Circum-Swazi

Swaziland Circum-navigated

2009-12-22T21:16:00.000+02:00

In August 2009 Darron Raw and Johan Radcliffe completed a circumnavigation of Swaziland, on a route that took 693km and 12 days to complete. The image above is from their GPS track of the route super-imposed onto a Google image of Swaziland.

The full story of this first time adventure is contained in the pages of this blog. Go back to day 1 and hear what it was all about.

Day 12 - the horse turned and bolted for the stable

2009-08-23T08:07:00.012+02:00

Like a horse in a hurry to return to his trough, Johan and I threw caution to the wind and bolted for home on Day 12. We had our last border post to tick-off and then an unknown distance back to Ngwenya/Oshoek - our original starting point.

There was no more walking the bike, no more being careful of injury. We charged out of Bulembu like shop-lifters in panic. Tina chased us and only caught us at the border.

"Hey, I thought I'd catch you guys earlier," she said, "I forgot to get a photo - that was sooooo cool having you guys pop by, I have to have a snap." Tina was talking kak, all she really wanted to do was jump on her bicycle for a little bit of a spin, re-live those care-free AR days we'd enjoyed before.

On our first race with her, she'd been an internet date. We'd met her at the start. It was a 250km Wild Coast Adventure Race organised by Mike Baker. At first we thought she was a bit highly strung. She gave us all sorts of issues about not wanting to use her new MTB on the beach or exposing it to corrosive salt water. I'd promised her we'd carry her bike across every river mouth and avoid salt water at all costs... then behind the back of my hand whispered to team members Mike and Tao: "24 hours of racing will kill or cure that attitude." It did...and she was a machine. We clocked almost 350km on that race... something that happens in AR not only because of navigational variance, but also organisational variance - what's an extra 100km when you're having fun?

Talk about extra kilometres - we'd done a few more than anticipated on this circum-navigation as well. For a 550km straight-line border, we'd thumb-sucked a distance of about 600km, adding for the zigzags of the tracks we were following, whilst subtracting for the inevitable corners that were missed. Well, leaving Bulembu we were already on 640km, so the likelihood of going past 700km was high.

We'd decided to do the last portion of our trip on MTB's using the Diepgezet road that runs just outside the border of Swaziland. The original plan had been to walk across Malolotja Nature Reserve which stretches from Bulembu all the way to Ngwenya. Malolotja has some exceptional scenery and great hiking trails. It would have taken us two days to walk across its skyline of ridges and peaks, using the deep north-south gorges as easy access routes. However, the dubious state of my knees, the lack of a tent or bivvy in our gear at that point and the logistics of needing to then send a vehicle to fetch our bikes at Bulembu had combined make the cycling option more attractive. We'd also be able to do it in a single day, which would score definite points with the troops back home.

The Bulembu-Josefsdal border crossing straddles the road between Barberton and Piggs Peak. On the Swazi side of the border the village of Bulembu has a fascinating history and its future may be similarly significant. Bulembu was previously known as Havelock and was a major asbestos mine in its time. The value of investment ploughed into this rough mountainous area is unbelievable. The village had houses for everyone, management and staff alike, it had tar roads, schools, a golf course, country club and sports facilities. It generated its own power. Asbestos was a wonder material in the early 1900's and at points was more lucrative to mine than gold. The world's longest cableway was strung up to transport the asbestos from Bulembu to Barberton - 22km away.

Then asbestos fell out of favour and the town scaled down and finally was liquidated. It became a ghost town and the scrap merchants descended on it like vultures to cut and chop up tons of recycleable material. The village was saved from total ransacking by two individuals who bravely bought the Bulembu Development Company from its liquidators. Buying a whole town, for not very much cash, might sold like a lark, but the fact of the matter is that its a bottomless pit of need and associated responsibility.

Fortunately Bulembu had fallen into the hands of some incredibly committed people. Shares were sold/passed on to Bulembu Ministeries who are now effectively owners of the town. The company is a non-profit organisation and has an incredible vision for the future. See Bulembu.
The organisation is primarily focused on the care and upbringing of orphans and every development in the town is designed to gradually increase the town's capacity to absorb, care and assist orphaned children. This commitment to provide an environment that allows these kids to overcome the cruel fate that has befallen them, is an exceptional example of what a group of people can do when united by a common spirit of service to mankind.

Tina told us that already the town was supporting over 200 orphans and that the target was 2000 in the next ten years. Her husband Colin is a vet and diary expert. He was pioneering the opening of the a diary project on the old Havelock golf course. The milk will be used primarily for the town's own needs as there is already a substantial population, as well as for the neighbouring Malanda community who are considered very much a part of the whole Bulembu micro-economy. Forestry, a honey project, bottled water and the Bulembu Lodge are other efforts in place to kick-start economic activity and chase out the "ghosts". I love Bulembu and everytime I return there is another building renovated, another sign of progress. It must seem painfully slow for those who have such great dreams to get things going, but to a occasional visitor the steps forward are always clear to see. The story of Bulembu is not a historic one, its future is going to be just as dynamic.

Josefsdal is the name of the border post on the South African side of the fence. To the north, the Kingdom's highest point at Emlembe summit (1863m) stands solid against the blue sky. The word "torturous" was used repeated by author TV Bulpin when describing the ancient prospecting and supply pathways that crossed this ridge. It led me to wonder who the Josef was who'd lent his name to this point. I joked that it was probably the cruel Russian dictator Josef Stalin - the hills and sudden precipices were certainly killers. The title banner on this blog shows the countryside south of this point.

[Note: my curiosity roused, I later tried to find out exactly where the name Jofesdal comes from via an internet search. I didn't ascertain its origin, however did discover that it is the name of the farm in the area and that this an extremely significant area that appears in hundred's of research papers about the origins of life on earth. The Josefsdal Chert samples have revealed significant details about the form of life that existed before the planet had an atmosphere as we know it today. I read that at some point billions of years ago these layers of chert were laid down on a beach covered by a thin layer of water. The lie of the land has changed dramatically since then!]

We'd climbed from 1164 metres altitude in the centre of town, through 1330m at the Swazi border, then 1398m on the SA side and finally up to 1477m on the ridge above. The question was raised as to whether Bulembu was the highest border crossing in Swaziland. It certainly felt like it should up there in those lofty peaks. We could see clear across the entire country. However, later that question was answered for us. The Ngwenya border at 1423m above sea level is even higher, but the label of highest border crossing goes to the tiny Lundzi-Waverley crossing that we'd passed on Day 1 of our trip. It sits straddling a height of approximately 1600m. Even Sandlane-Nerston is higher than Bulembu at 1500m, so it just goes to show that landscape goes a long way to altering your perception of altitude.

The road from the border to Barberton has been freshly tarred, and in fact so recently, that the strong smell of bitumen was almost overpowering. We were happy when the gravel turn-off to Diepgezet appeared and even more happy when we spotted a freshly planted roadsign that said Ngwenya/Oshoek was only 50km away. That was closer than we'd expected and we took off at speed. Some years back I'd driven up this gravel road with Anita and had commented that I'd give my left ball to cycle down it. Well, this was the day and I nearly gave both my nuts for the privilege. The road had been recently graded, probably even the day before, and its surface was totally loose. I felt like a snowboarder on a pisted ski run. It was not a comfortable feeling. I could feel front and back wheel slides from time to time as we hurtled down the road. The heavy backpack I was wearing was helping to keep my weight well back, which is generally the theory when downhill MTB'ing, but my front traction was marginal and I really had to concentrate to correct those minor wobbles that if allowed to progress could easy result in handbars crossing abruptly.

We whipped through Diepgezet, another asbestos mine ghost town, that is yet to have angels descend on it and then across the Komati River at 717m altitude. That was 758 m of vertical height loss - not a bad little section of downhill. The Komati was the second river that we were crossing on the opposite side of the country, having passed it on day 10 near Mananga. The other had been the Great Usutu.

And of course, whilst the saying goes that "what goes up must come down", the inverse also holds true and we put our heads down to regain all that height back to Ngwenya. The valley we passed through was wide and a little bleak in the washed out colours of winter.

In the middle of this, the township of Ekulindeni was one of those bizarre South African box towns. Rows of square houses in the middle of nowhere. Whether this was apartheid era forced settlement or more modern RDP planning, was uncertain, but the presence of so many people living in an area that had nothing but open space, towering mountains and... and...not much more begged the question - how do people live like this? This type of settlement is so different to Swaziland where people are widely spaced across the landscape with their own access to water, agricultural fields and a subsisistence lifestyle. Sure these folk had four solid walls and a tin roof, which may be considered a step-up from mud walls and a thatch roof, but a lack of vibrance and activity hung heavy in the air. That was until a kid did a somersault.

"Hey, do that again," said Johan. We stopped and dismounted. Four boys, probably 6 to 8 years old had put two concrete blocks together as a rudimentary springboard. They were running up and then launching themselves into a somersault with a side twist. A double hand clap was added for showmanship. It was a great display of making something from nothing. We shared our last packet of peanuts and raisins with them and then carried on.

To our left we could see Ngwenya Mine. The visible part is of the landscape changing iron ore mining that took place in modern times, but the mine is more significant for its red ochre (haematite) pit and the mining of specularite. Associated material found in this shaft has been carbon-dated back to 41 000BC making it the oldest known human mine in the world.

The final climb to Ngwenya border did not disappoint. It was real. We walked it. Ok - trudged it. It would have been a real grind if we hadn't picked a smart short-cut community path that carved a big superfulous loop out. We'd developed a real feel for gauging the value of footpaths on this trip and had seldom needed to backtrack.

At last we were there, it was a happy-sad moment. We shared out story with all who cared to listen. Senior Immigration Supervisor on the Swazi side, Mrs Gugu Dlamini, danced a celebratory jig with us. It was a spontaneous expression of joy, so typical of the interactions we'd had throughout our trip. Hassle-free and spontaneous.

Then we waited for our lift back to Ezulwini. This was the sad part - life was about to return to normal. Well - almost normal. Johan had a birth to look forward to. Although a second child is not as ground-breaking as the first - no doubt his freedom to roam will be constrained...until such time as the kids are old enough join us.

Kei, my 8-year old had hitched a lift with the Swazi Trails vehicle to the border. He gave me a real flying rugby tackle-hug that nearby floored me. I asked him if he was up for doing the trip again with me one day, "Sure," he said, "but then you'll be too old." Cheeky brat. I wrote that down to him not realising how fast he was growing up... not to him mis-understanding that I'm not going to grow old fast or peacefully.

Highlights - Day 12

Make Gugu Dlamini's little dance at the border. I've grown to love border post officials. They have the most mind-numbing job, dealing with often tired, irritated and rude people. But they relish the opportunity to laugh and be human more than anyone.

Stats - Day 12

52km at moving average of 10.4km/h.

Overall stats for the trip:

Our highest point on the trip was approximately 1621m on the flanks of Makwana kop. This is just south of Ngwenya. We didn't end up visiting eMlembe at Bulembu - that is officially Swaziland's highest point. Our lowest point was 64m above sea level in the Usutu Gorge.

Total distance covered according to my GPS was 693km.

Overall highlight:

Finding what we were looking for: Hassle-free Africa. It exists... just slow down, connect with people and it's there for anyone to enjoy.

Special Thanks

To Johan Radcliffe: a really special guy to do anything with. He takes risk in his stride and has uncanny ability to avoid crap. Always up earlier than everyone else, always quick to get a fire going, with coffee or food on the boil. Its like travelling with a personal butler.

To Anita & Jenny (our respective better haves). Thanks for letting us do the occasional crazy thing. It makes us feel alive.

To Karen Vickers: thanks for looking after us Day 1 to Day 3. We know you'd have preferred to be walking with us. Next time chick !

To Swazi Trails/Dirty Boots/Wydah Tours management & staff: thanks for holding the fort.

To Matt - great to have you along. Shot for joining in. Next year is my 40th - beware of the consequences.

To Policeman Emmanuel Dlamini (Sicunusa), Mgabhi homestead (Sandlane), Siyaya homestead(Mankeke), Kevin & Jackie Lincoln (Siteki), Mike & Tracy Ogg (Tshaneni), Tina & Colin (Bulembu) for hosting us.

To all the various owners of private property that we were able to traverse in such a hassle-free manner.

