Home » South Africa » I arrive in Cape Town; the End of Africa (20th October 2002)

�This is fulfilling your dream. Never forget that and smile every time you remember that.� <br/> written in a letter to me by SB, 2001

I arrive in Cape Town; the End of Africa (20th October 2002)

Roundtheworldbybike
2005-11-18 11:49:30

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�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

I now have a telephone! Contact me on +27(0)84 337 1659

*Congratulations to Will and Fran- the first of my friends to get engaged! (Will and Fran up a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G�.!)*

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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, 20300km, 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 (www.cabriere.co.za) 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 ...