Day 13 - Saturday - Toekomst to Bucklands

105km, 10 hours.
Legs not happy puppies today after 2 double-ups the previous 2 days.
Slightly tricky navigation but once again our luck held and we got it exactly right. Today we came across a cafe and ordered coke, tea, pie and chips. Hardly remarkable except that it was the first place we have passed that sells coke in over 300km. Such is the routing of this race. Our group is currently only 5 riders being Adam, Rohan, Jannie, Xolani and I.
Xolani had a hard day today. Punctured within 1 km of the start and continued with puncture problems all day. He spent the whole day following our tracks and at one point went over the handle bars at speed. He has no rear brakes, his front disk brakes are almost dysfunctional and his derailleur stopped working. We all spent hours getting his bike back into some sort of order. His tyres were a mass of thorns as I guess ours are except that he is the only one not riding on tubeless. He arrived at the support station about an hour after us looking like he had been dragged through a bush backwards several times. He has gravel rash and a swollen lip as a momento of his fall. Hopefully things will improve for him tomorrow.
We stopped under a tree along the route and celebrated Jannie's birthday with cups of freshly brewed tea and a slab of chocolate.