To Dr Jonathan Pons - for the consultation in Siteki. No offence intended for not taking your advice. Doctors need to err on the side of caution. Adventurers tend to err on the opposite side of the spectrum. I'll no doubt make a knee and hip replacement surgeon a weathy man at some point in the future.

To Capt. Thembinkhosi Dlamini - Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF). For arranging that the various army posts were aware of our presence along the border in such a hassle-free manner. Siyabonga.

To all those who gave us words of support - appreciated!

Day 11 - the Mganda Valley zig-zag

2009-08-23T08:06:00.009+02:00

There was no time pressure on us now and we lounged around like lizards on the cottage verandah we'd commandeered at Wyldesdale. It was not too far to Bulembu, our next stop-over, although admittedly there was a bit of attitude gain to be dealt with. Our mission was to take it easy - no straining of muscles, no damage to joints, no accidents. The end was in sight and we could hardly believe we were nearly there already. It had gone so well since we had decided to carry on, back on Day 9, there was an almost an unspoken fear that Murphy may be lurking somewhere.

Wyldesdale is a fascinating place. Its a chunk of land owned by 4 partners, who are the shareholders of Rio Tinto. Well, Rio Tinto Swaziland that is, but imagine having that on your CV..."erh by the way I'm a 25% shareholder in Rio Tinto". The global mining company had previously mined gold here... and/or did a bit of prospecting - I am not sure. I don't think there was much gold mined...because I have been into the Lomati Mine previously and its not that extensive. The Wyldesdale Mine I believe is not much different.

The Wyldesdale property has a chunk of mountain on it called Lufafa. Lufa in Siswati means crack, chink, cleft or fissure, and when you look at this towering peak you can see exactly where it gets its name from, as there is a deep cleft in its face that is darkened by thick forest vegetation. At the Lomati river boundary of Wyldesdale the altitude is approximately 524m above sea level. Barely a kilometre and a half away the western corner of this property is marked by the mountain peak at 1432m. That's 908m of height to tilt your head back at.

I'd wacked a Control Point (CP) onto the summit for the 2005 Swazi Xtreme and then another one deep up the Shiyalongubo river, at the Shiyalongubo Falls - Wyldesdale's Eastern boundary. Now standing here, with 10 days of wear-and-tear in my legs...the thought of climbing up to that summit made me feel weak just thinking about it. Let there be no doubt about it - those competitors who've tackled the SX in years gone by...are people who are just not normal - they are XL - extra-large.

The walk up the Shiyalongubo (meaning "leave your clothes") is another of those magic experiences, which if you ever find yourself overnighting at Wyldesdale is a definite day outing. The waterfall is stunning, tumbling into a steep-sided box-canyon with a huge plunge pool at its base. Definitely a place to leave your clothes on the bank.

The almost inaccessible Shiyalongubo river valley and those of its tributaries have also been prized dagga-growing sites. If you ever wanted to walk through a field of dope plants taller than head height this is the place to do it. However, the tragic side to this is that pristine indigenous forest has been hacked open to allow sunlight to reach these illicit plants.We headed off at about 10am and tone of the day was definitely chilled. The route we were going to be following has about 20-zillion river crossings. The road, which later becames just a footpath, zig-zags from one bank of the river to the other, as if the grass appears constantly greener on the other side. Previously on one-day outings we've splashed our way through these crossings with much humour, as hidden rocks made the crossing a bit like russian roulette. Many an over-the-handlebars tumble is to be expected. However on a multi-day outing with dry bedding and food supplies on your back and feet that must be keep as dry as possible to avoid softening and blistering, the stepping stone option needs to be taken. All of these crossings had well-worn routes, one just has to look for the slightly muddied stones to know where the locals cross. Well - that's the theory. Locals don't wear cycling shoes with metal cleat attachments underneath. These cleats aren't compatible with rounded boulders. I provided humour for Johan and bemusement to a few locals...and my feet weren't dry for long.

We had negotiated a crossing or two when we were forced to duck off the track to let a Mr Bread truck pass. Now a bread truck thundering down this stretch of 4x4 turf was almost as out of place as Wyldesdale's red London bus. Mr Bread is a relatively new bakery in Swaziland but they've practically taken over the country. Whilst there may be those who disagree with their business tactics, there is no doubt that they've got a serious commitment to delivering bread. The staple food of Swaziland used to be maize-meal. It could be argued that it is now bread. Many rural households no longer bother to plough fields...relying instead on remittances from family members in the cities to help them get by on the baked flour option.

The bread truck stopped at green corrugated-iron shop with a lop-sided pool table outside. Johan and I christened it the Lomati Country Club and challenged the locals to a game. Alas, the table had issues and was unplayable, but the banter from the crowd was entertaining, including the dude who'd already cracked open his first quart for the day. He reminded me of a few similar spirits in my own neck of woods (12C, Ganda & Anus - stand up and be counted) whose enthusiasm for a dop or two gets many a legendary occasion underway.

The Lomati River departed Swaziland a few kilometres further on, its headwaters lost in the midst of the most broken patch of countryside anywhere this side of the equator. On a topo map the countryside looks like spiderweb of streams and contour lines all mixed up in an impossible jumble of amoebic shapes.

Our route lay up the Mganda Valley, which sticks to the Swazi side of the border. But first, a stop was required to say "hello" to Paul Pritz. Paul is a subsistance farmer. Whilst he may be poor in appearance, he is an individual who is extremely rich in spirit and passion for the natural environment. Paul owns the portion of land just west of Wyldesdale, his homestead stradling the confluence of the Mganda and Lomati rivers. Originally of Polish extraction (oops or is it Hungarian ??) Paul married a Swazi woman and took to farming in this remote corner of Swaziland many many years ago. He is now 72 years of age, walks with a swinging gait that indicates a stiffening of joints and characteristically cups his hand behind his good ear to hear better. His memory is razor sharp and sitting down with him for an hour is an experience to remember...and best you do remember, because he certainly will...and will recount to you many things you said to him on your previous visit, no matter how long ago it was.

I've been popping in on Paul on odd occasions for many years, once or twice on official business (Protection-worthy Areas Survey / Biodiversity & Tourism Corridor studies) and other times just out of the sheer joy of being able able to MTB through the Mganda Valley. If I haven't mentioned it yet - the mountain bike trail through the Mganda Valley is is is... beyond description. It is sheer joy. More than 20km's of downhill, singletrack, streams, jumps, gnarled roots...so sweetly interlinked that your face just aches from the smile that splits it.

Anyhow on this occasion Paul had some big news. For years he has been trying to get his land proclaimed as a nature reserve. Its been an ongoing saga... a lot of dead-ends, knocking on this door and that door, lots of consultants (self included) and generally a lot of hot air with no progress. For a self-sufficient person like he is, this must have been very frustrating. When a frontiersman needs something done, he takes an axe, a spade or a pair of pliers and he just gets the damn thing done. Fullstop. Now, as we know, the world is crying out for the protection of its natural areas and this man who owns a decent chunk of land wants to donate his property in perpetuity to the cause of nature conservation. You'd think there'd be rush to assist him do this...but up until a few days before our visit, it had taken more than 10 years of effort on his part to get this right.

"Its done, Darron," he said with tears in his eyes, "it was signed just a few days ago, my land is going to be a nature reserve, part of a transfrontier park". I was happy, his dream was coming true. I didn't probe the details, but I knew that this wasn't going to bring him much financial return, but possibly some real peace of mind.

Paul Pritz and his family live in a single 5mx5m army tent, their other possessions scattered under the tall trees that typically indicate that this is or was once a stately farm dwelling overlooking a swathe of farming land. Apart from community cattle overgrazing his hillslopes and alien vegetation growth, the greatest threat to his property has come from the neighbouring dagga farmers. Incensed at the damage that they've caused to the fragile riverine and cloud forests that transect his land, Paul has had an ongoing battle with them. Two years back, a small incident flared into open warfare and a mob stormed his homestead and burnt it to the ground leaving Paul and his family as refugees living out of the back of his pick-up truck outside the Piggs Peak Police Station. Everything he owned was destroyed...everything apart from his spirit. That someone with so little wants to give so much to future generations...it just boggles the mind. [If there are any benevolent souls out there who'd like to contribute something to making Paul's life a bit more comfortable and who many have a means to assist this fledgling nature reserve, please email me.]

After departing the Pritz premises Johan and I took in the full beauty of the Mganda Valley. Although we were cycling upstream and against the normal direction of this route, it was still brilliant MTB'ing fun. The Swazi families that live up here, appear to live in paradise, well...to the outside visitor it is paradise: crystal clear streams, grassy slopes, forested glades, no litter, no pollution, no noise. But the reality is no doubt less than picture perfect. We passed a family moving slowly through an old maize field picking fresh blackjack shoots - no doubt for making a spinach dish as umshibo (sauce) to wash down the phutu maize-meal porridge. I grew up knowing blackjacks only as weeds...not as a source of sustenance.

At the last homestead we were engulfed by a crowd of kids.

"Sicela ma-sweeti," they called asking for sweets. Johan and I had been puzzled by this repeated request. It is not unusual as a visiting white-face in a rural area to be asked for various things, "i-50c", "i-mali", "i-Cap" and the real chancers "Borrow me your bisikili", but the Mganda Valley had developed a definite over-riding interest in sweets. There seemed to be a real expectation that our backpacks and pockets were packed with sweets and that we were just waiting to dish them out. Johan and I decided to get the bottom of this perception. We questioned them in depth on why they were asking for sweets, who had given them sweets in the past, what made them think we had sweets? It drew a total blank? They seemed to have no real idea why they were asking for sweets, they were just asking!

The interrogation over, the kids then switched to other topics. A boy offered us some Monkey orange fruit. I've had this before, its delicious, but one has to be a bit careful about swallowing or chewing the seeds as this family of fruits under the name Strychnos gives rise to the poison Strychnine which is extracted from seeds of certain species. The kid did belately tell me this...but fortunately I already knew and had been spitting them out.

Amongst the group was a very well-spoken little girl. She had absolutely flawless light skin, perfect teeth and looked the picture of youthful health. It was apparent that she was being very carefully minded as she had a big straw hat on your head to protect her from the sun. We were impressed with her grasp of English and her cheeky questions. It turned out she was doing Grade 4 at a school in the capital of Mbabane, which explained things. Clearly she was the chosen one. In large rural families, parents are often forced to make the hard decision of which children to educate and which not. It seems to be a cruel roulette of life, but one child may be given everything to ensure they pass through school and university and on to a well-paying job, whilst other siblings are kept at home to tend goats and cattle. That successful child is seldom released from that debt however, and will be expected to make significant remittances back to the family for the rest of his or her life. Family bonds are very strong in Swaziland, however the burden of a maintaining responsibility for the needs of a large extended family is no doubt stressful to the extreme. One wonders what fate awaits the little straw hat princess.

The zigzag track up the Mganda Valley finally enters the commercial plantations of Peak Timbers. After a few kilometres of adherrance to contours it suddenly breaks off to zigzag straight uphill gaining over 400m in vertical height before cresting the ridge that overlooks Bulembu Village. Coming down it in the reverse direction it is an adrenaline blur. Going up - its an hour long push... unless you've got issues to prove in granny-gear. Johan and I took a gentle walk, conscious though that our easy day, just like the shadows, was getting fairly long.

Having gained the 400m in altitude, we burnt off 350m of these in a quick descent into the Mkhomazana Valley, a necessary loss in order to access the final climb into Bulembu Village.

The sun had set by the time we crawled into Bulembu Village. Our easy day had been stretched to 7.5 hours in the end.

I'm a regular visitor to Bulembu Lodge, which we use as a venue for Swazi Trails corporate team-building outings. I also have a number of good friends resident here. On this occasion another old adventure racing contact was our port of call. Tina had raced with both Johan and I previously...and Mike Ogg for that matter. She and her husband Colin are relatively new residents in Bulembu, together with their youngsters Leesha and Jake. Tina had invited us for dinner...but little did she know that once halted we weren't getting up again to go anywhere...so we took over her lounge floor for the night. It was a good night.

Highlights:

Tina's Lamb stew

and

Tina's Lamb stew

and

Tina's Lamb stew

Stats:

38km at moving average of 6.9km/h

Day 10 - Onwards to a secret place - Wyldesdale

2009-08-23T08:05:00.009+02:00

Finally we dragged ourselves away from the Ogg residence. We had slept really late the night before. Mike and I had adventure raced together as Team Swazi Trails some years back, so there had been plenty of war stories to be told.

