Epilogue

The tour has been a wonderful experience with some incredible contacts being made, many requests for further help, awareness being created around autism and disability and of course the cyclists have achieved something that will indelible in their memories forever.

It has been an achievement of note for autism and The Key School. A summary of the tour follows:

·         Meeting wonderful people along the way who supported us with accommodation, food, friendliness and laughter.

·         A support team that changed over time with Roland being with us for a week, Mark for another few days, before Leigh and Nic flew in, and finally Rene for the last few days.

·         The cyclists who would not give up despite a sore knee, exhausted bodies, and flu.

·         Workshops that might have been small at times but which were varied ie they took place in schools, a church, a community hall, municipal offices, the boardroom of a mining company and one at a Department of Education district in Springbok.

·         We had too much food but this will distributed once we are back in Jhb. We ate well and enjoyed quite a few braais.

·         We were stopped by the police 3 times – once in the Northern Cape by a cop who told us that if he did not give us a donation his wife would donder him, and twice by Cape Town police who wanted us off the highways!

·         No one got really sick. We had no punctures and we had no bicycle problems at all.

·         The weather was good to us but we will not forget the aggressive mosquitoes in some places.

·         The vehicles were more than adequate – we would not have been able to do the tour without them.

·         The guys averaged 100 kms a day and we travelled at an average speed of 25 kph. We woke up at 05h00 most mornings, and were on the road by 07h00.

·         The supplements the cyclists took dwindled with time to the extent that they were hardly taking in anything by the end of the trip.

·         The team got on well to the extent that there was agreement about most things (by the end of the day we were tired to care maybe!)

·         We saw breathtaking sunsets and sunrises.

·         We only had one major pass to navigate, the Piekernierskloof pass near Citrusdal.

·         We could give our big city a neuroses a break in the Northern Cape where people leave their doors unlocked!

·         We distributed hundreds of booklets on autism and thousands of booklets on disability. We were in two radio stations along the way.

Finally a huge thanks to all the people who made this tour possible. It would not have happened if it were not for you!