Monday, August 4, 2008

Cape Town "Acclimatisation" Phase!










After a few days we are all still waking up at 4:30am; not sure if it is jet lag or just because there are so many exciting things ahead of us! Our city centre apartment was pretty full with 8 people ans 8 bikes whilst Rob, Kim, Richard and Damon of Australian tema team Blackheart/Stingers crashed with us for a night. They are currently driving East towards the race via an elephant park. KEEN Torq'ers are all flying over tomorrow/Weds.

Here in Cape Town we just got back from an incredible ride up the tracks and road around Table Mountain. We took some video and photos of us riding with a backdrop of impressive mountians and sheer cliffs on one side, and spectacular city scape on the other. We were grinning and laughing like kids all the way - Somehow the boys managed not to kill themselves larking around though I did nearly ride Grant off the track at one point (serves him right for undertaking!). The contrast between poverty and affluent society here is stark, and we have not quite worked it out yet. But one thing for sure, Cape Town has an enchanting natural beauty which our cameras won't do justice to.

On Saturday we went to the Cape of Good Hope, we saw Osrtiches on the heath, Baboon (eating it's lunch on top of a car) and had a great walk along the coastal path. Stew and Grant couldn't resisit doing a timed run up the staircase from the beach (homesick for Torquay sets?) . By that time Lukie had "seen enough rocks" and went back to watch the baboons! It was pretty chilly and blustery - we started to worry that packing just a light weekend size bag of clothes each
might not have been so smart.

We remedied this by conducting a thorough survey of Cape Town outdoors stores and climbing stores and bought lots of adventure gear (most of which we do actually need!). Despite feeling white and wealthy and conspicuous we have had a good time exploring, we found some nice places to eat, made friends with the Big Issue seller at the market, Luke and Stew saw squirrels for the first time in the botanic gardens. Tonight we have done some final race prep and gear organising, and are starting to get focussed the race (i.e. we ate a bit less cake today!).

The pictures are taking an age to upload to blogspot so Stew has jsut given up and put them on Facebook instead (see link on the right og this page)...

'till next time..
Delxxx

1 comment:

lavinia_g said...

Oh you little beauties! Had four BOA pages going - sportstrack, checkpoint zero, sleepmonsters and BOA blog, following your progress throughout the race - you were gradually moving up the rankings, then towards the end Epitact were gaining and at one point their tracker thing was right on top of yours - argh, edge of the seat!, I've just checked and you've finished and beat them by 16 minutes!, well done!, you should be incredibly proud of your achievements!