FIND YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

The digital age has simplified creating your dream tour route – although it’s still the absolute best to pore over printed maps, and pencil in where you’ll be going. The first website to head to is ridewithgps.com.

There’s plenty of functionality in the free version to create your routes, with details on elevation gain and distance, for the minimum hassle of creating an account; but if you want turn-by-turn directions, you’ll have to pay for them. Not completely necessary, but for some that might be a thing. You can download .gpx files for free, which will be enough for most gizmos to keep you on track.

In separate tabs, have Google maps and an accommodation website open (I used lekkeslaap.co.za, which seems to have suitably budget offerings and a user-friendly map system).

In the former: once you’ve zoomed in on the area you want to end a particular stage, type ‘accommodation’ in the search bar, and places and prices should pop up on the map. You will need to click through to potential solutions to check availability and pricing – the ‘R300’ quoted first is occasionally for a square metre in the cow shed, with the human accommodation triple that.

Build your daily stages to be between 60 and 80km, depending on the elevation gain – more mountainous routes should be shorter. That doesn’t sound that far; but remember, you’ll have an extra 10-15kg of luggage, and you’ll want to stop and swim/smell the roses/meet the locals. The whole idea is not to race but to immerse.

Once you have the stages sorted, print out each one so you have a hard copy to travel with, and save .gpx versions to your phone and gizmo (making sure you know how to access them before you leave – the learning curve is steep when you’re in the bundu, with fading light and worrying animal noises).