Day 8

Hofmeyr to De Doorns: 170km, 17hrs, 6hrs sleep.
Had another tough/easy day. First section quite flat. Woke up early and left at 4. Was first time i felt angry/frustrated so far and didn't really appreciate the riding. There was no breakfast(since Hofmeyr is not a support station only emergency stop, and we started early), ate what i could,but knew not enough. Not blaming race organizing or people or anything, the tannie probably would have gotten up and made us breakfast if she knew what time we were planning to leave. Have to say it again, the people at the support stations are absolutely amazing. Started bonking on Elandsberg portage, 3hours into ride and that was before sunrise, not a good way to start the day;-). At Romansfontein had huge breakfast, got my new chain, still wondering if i should put it on or not. There was two huge dogs,one stole my duct tape,when i started chasing it,the dog was loving the game, so when i eventually gave up it decided fun's gone, game over and proceeded to swallow my duct tape. Luckily still got some. Carl was pushing really hard to get us past De Doorns for day. Pacelined for couple of hours which i didn't enjoy, struggled and think only took about 5 photos. In our haste to start again we missed a turn, wasted about an hour going up and down on wrong road. Eventually found right road. Long walk to top,3km,with 1.5hrs of climbing prior to that. Had another breathtaking sundown, and a amazing downhill, about 10km long. Got lost for second time at bottom of hill. Carl and Marnitz had huge argument about direction,with Carl going right and Marnitz left, what a choice,up to now when Marnitz headed off left it turned out to be wrong. So there i was looking at Marnitz' light fading left and Carls light going around the mountain to the right, mmm coin toss? 50% chance of success. Luckily stuck with Marnitz,arrived here about an hour and half (after some conversations, post freedom i need to amend this to only read 40mins max, will make a mental note to correct this sometime) before Carl, although his route involved some serious thorns and bundu-ing. Tomorrow we'll try to go to Bucklands most likely just Toekomst, hopefully not the same as today.