For the love — Ruan makes it home

Ruan Smit

Over the last two months I have had the most won­der­ful oppor­tun­ity to meet a coun­try and its people in slow motion. To look at everything and every­one at 25 kilo­metres per hour. I exper­i­enced a dif­fer­ent South Africa, one that has opened up its soul in its diversity and given me much more than a smile on my some­times lonely face.

The last 9000 km have taken me through 9 provinces and intro­duced me to 11 lan­guages. I have met so many dif­fer­ent people and exper­i­enced unique ways of look­ing at a beau­ti­ful coun­try that has taken its own with every per­son ... Continued

A different forest — stories from the road by Ruan

Joburg Skyline

The Johannesburg Skyline lies in front of me and it shows the vari­ous stages of growth that this city has exper­i­enced. Buildings rise ambi­tiously, keep­ing watch over a city that unites South African cul­ture and serves as a place where dreams are hunted. I breathe deeply, this is it. This is 9000km, the last two months of a jour­ney that star­ted in the exact same place. As the cars fly past me on their way to another meet­ing and another deal, I get on my cycle and start the last stretch ... Continued

Parys with a ‘Y’? — stories from the road by Ruan

Parys with a y

Somewhere along the Vaal River on the Northern side of the Free State lies a little town that speaks a dif­fer­ent lan­guage. This lan­guage is shown through a whole Saturdays worth of antique and art shops. You almost find your­self in a dif­fer­ent coun­try at a dif­fer­ent time where red wine and dis­cus­sions on art are at the order of the day. In the back­ground of this little town you hear the calm flow of water that will at some point reach the Atlantic Ocean.

My first meet­ing with the little town of Parys is a saloon type bar a few minutes out­side of town. My bike becomes a horse as I stable it and enter the scenery as if part of a wild west movie, but instead of being an out­sider I am imme­di­ately treated as a friend. This sets the trend for a town that thrives on week­ends and rests dur­ing the week ... Continued

Pitching a tent — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Kroonstad Sky

For more than 8500 kilo­metres I have cycled with a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat­tress not open­ing any of the bags at any point dur­ing this two month jour­ney. In Kroonstad I had to. Every piece of equip­ment still in its pack­aging and with the smell of new I pitch my tent under the stars of this Free State town. As the little piece of blue can­vass grows into a shel­ter from the cold night, I become excited and almost feel like that boy who pitched his tent in the back yard of his house 20 years ago.

I unzip the top sec­tion and from my newly blown up mat­tress I can see the stars hid­den away by a sin­gu­lar tree that would shade me from the pre­dicted rain. My thoughts start wan­der­ing and even­tu­ally ends at the point where I entered Kroonstad dur­ing the mid after­noon sun with a light breeze help­ing me for­get about the sun on my bare skin... Continued

Seeking the sun — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

We so often attach the concept of life to game, forests, water and people. But sel­dom do we see the life that farm­ing pro­duces. I am not only refer­ring to that part of life that feeds our bod­ies and nour­ishes us after exert­ing ourselves, I am also refer­ring to that part of farm­ing that can nour­ish the soul, and the Free State has much of that.

I see a crop of sun­flowers every so many kilo­met­ers around the city of Bloemfontein and it strikes me… the beauty of these yel­low flowers has much more to offer than oil and but­ter. That plant that shows its face only to the sun has a beauty that few recog­nize. The crop I stop at is big and the flowers at full bloom. Continued

Digging for Dreams in Kimberley — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Digging for dreams

It’s more than just a really big hole, much big­ger than a cav­ity filled with water in a region that is known for its dry heat. It is a whole that had many dream­ing about a future that could be, a future that happened for many. And the his­tory that was left by a hole that has no known end.

The road that leads to Kimberley, or the one that I choose to take is one filled with the beauty and inspir­a­tion of the Northern Cape, the biggest South African province, the province that allows one to be the self you inspire to be with people who allow you to dream to the edges of your ima­gin­a­tion. Continued

And Douglas smiles ... — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Douglas smiles ...

When an Afrikaans man in his late forties from the ‘plat­te­land’ starts telling you about some­thing and you can hear his voice quiver ever so slightly, when his eyes almost gets hazy and he has to look away, when he catches him­self using fem­in­ine words and needs to cor­rect him­self as he real­izes. When this man is talk­ing about the town where he lives you real­ize that he truly has a soft spot for that town.

Jakes feels this way about Douglas. A little town I met not too long ago in the Northern Cape near Kimberley. Continued

A River of Life — Stories from the road by Ruan Smit

the road ...

For nearly 500km I look at the end­less Namaqualand and Boesmanland as I slowly move across towards the Orange River and the spec­tac­u­lar Augrabies Waterfall. At points it feels like the land­scape is repeat­ing itself and that I’m stuck in a loop of the same piece of road as noth­ing seems to change. For a moment I think, South Africa changes every 100km or so. How can it pos­sibly be that this part is dif­fer­ent? And as I take a closer look, as I smell the air and feel the dirt run­ning through my fin­gers I real­ize I have not been look­ing, really look­ing ... Continued

Where love grows with flowers — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Namakwa Flowers

For a while now I’ve been won­der­ing if the land­scape or space we live in has any effect on per­son­al­ity. Obviously it has to... But in Namakwa I found proof. There is a the­ory that the big­ger the pond is, the big­ger the fish will grow. Namakwa is like this. The vast open spaces, the bossies and sin­gu­lar trees of this area that proves its beauty but once a year has surely influ­enced the col­our­ful people that live here.

