“To raise exposure, funds and books for Shine, I will endeavour to cycle from Cairo to Cape Town arriving in time for the 40th Cape Town Cycle Tour on the 12 March 2017. One week later I will be on the start line for the toughest mountain bike stage in the world, The ABSA Cape Epic which will kick off 8 days of grueling riding on the 19 March 2017. One week after completing the Cape Epic, I will line up for the IRONMAN SA Championships in Port Elizabeth on the 2 April 2017.”

Day 11:

Aswan to Abu Simbel. So thankfully the decision to go for the whole distance of 280 km was ultimately taken out of my hands last night when the police said they were only available from 8.30 am. So I had a fantastic lie in! Still not feeling great this morning, but I wanted to ride at least part of the road that very few people have cycled over the past 15 years and so planned to do about a 40-50 km spin and call it a day. I managed to bash out 105 which I was stoked about it in the end. The road rises up from Aswan past the High Dam and onto a plateau and you are straight back into a desert wilderness, just miles of barren wasteland dotted with pylons and punctuated by the odd military installation. Apart from the headwind again for 100 km’s (where are the normal prevailing tail winds?!) I had a lovely ride, tried to take it easy and was a good taster of what’s to come in Sudan I think, i.e heat, wind, desert and more desert ? But there is an awesome beauty about the landscape and the stillness of it, I love it. Tomorrow is border crossing day into Sudan, so no cycling which will hopefully let my legs and body rest some more. Then it’s into the Sudan desert for a week at least.