De Vlugt

November 23, 2025

It was raining quite heavily when we woke up this morning. We had decided not to bring rain gear with us on this trip so there was a chance this could be a bit of a problem. Thankfully it stopped before we set off although it did drizzle lightly at times. If it had started to rain heavily again we would have had to set up the tarp as a shelter because there were no natural or man made shelters available on today's route.

For the first ten kilometers we road through the attractive Uniondalepoort. I had always thought that the story of the vanishing hitchhiker of Uniondale was from an incident on this road but it turns out that it relates to the road from Barandas that we had ridden earlier.

In stormy weather on Easter weekend of 1968 a young engaged couple had a car accident on the Barandas road around 20 kilometres from the town. The woman, Maria Charlotte Roux, was sleeping in the back seat of their Volkswagen Beetle when her fiancé lost control of the car. The car overturned and she was killed. The first reported sighting of a ghost matching her description occurred during the Easter weekend of 1976 and since then many other sightings have been reported. All involve a female hitchhiker who is given a lift, then disappears a few kilometers down the road.

For the record, nobody hitched a ride on our bicycles, neither through the poort nor on the road from Barandas.

At Avontuur the tar came to an end and we will ride on a gravel road until we reach the coast tomorrow. Initially there was a stiff climb but then we descended steeply down to De Vlugt through the Prince Alfred Pass.

At the top of the climb, barely 1040 meters above sea level, we found ourselves looking down on the clouds.

We are camping at a rather rough campsite made popular by gravel road motorcyclists. Its name says it all - "Angie's G-spot" - and we would have taken any other accommodation we could get but options are limited around here.

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 1,640 km (1,018 miles)

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