Old Legs Tour Angola 2024 – Day Two
Montgomery to Lion's Den - 107 km of Munyame, Moods and Magnificent Miombo
The day started with excitement and some trepidation after yesterday’s epic, but pretty harsh, single-track climb up the Dyke. Little did we know what lay in wait for us, as we headed out for Day Two…
Before we even hit 500m, the Watermeyer brothers spotted a massive dead python on the side of the road that everyone else had passed by. (The Watermeyer brothers are built for finding these kinds of things.)
The ride started well, downhill at first, but quickly turned into a series of uphill battles all the way to Caesar Mine, which we felt in yesterday’s tired legs and sore bums! After regrouping and admiring the view, we descended a stunning escarpment – Gus, our resident plant whisperer, was thrilled by the rare aloe species endemic to this area he spotted. The rest of us enjoyed the adrenaline rush of a fast, sandy and rocky descent, dropping 500m over 5km – a great way to kick off an awesome day!
Next, we hit the Mpinga-Mutoroshanga road towards Muriel Mine. It was a beautiful but remote area, with lovely vistas, rocky outcrops, and Miombo bushland . but increasingly hot weather and challenging terrain meant the ride was getting HARD.
Meanwhile, Linda had got lost driving one of the support vehicles, and now we aren’t only worrying about the Aussies never finding their way to Angola! (This is a concern because without Linda, we would all basically starve.) Luckily, she found her way back in time to produce breakfast under a giant fig tree, complete with delicious scotch eggs and Monty’s Baked Beans, which was a welcome break. We even managed to play some soccer with local kids, leaving them a football donation from Miracle Missions Vimba.
At the 67km mark, we said goodbye to the support vehicles which were not able to follow us any longer as the road broke down to Scotch cart tracks. Then things got Even More Epic.
Almost immediately, Jaime took some of the crew past the turnoff and up a hill. We shouted and whistled, but they continued merrily in the wrong direction. Luckily, we still had the cars in sight, and Linda dashed off to let them know that they had passed the turnoff about 2km back. They had to ride back up a big hill as punishment, so they were pretty grumpy when they got to us. Then, to rub salt in the wound, we reprimanded them for not using their Gaia map, which they have been repeatedly told to download. Hot, cross and tired, they went on a go-slow, telling us they were sulking! Luckily, wounds heal fast on the Old Legs Tour, and we were all friends again within a kilometre.
Meanwhile, Keegan and Alistair, who had the track on their Garmins, disappeared ahead. Before long, Laurie noticed that we could no longer see their tyre tracks, but, trusting Alistair’s bushman skills and Keegan’s recent solo adventure halfway round the world, we pressed on. The track turned gnarly, with tricky single-track and some mysterious green circles on our map (not good news, it turns out they mean “unknown territory”).
We realised this as we approached the Manyame, and the sides of our track became tiny crevices that looked alarmingly like a goat track. Right at the bottom, we came across the Manyame wall, made of rocks and bricks scavenged from the area and cemented together. The gap between the rocky cliff edge and the wall that we had to cross was bridged by some pretty spindly branches. We are not called The Old Legs for nothing, and so it was rather difficult to balance for 2 or 3 meters across this spindly bridge. But we are also not called Epic for nothing, and we didn’t hurt ourselves (much) as we crossed the bridge with teamwork – all bikes and bikers intact.
This is where the fun began. As mentioned, our Scotch cart route had disintegrated into a single track, but now past rains from the Hunyani Hills had transformed the single track into a series of gullies, making for a lot of “ride-walk, ride-walk.” We were still on track at this point with a short break of a lovely downhill that quickly disappeared into a pass between the Hunyani Hills. But the pass didn’t seem to be used by a lot of people. It kind of went into increasingly thick vegetation, which then split into a million little tunnels through the overgrown bush., with creepers with thorns and vines that caught a few of us around our neck.
This was hard going! We were tired, walking with our bikes, downhill through very thick vegetation, unable to see very far ahead. Nick mentioned that he had seen wild pig tracks, which was a little unsettling. (In the separated group, Keegan actually walked into a trap and that’s when he realised he they were going the wrong way.)
Eventually, we reached a beautiful tributary of the Manyame, a welcome chance to cool off with a refreshing wade through an icy river with crystal-clear waters, to a much better path on the opposite side. We were back on track!
But not for long…That path crossed the river several times, went up rocky slopes, along old river beds, and was very slow going. We barely covered 2km in an hour and a half. For some of us, this place looked very much like the Burundi forest; and we almost expected to see Gorillas (which, of course, we didn’t. That would have been very Epic and very Weird).
Instead, we met a herd of cows, and it wasn’t long before we came to a village where we witnessed a huge baboon being chased by a pack of dogs. Luckily for the dogs, they never caught the baboon, as we felt they would certainly have come off second best.
Hot, tired, and low on water, we pushed through the final hilly, challenging 20km stretch. We had no cell signal and Adam kept pushing us on, concerned about the rapidly setting sun. We were in a very beautiful and remote setting, which we possibly would have enjoyed more if Garmin hadn’t lied about the downhill promised from 82km! It wasn’t until around 92km that we finally got some (gradual) downhill relief on sandy soil.
By this point, Gus hadn’t fallen off, but with barely a kilometre to go, he succumbed to the thick sand and fell off! His record is now 2/2!
Finally, we reached the haven of Saucy Sue’s, greeted by Sue and Bruce with heavenly coffee milkshakes, delicious burgers, and steak rolls. They also provided us with a vehicle to go and rescue Alistair and Keegan, who we worked out were an hour behind us. A massive thank you to Sue and Bruce for their incredible hospitality – the perfect end to a truly memorable (and challenging!) day on the Old Legs Tour!
Until next time, Have Fun, Do Good, Do Epic!
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