The per­son­al­it­ies you find here are big, strange even, but most def­in­itely won­der­ful. Every per­son­al­ity is char­ac­ter­ized by the many flowers that find its way up the dry earth between July and September. When you meet them at first like the land­scape you’re not entirely sure what to make of what you see. But give it some time and the area flowers ... Continued

An Elands Bay Road trip — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Elands Bay

On a misty morn­ing in late March I put myself to the road and hope that what it has to offer is what my soul is in need of. Only the road and the spirit of adven­ture can truly know what I need to exper­i­ence on a day like this and I’ve long since given up on for­cing the out­come of this road

The mist hangs like a cot­ton cloud over the veld of the robust west coast. The shrub­bery only enough to feed the few sheep that have become friends the last few days. A road I can­not the end of stretches under­neath the gray cloud as work the tar, my legs burn­ing in the cold morn­ing air and the feel­ing of being alive pumps through my heart into the rest of my body. A smile appears on my face before I real­ize it and when I do I try and frame it for use at another occa­sion ... Continued

There is a city… stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Cape Town ...

There’s a South African city that invites you in the moment you enter her atmo­sphere, she leads you into a space where a com­bin­a­tion of beauty, calm, buzz and his­tory makes you feel com­fort­able as if you have find home after a long hol­i­day. This city is home to many people, people that come from dif­fer­ent spheres of life. Some with ambi­tious dreams, some that seek inspir­a­tion from the love filled air, oth­ers come here to break away or to avoid a long cold winter.

This city provides a non judg­mental land­scape in which you can explore your ideas. She provides you with new ideas and helps you to col­lab­or­ate with other ideas. Her moun­tains, sun, wind, rain, trees and build­ings form a per­fect whole where many find a safe haven under­neath her sky. Continued

Adin ‘The no money man’ — Stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Adin van Ryneveld

When I left Johannesburg a month ago I was intro­duced to Adin van Ryneveld via a friend on social media, which means that I’ve never met this per­son and that all the con­tact we’ve ever had was on twit­ter and Facebook. No phone calls, no e-mail.

For the whole month I’ve been on the road he’s been sup­port­ing my jour­ney, when I fell off my bike he was the first to ask if I was okay, when the heat was more than forty degrees, he was one of the people telling me to drink enough water. Odd from a from a per­son you’ve never met before, well that’s what I thought ... Continued

Say Cheese! — Stories from the road by Ruan Smit

"Say Cheese!"

When I left Johannesburg 4 weeks ago I decided to stop at the first wine farm on route to Cape Town. There’s just no other way, one can’t visit the Western Cape without doing at least one wine tour. So my cycle tour for one day became a wine tour, and it’s quite awe­some what one can see doing the tour this way. Obviously tast­ing is lim­ited but I wouldn’t mind arran­ging more of these in the near future.

On the R60 from Swellendam I travel towards Robertson and Worcester. A stretch of road that I’m not com­pletely famil­iar with, but I’m so struck by the beauty of the land­scape that more than 30km pass by on the cycle before I real­ize I have no clue where I am. It’s a misty morn­ing and the moun­tains show me a majestical side of this world. I can­not help but see myself liv­ing here and explor­ing some moun­tain trails and enjoy­ing a wood fire at the end of a long rainy day ... Continued

Kenton on Sea inspires — Stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Kenton On Sea

You can’t plan an adven­ture, I’ve real­ized that so many times through­out this tour. Adventure has a mind of its own and it’s best just to let it go its way. That’s when the fun really starts. Kenton on Sea how­ever was a planned stop long before I knew where I was going to find a bed on my first night, the reason being that we have some fam­ily friends that own a house here and they so will­ingly gave me the keys to their beau­ti­ful hol­i­day get­away spot.

So when I left Hamburg, in the Eastern Cape, early one morn­ing I was excited to go to a place I’ve heard so much about but never taken the turnoff to. I cycle through the most beau­ti­ful Port Alfred and find my thoughts next to the river and some boats. Yes, I’m ready for Kenton on Sea ... Continued

A Gonubie affair — Stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Honestly, before I ended up in Gonubie dur­ing this cycle tour I was never aware of its exist­ence… let alone that I would be forever smil­ing after this extraordin­ary visit.  The first of the three whoop whoop girls I meet is Maureen, I’m stay­ing over at her B&B called Porkys. Funny how I ended up here, Michelle who I wrote about in my pre­vi­ous art­icle referred me and from there another story starts.

Porky was Maureen’s nick­name since school because she used to be chubby, she smiles. And every­one still knows her by this name so it was the obvi­ous choice. No pretences…

Her energy is con­ta­gious as she helps me get my cycle into her car. And from here on in she never stops bub­bling. She is abso­lutely proud of the fact that she’s the first cyc­list I’m stay­ing with. Continued