11-13 January 2024, Ermelo, 35km
Ingwenya Guest House R440

So... yesterday...
We got up early to watch the sun rise over placid Chrissiesmeer - I don't know why we don't make an effort to get up early more often.
Our host came to say goodbye, telling us several tales of horror bike crashes experienced by her hardcore cycling family members. These proved prophetic... (Charl is OK... not great, but OK... more later... )
The N17 continued quiet toward the Ermelo turnoff, with a smidgen of a shoulder. It runs through restful scenery. Mild hills clothed in greens so lovely that if you could bottle them, you would bottle happiness. Small bodies of water to left and right. Weaver nests strung along barbed-wire fencing. Rusted rustic windmills. Corn and broad beans and cattle. We crossed the Vaal River, a narrow strip of water, somewhere near its source. We watched the road-marking crew at work. We saw a truck bearing the moniker "Mothertruckers". As we left the farm on which Teen Die Meer is located, four curious and friendly horses came to say hello over the fence.
Not long after turning onto the Ermelo road, with just 3km or so to our guest house near the edge of Ermelo, Charl came off his bike. Bottom line: he is going to be OK, in a day or two. Gory details to follow...

***
Neither Charl nor I know what caused him to fall: I was cycling some distance ahead of him and saw nothing, and he cannot remember. I am trying to trace two Eskom drivers who apparently stopped to assist. They may have been first on the scene, and may have seen what happened. The bike was not hit by a car as far as I can tell though Charl may have swerved to avoid a vehicle passing too close, and neither tube burst, so the cause is a bit of a mystery.
I stopped about a km ahead to await Charl cycling behind me. After awhile, passing from irritation to anxiety, I began to discern unusual activity near the top of the mild decline I had just descended. Cars parking on the shoulder and people milling about. At first I did not think much of it (did not want to?), believing (wrongly as it turned out), that if there was a problem someone would stop to let me know. I had just turned the bike to cycle back, when a trucker flicked his lights at me, warning me of something amiss.
A km up even a mild slope can seem an eternity. As I neared the accident scene, I saw Charl's bike lying askew, but could not see Charl midst the milling figures. I could hear myself screaming his name, my biggest fear of course being that he lay at their feet, mangled and dead. But then I saw him standing there, his face and shirt bloody, but on his feet.
The Eskom drivers departed at that point leaving three good Samaritans and their vehicle: Rainer, his dad Woegie, and his brother-in-law Ewald. These details I found out today, having called Rainer whose name and number I had thought to record yesterday. They were on their way home to Piet Retief when they saw Charl lying on the ground and the two Eskom vehicles in attendance. Rainer is involved with community policing in the area, knew exactly who to call, and did a U-turn to join the scene.
Rainer assured me he had called an ambulance and I could then focus on Charl who was clearly confused, asking the same questions over and over. We seated him on the tailgate and I bandaged a bleeding flap of forehead skin with my sun scarf.
Julia, wife of a farmer on the Chrissiesmeer road, bringing her reluctant 14-year-old into Ermelo for a haircut, joined us as she knows everyone in town and thought to be helpful, checking, for example, about our medical cover and recommending the MediClinic.
Between us we agreed and implemented the following: I would accompany Charl to the hospital in the ambulance, and the three Piet Retief gents would drive the bikes and panniers to our pre-booked guest house. If I could not get myself 'home' from the hospital, I would call Julia to collect me. In the end, the hospital some hours later arranged a local taxi for me, and I found our bikes and bags secured by Pienkie, a staff member at Ingwenya Guest House. How very kind these people were to us.
So... Charl had xrays, blood tests, and a saline drip in preparation for the doctor's examination. No broken bones, but one very deep laceration on his forehead, some nasty scrapes, and soft tissue damage of his right shoulder. His concussion cleared as the afternoon wore on. Rainer told me that he could not recall his own name initially; by the time I left the hospital after 6pm, he could not remember only the accident and the immediate aftermath.
There was so much dirt in the forehead wound, that at 8pm Charl was taken to surgery to be put under general anaesthetic so the flap could be properly cleaned and stitched.
Charl will stay in hospital until 11am Sunday, mainly for antibiotics via IV. The doctor says no cycling for two weeks. He would also like Charl to have a brain scan in the next couple of months, though he is optimistic there is nothing fundamentally wrong (such as a blackout which may have caused the fall).
We were due in Wakkerstroom Saturday. We will now arrange a lift there on Sunday and decide what next and where to later.
So, not good news, but not abysmal either...

Total distance cycled this leg: 740,9km