fresh and herby Pollution-free air! And an impenetrable silence, complete darkness and above us the dazzling night sky silently twinkling on our insignificance and the ageless, enduring landscape we had arrived in. A slightly more epicurean Karoo experience was the meal of roast Karoo lamb awaiting us on our arrival at Mount Melsetter's Karoo house.
The Melsetter MTB trails are planned and co-ordinated by Candy Ferrar a woman with impeccable Karoo ancestry and her husband Mike Ferrar, renaissance new-Karoo man: farmer , lawyer, professional hunter and outfitter, sportsman, twitcher and well-read conservationist, gracious host and everlastingly patient and anticipatory driver of the cycle support vehicle. While the cycle trails are only one string to the Melsetter hospitality bow (the others-besides the old-style spacious accommodation, of course - include walks, game-viewing on foot or horseback, fossil hunting, clay target shooting) they are the newest and indude circular one-day,two-day and three-day rides, each one designed to explore the unexpectedly enormous variety of the Karoo landscape.
The optimum group size for the fully catered and supported cyde is eight since the accommodation for the third night Thorn Springs, takes this number. The route is such that even fit children should be able to manage part of the well thought out and sign-posted course-or ride some of the distance in the support vehicle. The cycle is, for the most part, on good, dirt roads, on a few occasions, single track and for a very short stretch, on tar - a perfect training ground for the Argus, the Epic or the 94.7 - without pollution or traffic or cycle thieves waiting in the bushes.
Day one is along quiet good dirt roads in champagne air (so fresh it seems to sear the back of one's throat), through the Oorlogspoort (and on day two the intriguing sounding Moodernaarspoort and Skelmkoppies) and towards the Brulberg Game Ranch where tired cyclists spend the first night.
Riding by myself on one occasion, I came around a bend in the road, spinning quietly away at a good pace, and directly in front of me, oblivious to my pumping legs, was a full grown Steenbok ram which leapt so high it nearly jumped right out of it's skin - quite a handy taxidermy trick if I could have pulled it off. For the next half a minute I had a lion's eye view of the frantically springing bottom of the panicked buck, which stuck to the road - a shared experience the Steenbok and I will probably never forget. Quite possibly the first time he had been stalked and chased by a bicyde!

I was so euphoric that I missed the turning tothe Brulberg guesthouses, descended off the escarpment and had to retrace my steps which meant an extra twenty-kilometre ride, only then coming to the hill on which the guesthouses are perched, aerie-like, with the resiliently looming preternatural rock formations, red as blood in the dying sun and as evocative of ancient Africa as anything I have seen. The view over the landscape below is spectacular once the lungs had recovered from the demanding last three kilometres of climb up to the guesthouse. Cluelessness about directons is probably the trial by fire of any driver of a support vehicle. Mike, however never let his smile slip one iota and even when he discovered me at the top of the enormous hill I had just climbed he managed to look pleased to see me. It was reassuring, though, to know that the support vehicle would be along.
Mike and his team are not only responsible for the superb backup but also for all catering, and for the travel packs each cydist gets before settng out in the morning: a little play-lunch of thoughtfully packed goodies to keep up the energy on the road
I started day two feeling slightly aggrieved that I had not yet had the chance to use my 'wondertool' and no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than my chain snapped, spectacularly, halfway up a hill. Ironically no matter how many tool options I clicked into position, it was with two of the Karoo's own ironstone rocks that I beat my chain back into shape and feeling very much at one with my Neanderthal ancestors, we continued past Greyville Farm, established in 1871 and South Africa's first barbed-wire fence, which is now a national monument.
It was at that point, with the mournful wailing of a slow turning windmill, that I mended one of our several punctures, using the icy water of a sheep trough to find the hole. The Karoo has a way of undermining any high tech pretensions, although tyre liners and 'green slime' inside the tyres to prevent punctures should have been on my shopping list.
Close by, the little stone church of St Lawrence's was the first church in the Middleberg district to be consecrated back in 1894. Another interestng fence is one we passed on the third day. After the First World War a group of enterprising farmers bought rolls of surplus barbed wire and this fence stll stands, doing a far more peaceful and worthwhile job - one can't help philosophizing.