I have said this before in my life and it seems to be a human condition to forget or regress when stuck in routine, but when you put yourself out there and allow the magnitude of nature and adventure to distract you from your own significance for a while (for it to make you feel small and bring you back down to earth) you allow a space to open up and for clarity and perspective to enter. You immediately see the wood from the trees and what is important to you gets re-prioritized very quickly into an order quite different from the one you had in your mind before.
Nothing
The Karoo is a magical place. Everything that survives here is special because it is not easy to survive here and although at first glance it may appear to be a hostile environment, the Karoo has so much to show and teach you. We rode on dirt towards Sutherland for around 150 km and only passed 3 cars the entire time (one of which was our support vehicle). There is a reason this road is called the “Forgotten Highway”. There were times when Doug had gone ahead with the van to take pictures and a gap had opened up between my dad and I on the road leaving me peddling a BMX under big blue skies in complete isolation. I had a moment during one of these periods where the magnitude of what we are doing truly dawned on me for the first time! On my own, on an isolated dirt road in the middle of never ending fields of green, yellow, brown and purple Karoo succulents, I found myself uncontrollably laughing out loud. There was absolutely no one or nothing out there to hear me; it was simply the overwhelming feeling of clarity and perspective bursting out of me in the form of a laugh.
This adventure has only really just begun but I am certain already that it is going to change my life!
Check out how small we are
Not much going on out here