Hlumeni_Goba

Monday the 7th, the official start of our adventure, was cold, cloudy and rainy not exactly cycling weather. The plan was to cycle on to the proposed Hlumeni-Goba conservation initiative be part of the Lubombo Transfrontier Conservancy. We travelled on tar road to the Goba border crossing into Mozambique for about 20km and then turned off on a lovely gravel track winding through the local homesteads up to a beautiful view of the Swazi lowveld.

Adventures like ours, I have learned, are never smooth sailing. The best option to replaced the back tyre oif my bike was to drive to Manzini, the nearest bike shop from Siteki. A phone call confirmed that they had the right tyre in stock, a 650B. I left early while the rest of the group started the cycle. The road was busy with lots of slow traffic and road bumps. The bike shop people were very helpful, but eventually I had to settle for a tyre with a tube rather than a tubeless. The young guy at the shop is a MTB cyclist himself using 650B. While waiting he entertained me with stories about his most recent Swazi race and how good the South African riders are. It turned out that the bike mechanic, clearly good at his job, also rode the Argus this year. Back at Mabuda, I got on my bike after twelve and met up with the rest of the group on their way back. A tail wind took me out but the return journey was quite a slog, a total of 52km.

Prepared for the worst!

At proposedHlumeni-Goba conservation site