South African adventure enthusiasts, are busy cycling Qhubeka bicycles from Johannesburg to Tanzania covering 4630km over a 10 week period.
After just over a week since leaving Johannesburg from Jeep Bryanston, the Joburg2Kili powered by Tarsus cyclists, Warrick and Camilla Kernes, Gareth Pickering and Derrick Fourie have cycled over 800km to Francistown in Botswana on single-speed Qhubeka Buffalo Bicycles.
The Joburg2Kili team are raising funds for Qhubeka by riding from Johannesburg to Moshi in Tanzania by Mount Kilimanjaro. To date they have managed to raise over R125 000 for Qhubeka, which helps change children’s lives by providing them with bicycles to enable them to get to school.
“The journey so far has been an awesome experience. It really got real for us when we crossed over into Botswana and we are enjoying riding here on these flat, smooth roads,” says Warrick Kernes, owner of Action Gear.
The route so far has taken the team from Bryanston in Johannesburg to Buffelspoort; then a tough windy ride to Bakgatla Resort in Pilansberg. From there they cycled up north to the beautiful Marakele National Park, which is just past Thabazimbi and then onto Marulasfontein Game ranch just before Laphalale.
ALSO READ: South Africans cycling from Johannesburg to Kilimanjaro for charity
From there they had their longest ride to date just short of 130km to Kwa Nokeng Campsite which is just past the Martin’s Drift Border Post into Botswana.
The team have had one rest day which was in fact their first day in Botswana to just give the bodies some rest time.
The team then moved on up to Itumela Campsite in Palaype onto Serule and are now they have arrived at Woodlands Campsite just outside Francistown in Botswana.
One of the cyclists, Derrick Fourie, has been struggling a bit with a sore knee over the past few days whilst riding so he decided to not ride the leg from Kwa Nokeng Campsite to Palaype and to rather take another day off to go see a local doctor in Palaype.
Since then he seems to already be on the mend and has ridden both legs from Palaype to Serule and then onto Francistown.
On the leg from Serule to Francistown, the team experienced their first set of punctures and had some difficulties with the tyre repair patches that were in their kit but they managed to sort the tyres out by visiting a very helpful, local tyre repair shop on the side of the road.
“It has made such a difference having two support vehicles with us for this expedition. One car is able to go ahead to setup camp and buy food supplies along the way whilst the other follows us to keep us safe and to allow us to stop and fill up water bottles, get more snacks and to apply more STUF sunblock” says Camilla Kernes, the only female cyclist on the journey.
The team will be riding through Botswana for the next ten days as they make their way up to Zambia. The team are using a Spot Gen3 GPS that allows people to follow them daily by visiting their Live Tracking page on the www.joburg2kili.com website.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments or follow GoodThingsGuy on Facebook & Twitter to keep up to date with good news as it happens.
by 