Sadly Johan had had a really bad night with hot flushes and a stomach that was very upset. He had been up and down all night, and wasn't quite his usual chirpy self.

Our packs were now heavy as we had no logistical support lined up until we completed the route. We were aiming to finish on Saturday (3 days) or latest Sunday (4 days) time. Jenny (Johan's wife) had wangled a Blue Train ticket for their return to Cape Town. She was too far pregnant to be allowed to fly. This train was departing Monday morning promptly. A ride on the Blue Train is not something you miss. Messing an 8-months pregnant woman around is also something to be avoided at all costs. Swaziland may have been hassle-free, but our own lives had a less forgiving nature. We were under pressure.

First stop was Mananga Border Gate. Yet another friendly place. We pulled over at a small workshop to effect some repairs to our seat posts. Possibly it was the extra weight of our packs combined with the continual jarring of corrugated gravel roads, but we had both found our saddles slipping lower and lower on a regular basis. This put extra strain on tender knees so a lasting solution was needed. We roughened the posts, added sand to the clasp and cranked the posts tightly closed again.

We crossed the Komati River and headed off in the direction of Buhleni. We had decided to head for the new tar road that now links Balegane with Msahweni. It wasn't the shortest route, but the promise of a smooth surface was enticing to our long-suffering butts.

The first homestead that we passed was that of a Sangoma, a swazi traditional healer. Many years back I had visited this place with James Hall, an American who had undergone kutfwasa, the training to become a healer. Much had changed since those years. Back then we had walked across a rickerty wooden bridge, then followed a narrow dusty footpath that left from behind a giant marula tree. Now there was a major causeway across the Komati and a wide gravel road. Behind the sangoma's homestead there were now fields of sugarcane.

Sometimes progress is so slow that it is not noticeable. People in Swaziland, as in most developing nations, have been going through a phase of development that includes increased consciousness of their rights to better living conditions: water, electricity, transport, schools. Such consciousness often comes with disenchantment with the pace of development. When sitting under a marula tree, or waiting to fill a water container at a communal water tap, change must seem to be non-existent. However, for me this trip had been an eye-opener. There had been significant changes in the last 10-15 years. We had crossed many areas that I had last visited when preparing routes for the Swazi Xtreme or when undertaking consultancy work for various aid organisations. I had very clear memories of many of these areas, and the spread of development infrastructure was significant to say the least.

Johan and I had spent many hours already discussing what actions and areas of development speed improvements in quality of life the fastest. We had both agreed that good all weather roads were the starting point. The communities that had new or upgraded access roads in the past decade were those that also had the greatest visible change in other services: water reticulation projects, electrification, schools and clinics. Without good road access no other services could be installed or maintained. In this sphere the local roads department are both heroes and villians. We had seen examples of well-contoured and drained gravel roads and others that were an environmental disaster.The latter were clearly the result of wishful thinking and a bit of unauthorized use of Government machinery. Routes could be found that looked like a bull-dozer driver had taken his machine for a spin up the mountain carving his own route as he went. When he failed to cross a ridge or stream he would start again from a different angle, leaving a scarred and eroded landscape. One hopes that Swazi government is aware of the need to employ decent surveyors and to finish off bull-dozed routes with proper drainage. Doing it right the first time is what is needed and political pressure from chiefs and parliamentarians for rapid results should not be at the cost of the environment or ongoing maintenance into the future.

We also came across a million rand's worth of motorcar parked under a marula tree in the middle of no-where. Swaziland has surprises around every corner.

After 30km on gravel we hit the tar and the small town of Buhleni. We had ridden in silence for up to 20 minutes at a time, the first time on the trip we had not been constantly chatting, bird-spotting or actively route-planning. Clearly we were fighting our own internal battles, keeping legs moving, maintaining forward momentum, trying to ignore blisters, aching butts and strained shoulders. To make matters worse, the stiff headwind we had met the previous night into Mananga had now switched and was meeting us head-on again.

If you ever need a decent local meal in Buhleni, there is one little place that we found to be top class. Ayami Restaurant is a small general dealer, take-away, restaurant all rolled into one. It has only two tables, but very friendly staff and they are not shy to pile your plate.

Johan and I both opted for beef, pap (maize porridge) and the 3 salads option. Their plates are the size of a large pizza, and are piled to capacity with a small summit almost 150mm high in the middle. At first we thought the ladies had deliberately loaded us, after hearing where we had come from and where we where going, but as other customers wandered in, we realised this was the standard. Make not mistake, Swazis know how to eat and there is never anything left on the plate. These two plates, plus a coke each came to only E 42.00 (less than US$2.50 each). We did the meal justice, then had a chance to digest whilst fixing a puncture, the first bike issue on the trip so far. We then put our heads down for our second to last border post - Matsamo.

Matsamo is on the MR1 road across Swaziland and is the main tourist route. As we junctioned at Msahweni and picked up the pace to Matsamo, we were well-aware of this as campervans, rental cars and coaches zoomed past in both directions. We hoped that they were finding time to stop and experience hassle-free Africa, the way we were. Swaziland's real attraction is its people... and at 100km/h people are just a blur.

Matsamo is also called Jeppe's Reef, a reminder of this regions gold-mining history. Our intended overnight stop was at Wyldesdale, another old goldmine about 25km away.

We nipped off the MR1 immediately after the border turnaround and followed the Ntfonjeni road up the wide valley that heads to Piggs Peak. At the head of this valley 30km from where we were, we could just make out the Orion Piggs Peak Hotel and Casino. Built as part of the government's policy to stimulate tourism development hubs in various regions of the Swaziland, its hotel has never really achieved more than being a island of opulence in a sea of trees, but its casino has gone much bigger. As the land-base for an online casino business, the Piggs Peak Casino in recent years has been Swaziland's most prolific advertiser regionally and is arguably Africa's largest online gambling site. Saturation advertising on websites, on radio and in print has rewarded their first-mover advantage with an almost household brand-name.

Neither Johan nor I are fans of gambling, Johan's business having been almost bankrupted by a trusted manager with a gambling addiction. She is now serving 6 years in jail, a mother of two school-going children.

We both hoped that Swaziland's tax collection revenues from gambling were achieving a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. However just like the myth of Robin Hood, when in the company of bandits, its a little hard to justify the means to the end.

Talking about the end, our end to the day was always one hill away. We were no longer attempting to cycle hills and were enjoying the regular walks to stretch the legs and shift muscle use. At last we were at the base of Lufafa Mountain, the mountain with the gash or cleft.

"How do tourists get here?" queried Johan as we fought our way along a challenging track that would have had the average urban 4x4 owner sweating buckets.

"They don't," I replied, "this is a very secret hideaway known only to a very small circle of locals."

Wyldesdale has a campsite down on the confluence between the Shiyalongubo river and the Lumati, where a red double-decker London bus serves as a kitchen and cover from rain, as well as a scenic little camp with a few cottage rooms on the ridge up above.

Without the energy to climb the hill we had planned to sleep in the red bus, and ponder the energy and humour it must have taken to get it there. Our plans were somewhat disturbed by Mrs Bothma, who had moved into the bus, lock, stock, mattrasses, cooking pots, kid and barrel. Mrs Bothma told us a long long story about her husband was selling the farm next door and how she now had no place to stay, and that she was wanting to build a house in South Africa, but that she had no money.

This kind of stymied our plans a bit. Although Mrs Bothma appeared not to be the favoured wife of Mr Bothma at this point (Mr Bothma is a polygamist) we did not want to be found sleeping under her roof nevertheless. Mr Bothma, being a Swazi man, is likely to act first and talk in court later when confronted by unknown guest in his wifes abode.

So we pushed on up the hill....literally. Down in the lowveld this hill would no doubt be called a mountain, but being just the outstretched knee of a massive chunk of the Makhonjwa Mountain range just behind it, we bluffed ourselves that it was just a little hill. At last we reached the camp and a friendly well-fed dog. But all was locked up and dark and we prepared ourselves for a chilly night on one of the verandas.

Then our luck suddenly changed abruptedly and Philip, the elderly camp attendant emerged sheepishly from behind one of the locked doors. He was apologetic for missing our arrival, but we were far from perturbed. At his age forty-winks is a prescribed necessity for longetivity.

Within minutes we were in luxury. Hot water showers, towels, double beds, chairs, a table to sit at. The long dusty 89km that lay behind us was soon forgotten.

"That was my hardest day so far," said Johan, " I had nothing in me from the time we left Tshaneni this morning". Johan doesn't complain. He'd bitten the bullet and made it. It had been well-worth the effort to reach this secret spot.

Highlights:

Ayami Restaurant in Buhleni

Wyldesdale Camp

Stats:

89km at a moving average of 11.8km/h

Day 9 - with age comes wisdom...or not !

2009-08-23T08:04:00.009+02:00

There is nothing much better than sleeping in your own bed... even if your kids jump on you before the first hadeda call. This particular morning Paige was allowed to do this... it was her 7th birthday.

One of the positives of having bailed from the Circum-Swazi mission was that I was back at home for this important occasion, even if we had engineered an early birthday for her some weeks before. A lot of bending of time and dates goes on in our household.

Johan's time of departure however was fixed and we got him packed, fed and to the door. Then we stood around a bit. My knee wasn't hurting much anymore.

"Maybe we should carry on?" I ventured.

"I'm easy," said Johan, "but best you walk up and down the stairs to really check how you feel. So I walked the staircase 10 times. My archilles tendons were like piano strings, my gluts were stiff and solid and my blisters still painfully evident. But my knee didn't hurt.

"Lets have a quick look at the map," I said, picking up the A4 size insert in the Swaziland Discovery magazine. "Yus...we are almost there, look we've got four to five days left and only this top bit to do," I indicated spreading my fingers across the northern curve of Swaziland. Its better looking at a simple tourist map - things look so much more manageable without the thick knots of brown contour lines that clutter the typical Swazi 1: 50 000 topo map.

"Johan, you're going to be late," shouted Anita from the car.

"It's your call, " said Johan, "Like I said - I'm easy". That is an understatement. Johan is Mr Easy, never confrontational, always joking, always willing, always doing 70% of the work. He'd never even been slightly negative about the fact that we'd been forced to quit... on his 40th birthday mission.

"Right - lets go back," I confirmed, as a rush of adrenaline made my head go dizzy, "let's finish it!"

There followed an emotional rollercoaster. Intense interrogation by Anita, then some emotional blackmail, some tears, more tears, some phone calls, more questions, more tears.

Johan was not spared either, "Eish, you've even made my wife cry," he said, "she says she hates you."

However at that point I couldn't have felt better. Adrenaline is addictive and this somewhat crazy idea to push on, despite the likely consequences was giving me a rush. We unpacked, then re-packed, scooped another Swazi Trails driver and headed back to Mbuluzi Nature Reserve.

The problem with adrenaline however is, that like drugs, it wears off. Half way back to the lowveld I was left feeling sick and weak. In fact, I am not ashamed to say: I was actually scared. Scared that I wouldn't manage to finish the effort and would be forced to a halt again. My knee was tender, no doubt about that, but my ego was probably even more tender. I hate quitting, I don't like being "normal" and more than anything I don't like being limited. This was my first real confrontation with age... or to be more accurate, with the lifestyle that my age was seeming to force on me... too much work and not enough play. Not enough time to keep fit.

We headed off on foot from the Mbuluzi Gate at midday. Not the ideal departure time given that we wanted to reach Tshaneni by the end of the day...but we were stoked to out again. Stoked to be doing something abnormal.

We walked across the Mbuluzi loop, bumping into giraffe around every corner. I tried to make out Shewula Mountain Camp on the Lumbombo Plateau above us. That was our destination. Our plan was hike back up the mountain, then pick up bicycles, which would have been dropped there by our driver and continue cycling through to Tshaneni.

In the 2004 Swazi Xtreme, I'd used a crossing point on the Mbuluzi River which feeds straight onto a trail that leads up the face of the mountain. Adventure racers are pretty fearless and I'd been worried about them straight-lining their way across the river and being munched by croc's. Hence the Control Point right at a shallow ford. A little bit of trial and error got us to the right point. We crossed carefully. Upstream and downstream were deep and dangerous pools. Only 10km from here Anita and I had been revv'd by a big crocodile who chased our inflatable raft downstream. Our romantic overnight paddle had been rudely shaken up. We were lucky. A week later a 19-year-old Swazi girl was less lucky and she was devoured at exactly the same spot.

