19-Mar-2006 -- Continued from 26S 24E.

We left the International Hotel in Vryburg at about 9 a.m. and headed back towards Tosca. David ran out of petrol along the road so we filled up an Amstel bottle a few times from my tank which got us to Ganyesa, part of the old Bophutatswana. The tar road continued all the way to Morokwana and thereafter a good gravel road took us towards Molopo Nature Reserve. At Vorstershoop we stopped for a Zululand Pepsi (black label beer) and chatted with the local Tswanas (who hadn't seen people like us in years). A town with a drankwinkel, a police station, a Vodacom tower, and a store is bound to be a bit dull...

We noticed that we were 18.5 km north of our objective and headed on another gravel road towards McCarthy's Rust. Eventually, we reached the nearest to the point, but a tantalizing 4.4 km distance and a couple of locked farm gates. Damn! And I'm no walker with a crippled knee, things were looking bad. But going about one kilometer beyond the nearest point, we noticed a farm gate with no lock. Not only that, but the angle of the road seemed to angle slightly backwards to the point.

The confluence gods were still shining upon us as we approached a farm gate which led us again towards the Confluence, brahmans chewing cud and staring at us blankly as we rode past. Miraculously, we ended up only 320 metres from the point on the thick sand farm road. We dismounted and walked up to the point. We had gotten the triple and all within a 24 hr period!