more since.
"This is fulfilling your dream. Never forget that and smile every time you remember that." written in a letter to me by SB, 2001
"You don't know unless you try"
phrase frequently used in the book 'Bravo
Two Zero'
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
Gladiator
How can I begin to get my head round it all? I have now ridden a bicycle from my front door in England to Cape Town in South Africa (422 days, 20,300km, 27 countries). What an odd thing to have done. This last leg has been a nostalgia tour, a trip down all the memory lanes of Europe, the Middle East and Africa as I plodded my way to the Cape. Thinking back - faces, places, feelings. Wasn't so-and-so beautiful?! How crazy was that place?! How happy was I then?! How on earth did I keep going after so-and-so?! Half forgetting the wandering and the pain, half remembering days gone by. And so on and so on until here I am, champagne bottle in hand feeling stunned and muted to be sat beneath the famous Table Mountain, and perplexed by just how ordinary I feel on this day I have strived towards for so long.
This final stage has not all been about old memories - I have been forging new ones too. From the lush cliffs of the Wild Coast I watched dolphins powerfully surfing the green swell below. Out alone in the silver waves at the first hint of dawn I wondered if my own personal surfing ineptitude may in some way be linked to my Union Jack shorts and total absence of suntan. In a hopeless Transkei shanty town I watched a gang of leering young men make throat-slitting gestures at me as I fumbled to repair a puncture beside the road. "Come on tyre - stay up, stay up," I prayed. "You too sun - stay up! Stay up!" as the warm light slunk lower and the shadows lengthened, reaching towards dark, night time anarchy.
Grahamstown was unlike anything I had seen on this extraordinary continent - a small English market town complete even with squally puddles and trees jostled by mad, random wind. Amongst all the churches and Olde Shoppes is Rhodes University; a reminder for me of my life in ages past: optional academia, highbrow male entertainment such as putting traffic cones on your head and beautiful girls diligently sitting at computers all around you. I was escorted out of town. Ten boys from St. Andrew's Prep School riding energetically out in front and three Rhodes students forming a much more sedate rearguard.
Leeuwenbosch Country House looked after me regally - great characters, hilarious anecdotes and a fabulous old cellar pub. On the wall was an antique poacher's shotgun. It looked just like an ordinary country gent's walking stick yet it was also a shotgun! Now that would have given all those stone throwing brats in Ethiopia a shock... At Shamwari I finally encountered lions, huge, arrogant and considerably closer up than I might have planned.
Is there anything worse than being in a city where nobody knows your name? In Port Elizabeth I read my newspaper and watched TV in a bar jammed with partying, laughing people. Time for an early night.
For any armchair surfer and fan of the film Endless Summer a trip to the legendary Jeffrey's Bay is a must. From there I knocked off a 170km day for old times' sake, taking time to pause on Bloukrans Bridge. Crouching low and with exaggerated slowness and care I peered reluctantly over the edge and down, down, down a ludicrous 216 metres - the view of the World's Highest Bungee Jump. Knees shaking I rode on in search of a nice restorative cup of tea instead.
The renowned Garden Route was next. It was certainly pleasant but, at the risk of inciting the ire of many, to my mind it is over-rated. Still, the coach loads of blue-rinsed European old folks were having fun. By the time the blue-rinsers have enjoyed their cream tea and are back on the coach for Cape Town they will all be asleep and missing out on really beautiful scenery. The hulking Langeberg mountains loom large like a rugby back row over bright farmland that reminded me of the homecoming scene in Gladiator (possibly one of the greatest movies of all time - certainly well up there with Top Gun and Armageddon!).
A great South African delicacy is biltong, tough strips of sun dried raw meat that looks even worse than it sounds. But I love the stuff and was doing battle with it when a busload of camera wielding old dears drove by. Were they gawping aghast at the sight of me and my bike sprawled comfortably in the gutter or the repulsive looking thing I was gleefully tearing at? Harold Pinter said that, "the more acute the experience, the less articulate the expression." One of my main motivations through all the tough times has been the thought of how I would feel the moment I eventually rounded that last corner or crested that last hill and for the first time gazed on Table Mountain and the end of Africa. In the circumstances I think that I did pretty well with a "Bugger me!"
I reached the summit of a mountain pass (will they ever end?) and there below me lay Franschhoek. This is just silly, I thought: mountains as stunning as this, immaculately vineyards combed along the lower slopes, a village so pristine, crisp dazzling Cape Dutch wineries, aromas from fantastically out-of-my-league restaurants, a perfect blue sky and only two days to go till I reach Cape Town! What on earth have I been whining (not wine-ing) for all year?!
Not long to go now: the final puncture, the final shady tree, the final banana sandwich. Cape Point! The End of Africa! A car park belching hordes of tourists from ranks of coaches. Japanese groups queuing to take photographs and a strict rotation policy at all the viewpoints. I haven't spoken to Sarah since leaving home but I have been dreaming all that time about phoning her first to tell her that I had done it, only to find that the damn phone wouldn't do international calls.
This was turning into a
nightmare of disappointments. I have wondered for so long whether I need to carry on after Africa: this afternoon gave me the answer. I don't quite know what I have been searching for on this journey but I certainly knew that I wouldn't find it here. This 'celebration party' needed rescuing! So I hid at the Cape of Good Hope and waited for the tumult and the shouting to die and the full moon to rise. A feisty wind, the Southern Cross bright in the lightless sky, dappled clouds scurrying across the moon and shining waves rolling home from Antarctica. On a sand dune beneath a sheltered bush I snuggled into my sleeping bag feeling a lot better now that I had the end of the road all to myself.
All that remained was a gentle 90km saunter into Cape Town amongst lycra-clad Sunday cruisers, a breathtaking coastal ride on a perfect smiling morning. There was one more climb: a big boy that seemed to reach halfway up Table Mountain. Nearing the summit I jumped on the pedals and hammered to the top for a final reminder of screaming legs and rasping lungs. There below me lay Cape Town!
Having omitted to pack a cavalry sabre in my panniers I had to resort to scything open my Pierre Jourdan champagne with my Leatherman penknife. A crisp 'pop' and time to celebrate. It is all over. For now. You never know unless you try and maybe that is the best answer I have to the perennial question of why?'
TO BE CONTINUED...
Where to find Alastair now
Start at alastairhumphreys.com. His books, newsletter and podcast are all there.
Alastair turned this ride into two books: Moods of Future Joys, from England to Cape Town, and Thunder and Sunshine, the long way home from Patagonia. There is a version for younger readers too, The Boy Who Biked the World.
He has written many more since, including Microadventures, Grand Adventures, My Midsummer Morning, The Doorstep Mile and Local.