Every year a handful of people are attacked by crocodiles in Swaziland, some survive, but fatalities are common. Its a reminder that we are not the undisputed masters of this planet. Croc's have been around for far longer...and in the pools and reedbeds of the Swazi lowveld, they are certainly still supreme.

We got to the other bank easily and then lent into the uphill slog. This was the 3rd time that we were climbing from the foot to the summit of the Lubombo Mountains.

Shewula Nature Reserve and its tourism camp is a community-run initiative. Its existence has a lot to do with the efforts of Peter Hughes, former MD of Tambankulu Estates and the driving force behind the development of Mbuluzi Nature Reserve. Conservation is not meant to exist behind a fence and to ensure good neighbourliness between Mbuluzi and Shewula, a vast Chieftancy on the Lubombo Plateau, he set about exposing the Chief and some of his libandla (councillors) to the what, how and why's of nature conservation and tourism. He also helped identify some donor funding, care of the British Council, to assist Shewula in exploring these opportunities. That was in fact the point at which I got acquainted with Shewula, way back in 1999. Plans for the Shewula Camp development had stagnated and the funding was about to be withdrawn. I had been asked to run a short marketing workshop for the community and arrived to find that marketing was the least of their worries - they had 72 hours left to draw down the donor funds, or accept that it would be lost.

Similar to this morning's rush of adrenaline to the head, I'd made an instinctive decision to help out. I'd sat up for 48 hours solid, drafting a development and funding plan that was submitted to the British Council. With a lot of positive will on both sides the situation was saved and the funds tranferred to me to act as a Project Manager. My plan was for a 3-month stint in the bush. How hard could it be to build three rondavels, an ablution and kitchen block? I'd conveniently ignored the fact that the cheapest contractor, who had earlier quoted on the job, had come in at twice the value of funds available and that the other contractors were all 3 to 4 times over budget. So started a very distinct chapter in my life. Using community labour, community tractors, community thatch and community thriftiness the camp was built in true Swazi fashion and time. I was paid for the 3 months budgeted and then volunteered for the next 15 months that it took to finish the job. I wrote this off partly to education - I learnt volumes about community politics, aspirations and prejudices - and partly to kuhlehla - voluntary feudal labour provided to a chief or king.

One gets a great feeling from doing something good, just for the sake of helping others and its no surprise that in the last 10 years volun-tourism has taken off in a big way worldwide.

So finally cresting the mountain and walking into Shewula Camp felt like a home-coming for me. The best part about Shewula is that it works. Many community projects fall flat on their faces due to a lack of capacity to sustain them... or just plain bad-planning or assumptions to start. I certainly can't take much credit for Shewula's on-going survival and success. Its survived because of the efforts of a few core staff members and community trustees who've grown with it. I remember clearly being asked to advise on salaries for staff, soon after it opened. I'd side-stepped this potential trap very neatly by insisting that salaries could only be determined by cash flow and not by industry norm's. First supplies, then maintenance, then salaries, if cash was left over. So for the first two years at least the Shewula camp staff worked for ZAR 100.00 per month, about a quarter of the minimum basic wage for basic labour in Swaziland. But they stuck to it and grew. Today they're doing much better...and the exposure that their efforts have brought to them have opened many other doors.

Shewula Mountain Camp has undisputely the best view in Swaziland. Almost the whole Lubombo Conservancy and neighbouring estates can be seen, the lazy loop in the Mbuluzi river, the carpet of green sugarcane and the mills in the distance...and even the mountain ranges of Piggs Peak and beyond. For a very modest fee visitors can stay in thached huts, eat traditional Swazi food and enjoy both nature-based and community interactive walks. If you consider yourself a responsble traveller, make sure Shewula is on your itinerary.

After Johan and I had refilled bottles and said goodbye to Thandi and Bheki in the camp, we'd cruised slowly on our bikes through the well-populated Shewula plateau. Having been away for quite a few years I was struck by all the changes and development. This community was looking and feeling really vibrant. I open myself to criticism in saying this because undoubtedly Shewula is still struggling under a huge burden of HIV orphans, erratic ground water supplies, regular droughts and limited access to shops, hospitals and job opportunities, BUT this community is miles further down the road of development than the community I encountered 10 years ago. The road, the electricity poles, vegetable gardens, the youngsters playing soccer in an organised fashion, the women returning from community meetings, the upkeep of houses, fences, fields. There was real energy evident at Shewula. It was looking healthy.

I'd like to think tourism brought a lot of this health. Before Shewula Mountain Camp, hardly anyone had heard of Shewula. It was a forgotten area on the wrong side of the foot and mouth red line. The camp and its success attracted a flow of NGO's and donors. These visitors wanted to do their bit too, an educational project here, a farming project there, help for orphans, blankets for the elderly. The Swazi Government did its bit too - a great road and electricity make so much more possible. I remember having to regularly walk 16km from the main tar road to the camp after rain made the road impassable... always in the company of a variety of folk who lived up there. Nothing was easy. There were real limits to growth. Shewula has now cast those aside. The ride along the plateau was a pleasure.

We stopped near Shewula Primary School to look eastwards. Against a blue background stood the white skyscrapers of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. My GPS said that they were only 55km away.

Our next stop was to be the Lomahasha-Namaacha border. Departing from Shewula we lost almost all our altitude as we dropped into the Nkalashane Valley. Then we climbed the Lubombo Mountains for a forth time...this time on our bikes. Its a mother of a climb to Lomahasha - that's all I can say. Johan and I crawled into the untidy little town just after sunset. We'd spent a lot of time pushing our bikes, as that seemed safer than overworking my knee joint. So far so good, no major pain.

I have never particularly liked Lomahasha. It always has a shifty kind of feeling. You can't slip unnoticed into the town. You're instantly pounced on by money-changers, approached by beggars, everyone seems to be sitting watching, waiting. Its not a relaxing space, its not a place I'd leave my bicycle outside a shop. Food is also much more expensive in border towns it seems. Johan and I had two expensive sandwiches and tucked another two away for later.

From Lomahasha we had a wee problem. I'd told Johan to leave map #8 at home by mistake, and also I'd inadvertantly failed to upload the map tiles for the area onto my GPS. It was also getting dark fast. Problem-o!

The easy way was just to cycle all the way down the tar road and then head via Tambankulu and Mhlume through to Tshaneni. We were still however enjoying the thrill of being back saddle, so easy options weren't on the agenda. It also knew that I'd written this route over Mananga Mountain into the 2004 Swazi Xtreme. If Adventure Racers could navigate this area at night with a compass and map, I was damn sure we could too, without the above, but with a bit of prior recollection and a few questions en route.

Our first question was to a group of soccer players just off the main road in Lomahasha.

"Likuphi le ndlela ku-fika e-Nkalashane School, " I asked, " si-hamba straight yini?" The nearest soccer player confirmed this, "Hamba straight," he said, his hand going out straight, then describing a huge curve round to the left. This caused much mirth for the players behind him, who mocked him in fits of laughter, "Ya-ya...straaaaaight!" they giggled, their hands also describing a far from straight motion. The humour was good and appreciated, and soon we were flying round the 180-degree turn and hammering it down into the valley below. Another great downhill, with the need to keep eyes sharply on the track ahead.

Darkness then caught us as we passed the school. Between us and Mananga Mountain was another stray finger of the Lubombo Mountains north of Mafucula. The dirt track that we followed has got to be THE steepest road in Swaziland. We could hardly push our bikes uphill without loosing traction on the gravel surface. We then dropped down into the next valley - carefully in the darkness. Very carefully in fact, as this downhill had claimed a Swazi Xtreme competitor 5 years ago, and on this occasion we didn't have a Traumalink Paramedic close-by.

Having stopped almost every pedestrian we met in the dark to confirm the mountain route to Mananga College we managed to trace the route perfectly without a single wrong turn. It was hike-a-bike up to the saddle and then hike-a-bike down the other side. I moved like a sloth placing each foot carefully, making sure that no excess pressure was placed on either of my knees. It paid off and soon we were flying up the road to Tshaneni - well - flying as best we could into a stiff headwind.

It was 22h45 as we turned off into the grounds of Mananga Country Club. We'd had another 11 hour day, but we were still totally stoked to be continuing with the trip. It felt good. We'd killed 8km on foot and 64km on bikes.

Holding up the bar counter we found a welcoming party of lowveld villains: Mike Ogg, Chris Jackson, Bruce James and Greg Greene. All apart from Greg, had participated in a Swazi Xtreme or two, so the sight of me in particular arriving way after the expected time of arrival, dirty and tired, brought endless smiles to their faces. This was definitely a bit of justice being meted out on the race organiser for a change. After a few war stories, we retired to the Ogg's residence, where the last of the lasses from an inaugural book club meeting were just preparing to leave.

Two nights in a row in a proper bed. Wicked.

Highlights:

The crazy decision to carry on.

Tracy Ogg's chicken pie

Stats:

Total 72km, 8km on foot, 64km on MTB.

Day 8 - the day the fat lady sang

2009-08-19T09:20:00.012+02:00

"My advice is stop now, come back and finish it another time " the Doc said.

Don't you just love the way that Doctors can deliver the bad news so slickly ? I bet they spend a whole year at Med-School just polishing this aspect of their skills. There is no beating about the bush. Bang. This is the problem, that is the solution. I guess that is why we place so much faith in them. They are straight-forward, honest and confident.

Dr Jonno Pons had very kindly agreed to see me at his home, just after the crack of dawn, and before his hectic daily schedule kicked off. Dr Pons is a bit of a saint in these parts of far-flung Swaziland, where basic medical services are few and far between. There are very few top-class doctor's who choose to work from a rural base like Siteki, but I'd picked the right place to break down.

The Pons family live in what is arguably Swaziland's grandest dwelling - Mabuda House. This may sound out of place in a run-down and struggling outpost like Siteki, but the fact is that Siteki was once THE place in Swaziland. It existed well before Mbabane,the capital of Swaziland, and has a fascinating history. Initially a hang-out for rather adventurous, rebellious and even decidedly criminal elements, it soon became the place of choice for European farmers and traders in the lowveld of Swaziland - its lofty heights being somewhat more bearable than the heat and the mosquitoes of the ranchland below. Mabuda House was built from huge blocks of stone carved by hand on the farm. Its massive chimney's, high thatched roof and curved staircase are something unmatched in Swaziland. The family run a B&B from the farm's cottage, under the name of Mabuda Farm. If you ever get a chance its a very worthwhile stop whilst exploring this part of the Kingdom.

Although famed as an eye specialist, Dr Pons had no problem in getting to the crux of the problem with my knee. After a few bends, twists and questions, he knocked the nail on the head:

"Its an over-use injury," he said, "you've simply worn the membrane out that covers the bone."

"We've got a day in hand to rest," volunteered Johan, who was listening in on this examination of his lame and limping partner.

"Ha ha... !" laughed the Doc, "this won't get better in day, this needs a month or longer. Come back in 6 months, or next year same time, what's the rush ?"

We were deflated -this despite the fact that his diagnosis only confirmed what we already suspected. It wasn't rocket-science. Sit for 6 years behind a desk, getting up occassionally to make a cup of coffee, put on 10kg of excess weight, then head off for 300km with hardly a day's training and certainly no endurance conditioning. Something was sure to give way. And it had.

"There's mind over matter, and that's drugs over matter," said Dr Pons, " you could carry on, but you'll just be inviting a much earlier chance of arthritis. Give it a break. Come back next year - enjoy it, why risk permanent damage."

Eish - you can't argue with that logic. We thanked Dr Pons and headed off.

"What now?" asked our affable host Kevin.

"Well - there is slim chance I'll be able to walk the north-western border of Swaziland," I replied, "those Makhonjwa and Malolotja mountains make the Usutu Gorge look like an irrigation furrow. We're stuffed, its just a question of whether to quit now or later. F*ck!"

We headed back to the Lincoln home, which is adjacent to Mpumalanga Royal Residence, His Majesty King Mswati's residence in Siteki, and home to Inkhosikati LaMagongo. Her Royal Highness is one of my favourite photographic subjects at traditional ceremonies and events. She has an almost mischievous smile, that is seldom flashed, but when it is - it really highlights how lucky a man the Swazi Monarch is.

