Race to Willowmore 2021 - Part 1: Mordor Beckons

Llewellyn Lloyd - Reblex Photography 

As I lay on my back in the drainage ditch on the side of the road I became aware of the absolute stillness of the night. The sky above a myriad pinpricks of light. The full moon directly above a majestic heavenly chandelier. I heard sounds close by and popped my head up to see what it was. Over the years I'd had my fair share of nightly visitors in the form of bewildered sheep, curious cows or phlegmatic aardvarks. The flat Karoo that surrounded me was still. There wasn't so much as the the faintest of rustles from the hardened shrubs that extended as far as I could see under the golden wash of moonlight. I lay down and seconds later I heard the sounds again. After another quick look around I realised what they were. The night was as silent as I have ever experienced. In this grand cathedral of the Karoo I could have heard a church mouse tiptoeing down the road, instead what I heard was my own bodily functions—the creak and groan of old plumbing as the toasted sandwich and water I'd consumed earlier wend it's way through my digestive system. 

I'd put my body through the wringer. Save for an hour I spent laying on a bed in Cambria waiting for the vehicle escort through the Baviaanskloof Reserve I had been on the move since leaving Cradock 42 hours before. The road ahead had started to blur as the need for sleep wrestled with my desire to get to the finish line in Willowmore less than an hour away. I'd learnt over the years that the simple act of of getting off my bike and simply closing my eyes for 5 or 10 minutes would allow me to shake off the sleep monsters sufficiently to push on without the risk of falling asleep on my bike. 

As I lay there the journey of how I came to be laying in a ditch in the Karoo at midnight played through my mind. It started a few years back with the genesis of the Race to Willowmore. 

Of all the sections of the Freedom Trail the part that has me tossing in my bed at night is the thought of making my way through the Osseberg. The first time I went through there in 2007 there was an obvious jeep track that ran the length of track all the way into Cambria. The first 10 kilometres that loop over the mountain peaks before dropping dramatically into the river valley are still rideable albeit taxing in places. Once you arrive at the first river crossings the games begin. Over the course of the next 12 kilometres the river needs to be crossed 9 times. 

Since 2007 the track has deteriorated to the point that none of the crossings where 4x4 vehicles used to ford the river are obvious like they were the first time I went through. Standing on the bank of the river it's hard to imagine that the track ever existed. After more than 15 years of disuse and one particularly memorable flood the former jeep track is no more than an occasional strip or animal path with fallen trees and new growth making it a battle ground. 

The flood year in question is the year that Alex Harris attempted to slip through the Osseberg one night. Intent on easing his way through he faced the horrors of the aftermath of a massive flood. Instead of a few hours he spent the night wrestling his way through. His terse message after getting through was simply, "Last night I stared into Mordor." An obvious reference to the evil place in Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. One informal dictionary has this as a definition for Mordor - 'An area of peril, darkness or evil which people fear to visit or explore.'

Since Alex's comment warriors and dot watchers alike refer to this section as Mordor. It's fitting. 

When Race to Willowmore as a separate event was first touted the thought of going through Mordor was all the dissuasion I needed. It's not fun and isn't fun the reason I ride my bike?  Why would I subject myself to that? For RASA it's a necessary evil in order to connect the good bits. It can be tolerated in order to clutch the greater prize. But for a ride of a few days? I avoided this race and took my place as a dot watcher. As many people know, dot watching has consequences. One of those consequences was me finding myself on my bike at first light in Cradock at the start of Race to Willowmore 2021. Mordor beckoned. I was keen to engage.