May 15th:
Today we drove to the southernmost point of the continent of Africa – Cape Agulhas. The Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic at this point, and we got our bikes as close to it as we could, so we’ve gone the whole length of Africa. The further south we’ve come, the more familiar things have felt – although the most-of-day power-cut made us feel as though we were back up north! I suppose the pizza by candlelight was fairly romantic though.

As close as we could get.May 16th:
We finally rode into Cape Town today, well its suburbs anyway. We decided to stop at a beach resort called Muizenberg and found an excellent guesthouse for a few days. We contacted the shipping company again to try and sort out shipment of our bikes back to the UK.

May 17th:
Caught the train into Cape Town, and visited the “Castle of Good Hope”¸watching the Key Ceremony, and the firing of a small cannon – it has to be said that the British do this sort of thing with a lot more pomp and tradition. But in this case, the English were the supposed recipients of the Dutch ordnance.
We also had a discussion about going up Table Mountain, but the weather was very changeable, and the “tablecloth” hung over it, making it impossible to see anything.

Not quite fending off the Brits.

May 20th:
Took the bikes to a local shipping agent, who will crate them for us and put them on a boat back to England. We cleaned out the panniers, ate the last of our emergency food supplies, and threw away the tea-bags that had gone furry! Craig, the owner of the guesthouse followed us there, and brought us back to the digs – he couldn’t have been more helpful.

May 21st:
We moved in to a more central part of Cape Town into a hostel. Our first job was to go up Table Mountain since it was a clearish day, and the top was at least without its customary tablecloth. Incredible views of Cape Town and the ocean, and the peninsula we’d just come from. Definitely worth the wait.

With a tablecloth…

...Ta-da. And without.

May 23rd:
We are doing some sight-seeing now until our flight, so today we visited the Aquarium, and watched the penguin-feeding. It’s been fairly rainy here and cold (17 degrees) for the last few days, but I suppose that’s not so bad as it’s the middle of their winter at the moment.

May 25th:
We set off early morning to fly back home, stopping at Abu Dhabi on the way – so I suppose that counts as another country. The bikes are expected to be about another month, so fingers crossed that they arrive safely.

So, now we’ve done Sheffield to Cape Town overland.

Time away - 3 months / 12 weeks / 88 days
Countries - 21
Miles (from GPS) 12,321

Our route through Africa.

This is the final leg of our round-the-world trip (as far as we know.) We missed out South America due to lack of funds, and cut short this Africa trip by not returning to the UK via the west coast of Africa as had been originally planned. But we think we’ve covered most of what we wanted to cover – and some parts that we weren’t fussed about!

The point of the trip was just the journey – not particularly the destinations, although we’ve seen some spectacular sights. It was about being on the bike, every day, and having our eyes opened to the rest of the world.

You do come to realize that the world isn’t as big as you thought it was. Last year’s circumnavigation was 23,500 miles on the bike, and covered as much land as we could find, going east as we left the UK and just getting up most mornings and riding east.
Yes we know we’ve only seen a snapshot of each country, but that’s enough for us. If there had been a place that we wanted to go back to, then we would be doing just that.
But it’s made us appreciate England much more, and we’ll be exploring more of the UK in the next few years, I hope. Not least because we now don’t have any money for foreign holidays, and we’ll both have to start looking for work in the next few days.
It’s been an eye-opener though, and we have no regrets about any of it.

If you’re contemplating doing a similar trip, just do it. We are not special people – we don’t have lots of money – we’re not making exciting and witty media appearances – we just made a decision to go, and did it.

So can you.