It had been great staying at Peter's place. He is a real adventurer himself. He flies a helicopter and rides a touring motorbike. He was away on a 10-day bike trek across South Africa at that moment. For the past couple of years his generosity in assisting our layout of the Swazi Xtreme by helicopter has made it possible for us to pull-off some extraordinary adventure racing routes. In return we offer him the chance to sharpen his skills - asking him to fly and land in places that would certainly not feature on your average flight-plan. Kevin told us that his dad had arrived in Siteki by accident. Or to be more correct, by breakdown. As a 14 year-old in the 1950's, Peter had travelled down through Africa with a family friend Trevor Dyson. On their return trip they had mechnical problems near Siteki, had grown to love the place, and never left. Dyson & Lincoln, still their family business, is a very successful sugar packing enterprise, right in the centre of town.

"Let's cycle out to Mhlumeni," I said, "its only 30-odd km's. We can take it slow, just feel how it goes, and tick off one more border."

So we headed out. The route from Siteki to Mhlumeni/Goba border crossing is a brand-new road, beautifully constructed and a pleasure to cruise along. This route into neighbouring Mozambique is a tourist's dream. Compared to the bustling, hustling and often choatic scenes at the Lomahasha/Namaacha border further north, this crossing is quiet and peaceful. Its hassle-free Africa. Even coming from Johannesburg direction, I'd travel this route through Swaziland anyday, rather than the N4 through Komatipoort.

We soon entered the Lubombo Conservancy - a significant conservation area of over 60 000ha, plus quite a bit more surrounding ranchland. Below us to the left were the rich bushveld plains of Hlane Royal National Park, home to lion, elephant, leopard, rhino and much more. Immediately across the roadside fence was Mlawula Nature Reserve, a quiet breakaway famed for its birdlife and solitude. It certainly deserves the label "off-the-beaten-track" and if you're the type that likes the bush to yourself - well - don't tell anyone else about it.

We cruised into Mhlumeni and immediately grabbed a piece of Mrs Maziya's roadside braaied chicken. My order was with extra cartilage.

"Siyabonga Ma, better than Nando's!" we exclaimed. She beamed at us. Whether it was our appreciation or just standard service, but after we'd devoured the chunk of chicken she brought us a bottle of water to wash the grease off our hands. Such a simple understanding of customers needs. Not many restaurants get this right, but Mrs Maziya, tin shack + braai grid, on the dirt verge, in the blazing sun - she had it all worked out. I resolved that I would never-ever pass this point again without supporting her little informal business. I'm a customer for life.

"I'm gonna miss this," said Johan, referring to the casual banter and joking we'd enjoyed with the roadside vendors. I agreed. The beauty of travelling a country by foot or by bicycle is that you do it at a pace that allows for greeting, conversation and small interactions with people. Our journey had been one of constant waves, greetings, questions and jokes. We'd never grown tired of it, and instead I, in particular, was relishing ever opportunity to practise my still very basic grasp of the Siswati language.

"Check-check," gestured Johan suddenly. A pretty solid woman waddled past us humming to herself. I was lost.

"The fat lady is singing..." he laughed.

Yip - it was over. Although I had worked out that cycling like a duck with my knee out wide was fairly painless, the occasional jolt or careless dismount had easily re-ignited the pain of the day before. We called Anita to let her know. She was sad for us. However there was an easy lift departing the next morning for Johannesburg, which would get Johan back to his expectant wife a few days earlier, so the call was pretty clear: head home today, rather than delay the inevitable, and save on an otherwise expensive special trip a day or two later. I arranged for one of our company drivers to pick us up at the Mbuluzi Nature Reserve gate.

"Why there?" asked Johan.

"Just wait," I smiled, " we need to finish this on a high."

I called the Warden of Mlawula Nature Reserve, Ngwane Dlamini, and asked him if we could enter the park from the east and then pay our entry fees on exit at the normal gate entry point in the west. He gave the go-ahead and we back-tracked 10km down the road to the future entry gate at Magedzavane. We hopped the fence and then headed down the concrete road. The concrete road caused a lot of heated debate in conservation circles some years back. It's a short stretch of wickedly steep road with a few radical switch-backs that drops straight off the Lubombo Plateau onto the plains below. Its value and environmental impact were questioned heavily, but it went ahead. To all intents and purposes it is a bit of a white elephant, as is the lodge that was built at its head and never opened, but its a sure-fire way to get your brakes smoking and your heart beating. Johan and I weaved our way down it enthusiastically.

"You know," I called to Johan just after we bottomed out, "one New Year's day when we were staying at Mbuluzi, Paul and Linda Loffler and I cycled up this mother at midday, mid-summer, babelaas (hang-over) and all!" Johan shook his head.

"Then to top it, two years ago we rode it twice on New Year's day, again midday-and-all."

"After that the rest of the year is guaranteed to be a breeze," I added, to fill in the clearly missing logic.

The ride through Mlawula was magic. Not another soul. Impala, warthog, kudu, plenty birdlife and a wildebeest that effortlessly kicked up dust on the road ahead of us, as he swerved from side-to-side, were our sitings.

We exited Mlawula and headed to neighbouring Mbuluzi, another of the Lubombo Conservancy parks to await our pick-up. There we chatted to the current Chairman of the Conservancy, Matt McGinn, who is also the reserve's warden/general manager. He was equally bleak about our need to quit.

That evening back at home we tried our best to be positive. Johan pointed out that it was my 40th next year - a great opportunity to finish off the Circum-Swazi trip. We'd managed over 400km he pointed out. That's a fair effort for two middle-aged buggers. It still felt kak.

Highlights:

Mlawula Nature Reserve - enough space to lose yourself in.

Stats for the day:

64km total with a moving average 14.5km/h.

Day 7 - a long long day

2009-08-19T09:19:00.014+02:00

Having thanked the Siyaya homestead for their kindness, we hit the road north before the sun rose. We were not alone, school children were out in their numbers, walking, riding bicycles, always full of smiles and quick to greet and wave. The sky was pink in the east as the sun rose over the Indian ocean. At this point on the trip we were a stone's throw from Ndumo Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and its border with Mozambique - the area known as Maputoland.

An hour later a police siren sounded behind us. Ooops... well aware that we were bending the rules a bit, we walked on, not daring to look round. A Zulu voice on a microphone greeted us, "Ninjani madoda?" and then in the same breath continued with an amphified message to the community informing them to bring out their dogs for rabies injections. It was a veterinary vehicle. We laughed at our moment of panic, but hassle-free Africa was still being kind to us.

As in most places in the undeveloped world - water, and the daily need to source it, was clearly a dominant feature of everyday life. There were many different types of communal water point evident in this area with many innovative types of pumping apparatus. Some tap points were fed from unseen pumps far away. At these points there were long queues of 25 litre drums waiting for the magic moment when the pump was fired up. Others had mechanical pumps, such as a bicycle-style motion worked by hand and a merry-go-round that looks like a smart way to get kids to burn off energy in a productive manner. I know for a fact that my kids would be able to get a river flowing in no time at all.

It seemed that tourists were even more of a rarity up here in this remote corner of Ngwavuma than even in rural Swaziland. Everyone was curious about where we were coming from and going to. Drivers stopped their cars to chat and walkers altered their gait to ensure our paths crossed.

One such casual meeting was a blessing. We were now approaching the Great Usutu River again. On Day 2 of our trip, many kilometres to the west, our crossing of the same river had been easy, with a wide flat valley to negotiate. Now the river presented an entirely different story. The Great Usutu, swelled by countless tributaries, was a powerful force, one that had carved a 650m deep gorge through the Lubombo range. Our route was to follow the road down to the river, then trek downstream to pick up the track that descends from Mambane to Abercorn Drift, the place where the borders of three countries meet. It was a windy route, promised at least 50km on foot. Our lucky meeting was with a rough looking character, ragged clothes and a bushknife in hand.

"Niyaphi?" he asked.

"Mambane," we answered with a raised hand tracing our route on the road, curving right, descending down, crossing and then curving back up again. We had long learnt that the subtle movements of hands and fingers indicated more about the route ahead than words could, particularly when language barriers limited communication.

"No-no" he interjected with a dead-straight forearm and fingers. "Nansi Mambane. Ubone imiti lapho, jika ngesencele, hamba straight!"

Indeed we could see the characteristic clump of tall gum trees at Mambane, 10km away, but clear against the skyline. He proceeded to give us detailed desciption of a cattle path that descended the gorge and crossed the river to climb again to our target point back on the Swazi section of the mountain plateau.

We took the path left and quickly I estimated that we were going to save up to 20km this way. We were elated. It meant we could possibly make Siteki in the same day, especially if we could get our bikes to Mambane. Anita had dropped them in Siteki the day before at the home of Peter and his son Kevin Lincoln. A call to Kevin set up bike drop for 15h00. So easy. We had 6 hours to enjoy the Usutu Gorge. Little did we know that we would need the full 6 hours.

We picked our way down the cattlepath. It was fringed with rare Lubombo cycads. I was surprised to see these here, as cycads are highly sought after by unscupulous gardeners, and these ancient plants are a hot black market item.

Trouble started 20 minutes later. My left knee became so painful, deep in the joint that my whole leg was stiff and rigid. This wasn't ITB, an agony I have suffered before on multi-day adventure races. This pain was at the front of the knee, right inside. I hobbled like a 80-year old, Johan patiently walking behind. I decided to avoid taking pills to deaden it, in favour of being as careful as possible and not doing more damage.

Fortunately the rocky path, abundant birdlife and occasional view of the gorge took my mind off the pain. At last we reached the bottom. This is one of the most remote areas of Swaziland. Faint cattle paths criss-crossed each other. Ours appeared to head upstream, but it was not clear where the litibuko (crossing point) was. Nor was it clear where the path on the far bank was. This was a crucial point for us, a whole day could easily we lost here, with sheer cliffs and dense vegetation limiting options. The river was also full of crocodiles, so crossing was something to do once and not repeatedly. I sat to rest my knee whilst Johan scouted upstream. I studied the map intensely. Where would I walk if I was a cattle-herder? About 2.5km downstream there appeared to be slightly more gentle gradient lines, possibly linking to a path on a nose on the plateau above.

Johan returned from his scouting mission with unconclusive evidence. There was a lot of foot spoor going that way, but nothing nothing on the far bank that held hope of an ascending path. We opted to head downstream. I had estimated 2.2km from the topo map as the point to start looking for a crossing point. The walk down the banks was great with incredible birdlife - we wished we had time and binoculars. We heard a Fish Eagle calling, baboons barked and a trumpter hornbill flew from fig tree to fig tree ahead of us.

Exactly at the expected point a pair of boot prints and a barefoot print could be made out crossing onto a freshly smoothed sandbank mid-river. It looked like it was possible to cross almost to the middle of the river by rock hopping, but the first hop required a leap of faith. Johan eyed the rock - the distance wasn't an issue, but the surface of the rock was potentially slippery. He went for it and wiped out spectacularly. The rock was like ice and his foot hardly stayed a second on it before his shin made contact with the rocks beyond it. Pack, dry clothes, maps and food all ended up in the water.

I took the more cautious option and stripped down to wade across. The middle section of the river was waist-deep and flowing strongly. Crossing at regular crossing points does bring the risk that crocodiles learn to lie in wait here. Did the boot print person and the barefoot one we had seen this bank, also exit on that bank? It was a long minute until I reached the other side. A lunch stop was called, which provided an opportune moment for Johan to dry himself and his gear off.

Kitted up and ready to roll again, we now needed a path....mmmm, some local knowledge would help. No sooner had we muttered these words than a shout rang out from the opposite bank. Within a minute a cattle herder came past, driving some decent-looking Ngunis. He was bare from the waist upwards and burnt black by the sun. We greeted him across the river and he pointed out exactly which cattle track we should follow to climb the side of the gorge. Luck was on our side. The rest had been good for my knee and we watched the altimeter on the GPS slowly adding meter by metre.

