Day 14 - Sunday - Through the Wilderness. Bucklands to Cambria.

77km, 12h15 , 2100m of climbing. More of that later.
Last night the 5 of us stayed at Bucklands. As they were expecting 7 of us we were moved to a cottage up the road. First impressions were not favourable. No electricity, no hot water, dingy and drafty. Its amazing how perceptions change. Got the donkey boiler going, fire started and kettle on for tea. We all had steaming hot baths and enjoyed sitting around the fire. The beds were the most comfortable and snug we have had. It started raining around midnight, which sounded lovely on the tin roof, pity we had to ride through it in the morning!
Morning found the rain still falling. Decided to leave at 7.00 because of the miserable weather. Spent the first 4 hours trying to scramble over a mountain and then climbed and climbed toward the Baviaanskloof in intermittent rain and through mud. We finished well after sunset. The Baviaanskloof is outstanding, however wading knee high through a dozen river crossings wasn't much fun.
Arrived near our overnight stop with no idea where we were supposed to stay so just went to the closest light and found an unoccupied house with food and our resupply boxes inside, very fortunate.
If you do the maths on our distance and time taken today you will appreciate how much walking we did. We reckoned we walked for at least 9 hours!
As an indication of the remoteness of the wilderness area we traversed today - we saw only 2 people as they drove past in the only vehicle of the day.