Peking to Paris 2016

Day24 Canon Lodge to Clanwilliam. 25th May 620 km

Bruce dressed and went straight to the car to finish car repairs which he couldn’t do in the dark. Car all going well, Breakfast was in a wonderful stone setting surrounded by huge red boulders and our accommodation was built in and around the rocks, again a wonderful 5 star lodge with outstanding gardens and scenery, it is a pity we don’t have more time here. Down the road for our check out and off on the road again for a 600 km drive and first time trial in 20 kms. Went well under our allocated time so all happy, very dusty and sandy roads so vision was minimal, 2nd time trial was 32 kms on very windy sandy tracks and again were pleased with our results. Today is the finish of our Gravel roads and time trials so a good clean out of the dust will be happening at the end of the day. The countryside today has no vegetation extremely dry, sandy rocky and mountainous and then all of a sudden a village 1 km long popped up on the dirt made of straw and sticks and 5 kms of very healthy vineyards, then back to baron land quite amazing to see.
We approached the Namibian border and were seen to very quickly by very efficient staff. The South African border a little longer and in all took us just under 30 minutes a very pleasant crossing. Moon scape desert landscape with wonderful rock formations on wonderful sealed roads which have been a delight to drive on, we nibbled on food along the way which i made at breakfasts. We fuelled up at Bitterfontein which was 460 kms into our day to discover we had lost our brakes, we were very lucky we discovered this in a fuel station and not in heavy traffic, fluid was leaking out of left rear fuel cylinder, being Sunday we had to ring the mechanic to come out thank goodness for country people. Half an hour later all fixed and back on the road. We headed down the road another 200 kms before we get to our overnight stay both tired and looking forward to an early night, Bruce checks the car and than we head to the bar and have a couple of drinks have a meal the girls decided to celebrate the 2nd last night and have a few to many drinks.