At a certain altitude the impact of Cromolena odorata was horrific. This alien plant, called the "Paraffin bush" because of its strange odour or sandanezwe in Siswati, is a major environmental hazard. It invades grassland and hillsides and forms thickets that reduce grazing for livestock and increase soil erosion as no other plants are able to compete against it. Our path upwards was a corridor through one of these thickets. Swaziland has an eradication program currently underway with manual removal, but when you see how entrenched and widespread this species already is, the prospects of making an impact by hand appear almost hopeless. Surely finding some form of biological control is the only way this plant will be halted.

At last we reached Mambane, the cooler air being a major relief. We called Kevin's driver who was due to drop off the bikes for us. We couldn't wait to get weight off our feet. It had been a hard 28km trek. The driver asked where we were and then went on that he hadn't left Siteki yet. Damn... the sun was already getting low and we'd have to keep walking - it was a painful prospect. Fortunately the driver had a wicked sense of humour and was in fact just around the corner. We happily changed in cycling gear and set off.

The happiness for me did not last long. The knee pain which had eased off on the walk out the gorge came back with a vengence. I could not even get myself cleated onto the pedal without shooting pain from the downward pressure. The cycling motion of going round and round was also close to impossible. After 30 minutes of pedalling with one leg only, I decided to hit the cataflam tablets, then waited agonisingly for the next hour for them to kick in properly. The sun set. Our progress was slow. And there is nothing flat about the Lubombo plateau south of Siteki. It was a long long day.

At last we made it into Siteki. Our base for the night was Peter Lincoln's home. Kevin and wife Jackie were awesome hosts. She had an endless supply of toasted sandwiches in front of us as we swapped stories. Kevin is also an avid MTB'er and was still recovering from a broken collar bone from a prang some months back. He'd done it properly and snapped it in four places.

Although the Cataflam was doing wonders for my general aches and pains, even it couldn't dull the pain in my knee. It felt as if bone was rubbing on bone. Siteki is a small place and Jackie soon had an appointment booked for me with Dr Jonathan Pons for 07h30 the next morning. I went to sleep hoping for a small miracle. We only just past half-way on the trip... and meant to be getting stronger, not weaker.

Highlights:

Lubombo cycads

Birdlife in the Usutu Gorge

The great short-cut through the Usutu Gorge.

Daily Stat's:

73km with 6.6km/h moving average
Overall average of 5.4km/h after taking all stops into account over the 13 hour day.

Day 6 - 300 kilometres behind us

2009-08-19T08:31:00.009+02:00

We had overnighted in the Nisela Safaris campsite the night before. Used to the dead quiet of the areas we'd been in, sleep had evaded us here, a combination of sugarcane trucks thundering past and a lively party in the nearby pub.

The Nisela hot showers however made up for it. Our first encounter with soap and water in 6 days was almost a religous experience. There is a certain art to ensuring hot water is endless in a communal ablution block and Nisela had mastered this perfectly. Johan had got in early, but dilly-dallying around with trying to remove the plasters on my toes without removing the fragile skin underneath had meant I had lost 10 places in the shower queue to a combi load of French kids on tour. At last I entered the cubicle and rejoiced at the fact that the water was still piping hot.

After the hard day the day before day six was very casual. Matthew was heading back to Mbabane and then the four hours onwards to Johannesburg. Not even an easy stretch on the tar road could entice him back onto the seat of his MTB again. Johan and I tackled the revised route with with gusto, getting our heart rates right up with an hour long sprint through to Nsoko. Nsoko is a farming town at the junction between cattle ranching and sugarcane farming country. It is situated on the banks of the Ngwavuma River, one of 3 rivers that force a gorge or poort through Lubombo Mountains in Swaziland.

The topography of Swaziland is like an old novel lying upside down to dry after being soaked in water. The Lubombo Mountains form an almost dead-straight spine in the west with its similarly named district stretched out across a flat plain to the west. Thereafter the wrinkles and distortions start as the landscape rises into a series of low rounded hills in the central Manzini district. In the west the bent, torn and dog-eared outer pages throw up a range of distorted and jumbled peaks. We'd already encountered some of these on our first few days but the real stuff still awaited us in the Makhonjwa and Malolotja ranges.

Having dropped off our bikes with Anita at Nisela (and after another long hot shower - just for luck) we finally headed onwards on foot. Our target was the plateau of the towering Lubombos just north of the Ngwavuma Gorge. On the opposite side of the gorge was the Cecil Mack pass, a long-forgotten border crossing point to Swaziland from the northern areas of neighbouring KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

The border post may have been closed for decades, but the informal flow of human traffic was continuing as it had for hundreds of years. Based on the contours of the map we'd made an educated guess that there' d be a route up the almost sheer mountain face just behind the main Scheepers farm homestead. We were dead-right. After a courtesy call on old man Scheepers, whose family had been farming the area for more than a half a century, we picked up the ancient track.

There is a very different feel between new tracks and ancient tracks. Ancient tracks have well-worn feel. The earth itself has been re-shaped and compacted by thousands of feet and hooves, and the roots of trees and surfaces of rock show a wearing that cannot be achieved overnight.

Somewhere near to here the cruel Zulu King Dingaan had been murdered in the 17th century, giving up the powerful Zulu kingship in much the same way he usurped it from Shaka who preceeded him. In contrast the succession of kings in Swaziland has been much more orderly, reflective of the subtle differences in national character that differentiate the Swazis and their very closely related cousins, the Zulus.

The Lubombo's go from 200m above sea level at their base to 700m on the plateau in littl over half a kilometre. We were soon sweating like crazy. The route was a good a hiking trail is can ever be designed. We climbed the ridge of a finger of mountain that gave stunning views onto the sheer cliffs of the main range to the west and an unhindered view across Swaziland to the west.

Below us we could see the giant center-pivots and lay-out of the very orderly sugar-cane farm below. Sugar is Swaziland's #1 industry, with three mills in the lowveld and canefields situated where ever sufficient water exists for irrigation.

Previously an inland sea, the lowveld land is fertile and rich, described by some farmers in the past as "the best cattle-ranching lands in Africa." Slowly, and somewhat sadly from a biodiversity perspective, cane has replaced the bushveld grazing across large areas, with only pockets of natural bush still remaining. The advent of nature conservation in Swaziland has helped to preserve these remnant tracks of virgin bush and the likes of Mkhaya Game Reserve and nearby Big Bend Conservancy, together the large Lumbombo Conservancy to the north are hugely important to Swaziland's biodiversity conservation efforts.

As we trekked upwards we were aware that the famous Border Cave lay within 100metres of us. Border Cave.

Border Cave is a rock shelter discovered in 1933 and dug in 1940 by W. E. Barton. This site's deposits include material from the Middle to Late Stone Age (ca. 30,000 to 50,000 years).

It is a very important site as anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeletons as well as stone tools and chipping debris were found here. Susposedly academic debate continues about the age of the human skeletal remains. The most recent dating using electronic spin resonance shows elements at 74,000 ± 5000 years before the present. This is very early for an anatomically modern Homo sapiens.

However we were pressed for time and would need to return anpother time to visit this important archaelogical site. Ahead if us we caught-up with a group of kids, sent down the mountain to buy maize meal and supplies. They carried these on their heads, walking barefoot steadily upwards. Although they reside in KwaZulu-Natal, the pragmatism of human needs clearly allows them to traverse the border to buy food and other necessities.

We had spotted a kudu earlier and now we could here the rare Simango monkey calling in the gorge next to us. This wild mountain face was clearly also a refuge for wildlife. The vegetation was stunning and distinctly different to the bushveld of the plains below.

At last we reached the plateau. It was breath-taking, not just because of the climb, but because the sky was almost black with rain clouds approaching from the south east. Yellow late afternoon sunlight flooded in from across Swaziland in the east and hundreds of Coral trees, bare apart from a blossoming of red flowers, made the huge scene totally surreal. I would have killed to have had my proper Canon camera with me. It was one of those never to be repeated moment.

We found the main gravel road on the plateau and pushed on north as fast as possible. We were engaging in a bit of cross-border tourism here ourselves as this land was technically within KwaZulu-Natal. However speaking to people along the road, it was apparent that the area was still dominated by families who regarded themselves as Swazis.

Where to stay was a big question. As it drew dark we spotted a school. A classroom would be ideal. We didn't want to be outside tonight. The rain was coming and the wind was icy. We tracked down the principle of the school, a lady, who let us into her darkened house to escape the wind. We learnt that the school was a community school and that any decision for us to stay there would need the whole school committee to agree to. This was clearly not possible at that hour in the day, but the principles husband Mr Siyaya was quick to offer us a place to stay in one of his out houses. He provided us with a gas stove and a bucket of drinking water for cooking. This was ubuntu at its finest. Just think about it... how many of you, who are reading this blog, would warmly welcome two dirty and unexpected strangers into your house and provide them with a place to stay. Just think about it. We certainly did and really appreciated this.

We shared thge room with Mxolisi a high school student. He ironed his clothes with an iron warmed on the fire, then washed in a bucket of water. We had little inclination to get clean - tomorrow was going to be another hard day. We bedded down on the floor the wind howling through the cracks and rattling the corrugated iron roof. Two people were never happier to be inside than at that moment.

Highlights:

The hospitality shown to us total strangers, but a family who could easily have closed the door on us and said, "Sorry there is no place to stay.".

Stats for the day:

Cycled 28km at moving average of 26km/h
Walked 11km at moving average of 3.4km/h

Day 5 - plenty plenty hassle-free Africa

2009-08-16T13:22:00.003+02:00

As we headed out from Matimatima, Matt proposed a theory on why the Swazi Nation had managed to maintain its relative independence during historical times when the rest of Africa was colonised.

"Its because white men couldn't deal with these frigging hills," he said, face red and sweat dripping.

Indeed despite being on bicycles we had not done much better than 10km/h the previous day as the tracks had gone up and down hills consistently. Today looked like it was going to be another of those days and Matt was really feeling the previous day in his legs. Lavumisa was a very long distance away.

We passed Makhosini, the sacred burial place of the Dlamini Royal family. Burial traditions are still maintained today in Swaziland as they have been for hundreds of years in the past.

Our route south was tricky. Not many tracks were going in the direction we wanted to and the actual border fenceline itself was impossible to cycle. Lavumisa border was at least 10km away, possibly further depending on route choice, plus we needed to visit Salitjie a small border post just west of there.

We had started to formulate a list of criteria for circum-navigation. Staying on the border fence was physically impossible and a bit boring as there are no people to meet and little of interest other than the threat posed by alien vegetation on anything that resembled a path.

The border of Swaziland is 550km, so provided the routes choosen added up to at least this we would be happy that we had done the distance. The second criterion was that we would visit every border post. There are 13 of these scattered around the country's perimeter.

At one point we found ourselves back on the main tarred Nhlangano-Lavumisa. This helped us to gain a few kilometres but we were loosing contact with the border. We started asking every person we saw for options to lead us off-the-beaten-track again.

At last we came across a brilliant option and veered off right at Zamphilo. Matt's aches and pains were soon forgotten as we plummetted off the escarpment down into the lowveld on a 13km dirt downhill track. It just doesn't get better than that.

Salitjie border was hot and dry and the friendly police woman at the arrival desk was apologetic about their brackish water.

"Its salty" she said. At that point in the day as long as it was wet, that was all we were worried about.

A clever choice saw us pick up a lovely 20km zig-zagging route that linked us back to the tar road for the final 22km push down to Lavumisa.

We did most of the way with a rasta dude on a MTB who set the pace. Further on we raided yet another roadside store, where Gcinile agreed to pose with the boys.

Innocent, friendly, naive, dressed to kill in a short skirt and tight top - it was almost tragic to think that those very attributes might well see her adding to the already staggering HIV infection rate in Swaziland. How could one tell her to stop being so damn friendly - just be a bitch. girl. Just stay away from men. Fullstop.

Cresting the final hill above Lavumisa, we suddenly saw the town bathed in late afternoon sunlight, the blue waters of the Jozini Dam stretching out behind it and the towering Lubombo Mountains beyond.

"Daddy, I can see the sea," said Matthew enthusiastically, echo'ing perfectly the feeling of elation we all had at seeing the end of a 12-hour day in the saddle nearing.

After a courtesy call to the borderpost, our last mission of the day was to drop in at the Royal Jozini Big 6 game reserve gate at to get permission to traverse their property the following morning. This wasn't forthcoming, so we elected to circum-navigate it as well.

Which is probably a good junction for me to elaborate a little bit about our concept of hassle-free Africa. Hassle-free doesn't involve applying for permission 3 months in advance. It doesn't involve applications filled in in triplicate. It doesn't involve political manouvring, name-dropping or threats to achieve success.

Finding hassle-free Africa is about dis-spelling the myth that Africa is dangerous, that Africa is corrupt, that Africa is a basket-case where nothing works.

Our modus operandi is to travel freely, with little or no advance planning. To rely on local people for advice and assistance and to connect with as many people as possible in an open, honest and friendly manner. Anything is possible, and if it wasn't why would we be attempting a journey of this nature in the first place.

Having altered our route we headed for Nisela Safaris another private game reserve up against the Lubombo Mountains. I called the manager, no answer, left a voicemail, sent an SMS. We wondering now whether wildlife reserves were not going to be a real hurdle on our expedition. To the contrary: we got an SMS back 2 hours later "Sorry I'm away in Johannesburg. No problem at all. Enjoy." That is hassle-free Africa.

Day's Highlights:

All the directions, help and encouragement from 50 or more people that we chatted to during the day. Swaziland has got friendly people - fullstop.

Climbing Mhlosheni hill (mountain!) and then getting a long downhill on the othersides.

The two Swazi gents near St Juliana's school who told us about a "nice short-cut" to Salitjie Border Post that wasn't on the map. Understatement...13km of wicked downhill along smooth dirt tracks isn't "nice"... its MTB heaven.

Technical data:

120km, moving average 14km/h, overall average 10km/h. Max speed 78.5km/h.

Day 4 - Up and down and up and down

2009-08-16T12:12:00.002+02:00

We were glad to get off our feet on Day 4. We had wanted to use the first 3 days to toughen our feet and generally get fit, having had no time to train at all beforehand. Whether we'd achieved that or just done damage was yet to be seen.

My feet in particular were a sorry sight. Having squeezed wide feet into a narrow shoe my little toe on each foot had been turned into one big watery blister, covering almost 70% of the toe surface. On top of that my feet had swelled at least a size bigger, so getting them back into my Salomon AR shoes almost mission impossible.

Johan's feet seemed better, but he was struggled with his naurally short Archilles tendons which had knock-on effects on other muscles.

The only downside of now being on bicycles was the size the packs we had. Not having panniers on our bikes, we everything on our backs: sleeping bags, mattrasses, food, bicycle spares, clothing, cameras and about 4 litres of water each. I could feel the weight forcing me down onto the saddle. No doubt the pain was about to be shifted.

After farewell's to Emmanuel and Karen at Sicunusa we headed off towards Gege. The kilometres flew by and we were in great spirirts. Whilst for the past few days we had grown used to seeing mountains get closer in a frustrating slow manner, now it was new views every hour. That said, Swaziland is not flat and a lot of time was spent grinding up narrow tracks in "granny gear".

It was however a predominantly downhill day. Sicunusa sits at an altitude of 1120m. Gege borderpost took some effort to reach at 1280m, but from the escarpment south of here the fun really started. We dropped down rapidly through the remote community of Dudusini to the Mkhondvo River at 990m.

The Mkhondvo River is another tributary of the Great Usutu River passing through the scenic Grand Valley before its meeting of the Usutu near Sidvokodvo. Just east of us we we were looking at Mahamba Gorge, one of Swaziland's well-known geographic features, from the upstream side. The river disappears into a gorge with 300m high cliffs on either side. Although hardly a kilometre long, the gorge is so narrow that at points the only way to pass through is to swim.

On the opposite side of the gorge only a hearty echo away stands Mahamba Gorge Lodge, another community owned tourism development funded by the European Union. Its very neat self-catering cottages, hot showers and fat mattrasses were drawing our thoughts that way, but we needed to burn some more kilometres and the effort of trying to swim through the gorge with bicycles and 15kg packs is something that would only make sense (sort of) in the Swazi Xtreme. (the Swazi Xtreme is Swziland's annual adventure race and renowned for enticing participants to do extreme physical feats that normally sane people would never otherwise contemplate).

Our route south to Mahamba border gate was a touch of unorthodox but navigational brillance. The less said about it in writing the better, but if you ever catch any of us around a fire we'll tell you and tale of risk and reward, and of lady luck dressed in paramilitary blue pants.

Mahamba is named after the fact that some people fled this way after falling out with the local chief or Indvuna. I think it was a group of early Christian converts. Mahamba is still the site of the oldest church in Swaziland, a quaint building that is passed en route to Mahamba Gorge Lodge.
After a quick rice and chicken at a caravan in the border parking (unbeatable value for R13.00) we headed on in the direction of Makhosini.

As the sun set, we found ourselves opposite Matimatima Police Post at Mahlandle RDA (Rural Development). We asked for a place to camp and were told to feel free. We commandeered a derelict RDA building and soon had a fire going.

Later that night whilst preapring to bunk down on the cold concrete floor, i wished we had something to put underneath or thin hiking mattrasses. Bingo! Standing behind the door was a roll of emacansi, traditional swazi sleeping mats. Talk about luck. We had a comfortable night.

Highlights

Top speed of 65km/h on some narrow single track
Mahamba Gorge mis-navigational success

Daily stats
66km covered
moving average 11.6km/h
overall average 8.6km/h

Day 3 - my kingdom, my kingdom, my kingdom for a bicycle

2009-08-13T09:56:00.004+02:00

The road that set out from Sandlane border post and ran parallel to the border looked perfect for cycling, but plans to do this leg on the mountain bikes had fallen through. Johan and I however have a motto : "Never let planning get in the way of a good adventure".

We headed off through the Dwalile area, a local lad with only one leg keeping up with us on his crutches. The area appears to get its name from a nearby mountain across the border called Ndlovudwalile. This means something like "proud elephant" in Siswati. Any elephant who reaches these lofty highveld heights has every reason to be proud.

Johan and I upped the pace and raced down into the Ngwempisi Valley. The Ngwempisi River is one of the major tributaries of the Great Usutu and it passes through an incredible gorge which is the site of the Ngwempisi Trails hiking network, a community-run tourism project.

We overdid the descent a bit, averaging 5.3km/h for 3 hours. When we stopped near Gugwini School to re-assess the route south my legs seized up totally and I could hardly walk. We got some directions from a local schoolgirl, who was quite disturbed that we were wanting to get to St Stephen’s school. “U-le?”, she queried pointing to the top of some distant mountains.
“Yebo – yes” we confirmed and headed down to a rough crossing point on the river. Most community crossing points have a series of stepping stones to get across the water. We couldn’t spy one here. Then I saw a large Swazi lady heading towards the river just downstream of us.

“Downstream,” I called to Johan, “follow the large lady.”
We arrived to find her taking her shoes off. Alas, no easy crossing. One of the secrets to avoiding blisters is to keep your feet dry, something we were trying to do at all costs. However, here there was no choice. We waded across the slippery rocks. The large lady had a 3-year old child with her. After attempting first to cross luggage plus child all in one go, she then opted to leave the child on an island, dump her stuff and return. We were feeling far from chivalrous and weren’t able to be of much help at all. The cold water made the muscle seizures even worse and I called for Cataflam and a sandwich.

Slowly we started climbing the mountain weaving up dusty pathways between homesteads and mieliefields. We heard someone shouting behind us. Soon we saw the same schoolgirl we'd seen across the other side of the valley puffing up the path towards us.

“You must return and go this way,” she said. Apparently watching our progress from almost a kilometer away she had seen us take a wrong turn, not an impossible thing to do given the number of junctions and options presented by these community pathways. Busisiwe Mdluli, as we learnt her name was, was doing Form 2 at the nearby school. She had kind-heartedly run all this way to help us and indeed she did, leading us right to the bottom of the track which climbed the side of the Lushikishini Mountain. We were very grateful for this effort on her part and asked if her school had internet. She wasn’t too sure what internet was but said in Form 4 they started to use computers. We told her to google her name one day and that she would find the story of her helping us available for the whole world to read. She was confused and amazed at the same time.

As we climbed the mountain with the valley falling away behind us, we pondered how important it was to get computers and internet connections into these rural schools. The information age is not helping these rural people. In fact the gap between the have’s and have-not’s in Africa is just widening. I see it in my own business, www.swazi.travel which is entirely internet-based. Most school-leavers that come knocking on our door are almost unemployable, their skills totally inappropriate for the managing the demands of online marketing. That said, the likelihood of getting a rural school hooked to the internet anytime soon, is as likely as running car engines on water. At present the Swaziland Government is still struggling to implement the recent Constitutional obligation to provide free primary education. There are currently not enough schools, chairs or desks in the country and rectifying that first will take some time.

Thirty minutes later we reached the summit of the mountain, but lost the feeling of accomplishment when we saw the large lady and the 3-year old just ahead of us. How she had managed to power up escarpment, with a massive bag balanced on her head was baffling! The child, who was on his own feet, was equally impressive. We greeted again and headed on.

At a stream crossing we took directions from a woman collecting water in a 25 litre drum. Here we regained some dignity by being able to assist her to lift the weight of the drum onto her head. She was appreciative and we watched as she climbed out of the steep-sided donga (gulley in English) balancing the drum effortless, her neck moving left and right to keep her head perfectly poised. Getting water for household use is a daily chore in most areas outside of the urban water supply networks. We doubted that there was much that these rural folk could be taught about water conservation. In fact, a good way to ensure consciousness in urban areas where water resources are under pressure, would be to insist on a mandatory requirement to carry your water from the municipal supply into your home. Just a 50m walk would bring about a whole new mindset.

Sicunusa border was just an hour and a bit away and our target for the day. Here we were meeting Karen and Matthew Pitman, my brother-in-law. He was driving in from Johannesburg to join us for a day or two. Having completed the entire Kunene River expedition with us, he couldn’t resist the temptation to spend a day or two under the stars living simply again. We were looking forward to seeing him too, as he had been given strict instructions: “Bring bicycles!”

At the border we were re-directed to a nearby mission school at a place called “Bethlehem”. Whilst waiting at the border Karen had been befriended by Emmanuel Dlamini, a policeman on duty there. He was so concerned about where we were going to sleep for the night that he had called around and got permission from the school headmaster and the local pastor for us to camp on the mission premises. He even organized firewood for us in advance.

“That was possibly the nicest border crossing official that I have ever-ever met,” commented Karen.

“Welcome to hassle-free Africa!” I replied.

Later that night we sat around the fire with Emmanual . He had been a policeman for 19 years in various areas of Swaziland, but was glad to be back here in this area, as it was where he had grown up. He had a farm at Velesizweni, which is near the community-run Ngwempisi Trails. He was also keen to cater for tourists on his farm. It seems the seed of tourism development was well-sown in the surrounding area. One thing we all agreed later was that there was no-one who could teach him anything about good hospitality. He clearly had a doctorate in that already!

We went to bed happy, but concerned about the next few days. We had gained some bicycles but were losing Karen. She needed to return to Skukuza in the Kruger National Park, where she has lived for the past 3 years. Her job is to lecture and supervise students for the Organisation for Tropical Studies, an American organization linked to WITS and UCT universities in South Africa. We were definitely going to miss her. Meals were going to get a lot rougher and our bags were certainly going to be heavier.

Highlights:
Cataflam – an anti-inflammatory that works wonders
Policeman Emmanuel Dlamini and schoolgirl Busiswe Mdluli – for underlining why we love Swaziland.

Technical stats:
We walked 35km and in doing so clocked over first 100km. Moving average 4.5km/h and overall average 4km/h. We were active for 9 hours and Darron pushed his heart rate up to 184 max at one point, but had a gentle average of only 113 for the day. We burnt 3485 calories…. Then ate Reese’s Peanut butter cups for dessert.

Day 2 - logging with ponies, hunting with dogs, chatting with Ntombikayise

2009-08-13T09:50:00.003+02:00

This morning I am awoken to the rattling of the kettle next to the non-existent coals from the previous night’s fire. It’s pitch black outside the tent. This is a moment of déjà vu for me, taking me back more than 10 years to the Kunene River Expedition that we had undertaken down the Namibian-Angolan border. On that three week trip Johan was worse than a rooster with insomnia, up every day way before daylight playing boy scout around the fire.

“Hey, it’s 4am,” I said rather croakily.

“Wragtag?” he replied in his mother tongue. Despite his surname Johan is a born and bred boere seun, totally bilingual as most South African’s are. “I don’t have a watch,” he explained sheepishly.

After coaxing him back into his sleeping bag we were later awakened by the sounds of school children passing by and giggling at our road camp. This was a daily journey for them and the sun wasn’t even up yet. It made us wonder how far they had to walk to get to school. One hears stories of kids in Africa walking 10km or more to and from school. It’s a reality of sparsely spread communities and even more sparsely spread schools. There were no fat kids amongst the stream of them that came past us.

“Maybe if you two walked everyday to your offices, you wouldn’t feel so sore right now,” said Karen cheekily.

“Wouldn’t help,” I replied, “we both work from home.”

After a hearty breakfast of Jungle Oats we set off, crossed the Mpuluzi River, heading through a wide-open plain, up and over a neck and down into the Usutu SAPPI forest. There were immediate signs of the devastating fires that have caused SAPPI to advise of the likely closure of their pulp mill shortly. Over the past two years thousands of hectares of pine plantation have gone up in runaway winter fires. For some time now the mill has been running on salvaged burnt timber, but it seems now that this is coming to an end. This is really bad news, not only for the 600-odd mill workers who are likely to lose their jobs, but also for the Swaziland economy as a whole; It can ill-afford knocks like this right now.

In the forest our plotted track took us past a crew of foresters, busy felling trees. These were local sub-contractors. Some years back SAPPI tendered out the harvesting of trees to small local companies. Of interest to us as we passed by was the fact that they used horses, or ponies, to haul the cut timber to the road edge. Obviously the use of costly mechanical equipment has been scrapped in favour of this more traditional means of haulage. It was a very efficient operation with the sturdy ponies moving up and down the slope continuously.

Later on, after climbing continuously for more than an hour we reached a high plateau and exited the forest. On the ridge ahead we saw some boys with dogs heading west. In fact there were at least 20 dogs.

“Must be a hunting party,” I said to Johan, “I wonder if there is much wildlife left in these parts?”

Twenty minutes later as we crested the ridge we were greeted with an incredible spectacle. Across the entire rim of a steep funnel-shaped valley, hunters with dogs waited patiently, spread out 50 meters apart. Each person had two or three dogs of distinct lean greyhound ancestry. The individual dogs were decorated with bright fluffy collars made from shredded plastic.

Our route was going to take us right through the middle of their trap. We saw an old man at the centre raise his hand in a signal to halt. We paused, but his instruction appeared to be directed to the boys we had earlier seen who were entering the bottom of the valley. They were obviously the “beaters” who had been sent round to drive the game towards the waiting teeth above. The hunt was paused and we walked on, stopping to chat to the nearest hunter. He said they were hunting duiker or mpunzi in siSwati, the local language. I had heard about hunters placing bets on the success of the hunt and on whose dog would make the final kill. Perhaps the coloured collars were for this purpose? I asked him if they were gambling, and he said “no”. He posed for us with his dogs and then, so as not to disrupt them any further, we headed on.

A duiker is a small antelope. They are the only species of antelope still widely occurring outside game or nature reserves. In most areas all other species having been wiped out by unsustainable hunting on the few remaining areas of undeveloped land. They are fast, but against a pack of forty dogs would need a small miracle to escape.

No sooner had we reached the far edge of the valley when a cry rang out and the sound of dogs on the chase echoed upwards. We spun around to watch the drama. A line of dogs trailed the fleeing duiker, just centimeters from its tail. It weaved left and right, but the dogs were glued to it. Above the hunters released their dogs in unison and they all raced inwards towards their prey.

It was hard to for a moment to tell hunter from prey. In the melee, the duiker broke through the upper rim and disappeared from sight, dogs still in hot pursuit……we never saw the final result. On the one hand we were sad for the little duiker, but on the other, thrilled to have observed such a well co-ordinated traditional hunting activity. Having spent the first half of my working life in the employ of Swaziland’s Big Game Parks, I was well aware of the struggle that conservationists have in protecting the remnants of this country’s once abundant wildlife. However, it was not this type of traditional hunting that wiped out game in Swaziland. Agriculture, forestry and some pretty appalling European policies in the early 1900’s did most of the damage.

We headed onwards towards our crossing point on the Great Usutu River. Eighteen years ago Johan and I had undertaken our first expedition together, an 11-day Source-to-Sea descent of the Great Usutu, the first ever trip of its nature. It was the start of a friendship that has grown from strength-to-strength since then.

Our target for the day was Sandlane border post, otherwise known as Nerston to South Africans. Karen walked down the track to meet us and then led us to the small filling station just before the crossing. Here we had a good chat with Rose Litchfield, whose family name is well-known in Swaziland. Her grand-father had arrived here from the UK, married and settled. She was very hospitable and wanted us to camp nearby, but there was still some light in the sky so we opted to head onwards towards Dwalile.

Karen found another hospitable homestead about 6km down the road when she happened upon a girl named Zanile walking home from her job at the nearby sawmill. Zanile and her family stared on in fascination as tents went up, sleeping bags, camping stoves and piles of food were pulled from the car….. and whilst she set up camp in their mieliefield, Johan and I trudged down the gravel road.

At this point in the day we were digging deep to find motivation for the final few kilometers, but our trip was livened by Ntombikayise, a young lass, who walked with us for a short while. As we departed the settlement at the border she replied to a far off shout, “Ngitfola babe.” Roughly translated, this was: “I’ve got a man.” It wasn’t her light-hearted nature that struck us, because this is typical of Swaziland, but the way in which her voice carried effortlessly across the space between her and the distant homestead.

“Try to say that in English, and you’d just get: 'Whaaaat?', as a reply,” said Johan. It’s true, the SiSwati language, and in fact many Nguni African languages appear designed to travel vast distances between hills. Clearly the language evolved long before written contexts had come into effect and certainly long before the modern mobile phone.

Talking about mobile phones, we were putting the local MTN network to test, and in fact they were passing with flying colours so far. Not only had we hardly lost reception so far, despite being in some pretty remote valleys, but on top of this there was enough of a data connection available that I was able to keep track of goings-on via email and skype!

At last we got to Make Mgabhi’s homestead. Make means “mother” with the “k” pronounced as a “g” in Siswati. She had warmly offered us the use of her kitchen, as there was no place to safely build a fire in the grassy field where we were, but the day’s walk meant that the two or three metres between the tent and the Toyota double-cab were about as much as we could manage. I hope she didn’t think we were just unfriendly.

The day's highlights:
Bacon, mushroom, garlic, cream sauce with potatoes and the last of the battle-ship sinking b’day cake. When you’re on the move for so long it’s not surprising that food is a highlight.
The community dog hunt.

Technical bits:
Day 2 we covered 36.5km. Our moving average was 4.6km/h, overall average 3.9km/h. We burned 3783 calories and had maximum heart rate of 150, average of 116 over 9 hour period.

Day 1 Ngwenya through Sigangeni

2009-08-11T21:24:00.012+02:00

Flatdogs, mad dogs and tall grass. Our starting point for day #1 of Circum-Swazi was the Ngwenya/Oshoek borderpost. This was for no other reason other than convenience.

For those unfamiliar with Swaziland, the Ngwenya border ("Oshoek" to South Africans) is Swaziland's main or busiest border crossing. It leads straight down the MR3 highway to the capital of Mbabane. Swaziland has invested very well in its road infrastructure, and one very graphic example of this is the double-lane highway that now runs from Ngwenya border straight through Mbabane (on the new bypass) and down to Manzini, the country's commercial and industrial heart. Its quite an engineering feat with massive cuttings and fills linking up granite koppies (small hills) and avoiding steep valleys.

On the new bypass it took us just 25min from Mantenga in Ezulwini (where I live) up to Ngwenya. Ngwenya means "crocodile" supposedly because the adjacent mountain looks like a crocodile. I've always been too sober to spot this particular resembalance.

Apart from being a major entry point for Swaziland the name Ngwenya has been taken world-wide by the nearby Ngwenya Glass factory, one of Swaziland's most successful art & craft exports. The beauty of this facility is that it uses 100% recycled glass, with all items (glasses, tableware, vases, ornaments, gifts (the list is endless) being hand-made by local Swazi artisans. It really is a great business. Just recently I heard that they have put a conversion on their fuel hungry furnace which can now use old engine oil to power itself... another brilliant step to being environmentally sensitive.

So after grabbing some small denomination notes at the ENGEN petrol station at Ngwenya we posed for the obligatory photo and headed off south. Our plan is to circum-navigate Swaziland in a anti-clockwise direction; the theory being that we would leave the major mountain ranges to the north of Ngwenya until we were a bit stronger on our feet.

In white-water rafting and kayaking circles tingwenya (crocodiles) are commonly named "flatdogs". Johan and I are used to keeping an eye out for these sneaky reptiles, having been attacked numerously during our previous Kunene River expedition. Today however it was mad dogs that we needed to be wary of. The first pack were just 20min from our start and they had us practising some choice words of dissatisfaction and walking backwards for quite some time. Whenever we turned our backs on them they charged for our ankles, but kept their distance when we had them square on. Further on we learnt that stones, or just the act of picking up stones, was a short-cut to respect. We had few further incidents.

In fact we saw few further homesteads until the Sigangeni area...as the route soon became sparsely populated. Just rivers and mountain peaks marked our progress most of the day. The crossing of the Lusushwana River marked our departure from the Hhohho district (or province) of Swaziland and our arrival in Shiselweni. This is the same river I live alongside, opposite Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, many windy kilometres downstream.

Our next landmark was Lundzi border post, a very minor crossing point on the far west of the Usutu Forest. We didn't see a single vehicle for the 30-odd minutes that we had the road in sight. If you hate standing in a border queue...then this is the border for you.

Karen was a bit late in finding us just 5km south of here for our overnight stop. Johan and I quickly got a roaring fire going to keep warm. Wattle is a major invasive species in this area, so we felt no shame in ridding the area of some chunky pieces.

Later we sat down to an awesome dinner under a starry sky, just 500m from Shiya Summit at 1448m. We camped in the middle of the dirt track we were following, hoping that no traffic would come. None did - our first night was definitely a night in hassle-free Africa.

Highlights for the day:

Makwane Peak - impressive granite dome

Ball of red sun setting on Shiya Peak

Butter chicken and basmati rice followed by battleship sinking birthday cake

For the techno junkies:

Walked for 06h38 and covered covered 29km. Moving average 4.4km/h, overall average 4km/h. Burnt 3905 calories. Max heartrate 187 (Darron), average heart rate 127 over a 07h37 period.

Countdown to departure

2009-08-10T20:34:00.004+02:00

No more excuses... having already delayed departure by a day (initial plan was to start on the 10th, until "swazi-time" came into play) its NOW time to get going.

Johan has done the shopping. Darron has ...erh...been fiddling with the GPS and Karen has been making tea.

By the way - introducing Karen (pronounced Caryn in Canadian) Vickers. She is our back-up crew member until the end of the week. Plan is we're going to walk fairly light for the first few days, whilst she carries the goodies and meets us ahead in her 4x4. Smart move... maybe we can talk her into staying for the full two weeks !

The big day

2009-08-08T01:49:00.006+02:00

The 10th August, the day before departure was an auspicious occasion - Johan's 40th birthday!

The full celebration happened in Johannesburg where considerable carbo-loading took place. Springbok pie, chilli-chocolate chicken, a whole table of cheeses, chocolate fountain, 4 different desserts and a chocolate birthday cake that could sink a battleship. This is what happens when the birthday boy has a top chef as a sister. Thank you Maria (and Lorraine).

To circumnavigate

2009-08-08T00:27:00.004+02:00

"To circumnavigate a place, such as an island, a continent, or the Earth, is to travel all the way around it. To go around instead of through. To travel completely around somewhere or something."

Our mission in the next few days is to circumnavigate the Kingdom of Swaziland...on foot and possibly by bicycle if the going is a bit slow. We've only got 12 days to do it, starting the 11th August 2009.

The border of Swaziland is only 550km in length; not a big country... as countries go. But quite a good choice for two guys who are far from fit...and still struggling to shake off the effects of winter sniffs and snivels.

Why are we doing this?

The formal reason is probably something macho like: "Keeping the spirit of adventure alive!", the underlying reason is more likely along the lines of two middle-aging guys not wanting to feel old.