Cape Town - If you’ve followed our travels you’ll surmise that two scooterists who spent nine months travelling through southern Africa are not necessarily at their fittest. The only thing a scooter has in common with a bicycle is its two wheels and the option of gears.
A bicycle has no padded seat and certainly is not geared for comfort, though its carbon footprint is certainly smaller. Swapping Spud and Butternut for our two mountain bikes, we set off to check out the Eco Initiatives at Rocking the Daisies, and prove that scooterists can be cyclists too.
With the motto “Play Hard, Tread Lightly”, Rocking the Daisies offsets all its emissions by planting trees in Darling with Food & Trees for Africa, printing on recycled paper, developing an app to replace the festival guide (allowing festival-goers to see the programme and even find their tent at night) and powering generators with bio-diesel. Solar and wind provided alternative energy, greywater was recycled, water sourced locally from Cloof Wine Estate and conservation areas were protected. Through offering reduced prices as an incentive – organisers also prevented about 30kg of carbon for every person who walked or cycled to the Daisies from polluting the environment.
We joined the “Naked Rhino Guy” Steve Newman and 124 other cyclists to cycle to the Daisies in aid of rhino poaching awareness.
At the civic centre, gale-force winds tried to tear my bike from my grasp and sent my hat flying. Not ideal conditions, but fortunately only Steve Newman had to complete the ride for Rocking the Daisies to donate R10 000 to Project Rhino, somewhat alleviating the pressure.
The music was pumping, excited youngsters sporting rhino horns mixed with pros in their Lycra, while the “social riders” among us hung back, looking anxious.
Suddenly everyone leaped onto their bikes in a surge of early enthusiasm – the racing bikes swiftly overtaking their mountain-biking compatriots.
We rode the bicycle tracks via Milnerton, passing kitesurfers skimming the ocean like dragonflies, and magnificent views of the West Coast.
Our first stop was Eden on the Bay, where greening partner Pick n Pay supplied riders with wedges of oranges and Powerade.
Then it was every man for himself – cyclists flitting past trailing ribbons and daisies, the girl who rode into the pavement and flew off to hug it, the group of blonde girls who rode sponsored electric bikes and kept getting punctures until Chris repaired the tyre using our emergency repair kit, the cyclist whose chain broke mid-ride, the Israeli guy who was stalked by misfortune with three punctures, and ended up being the only cyclist not to finish when his girlfriend suffered an asthma attack and she was rushed to hospital.
Finally reaching the R27, trucks and cars hurtling past us soon signified their driver’s character – either hooting, waving or practically going off the road in their efforts to avoid us, or driving in the yellow line, narrowly missing us as if we were vermin of the road destined to be road kill.
As we neared Darling, the fields were coloured with yellow canola flowers and riots of purple wild flowers, giving us hope that the end was nigh. I was on a downhill bike with wide tyres that clearly had performance anxiety on tar, leaving me firmly in the rear position. Still, I congratulated myself on my sheer grit and determination – if I could do this, I could do anything.
Conditions got worse as we went along, sandy torments of gravel alongside a never-ending line of cars that flung sand into our eyes as we struggled manfully on, the entrance to Cloof Wine Estate and the lure of being almost there only to see the walkers arrive after a 50km hike with considerably more enthusiasm.
Finally arriving at the cycle storage area, we collapsed on the grass before we could muster the energy to pitch our tent.
The festival passed by in a blur of incredible acts: P.H.fat, Alt J, the Hives, Skunk Anansie and legendary locals Jack Parow, Touching Wood, Desmond and the Tutus, Spoek Mathambo, kidofdoom and The Plastics proving local is lekker.
It was great to see the festival raising awareness about environmental issues: festivalgoers could exchange trash for beer with TrashBack, calculate their carbon footprint (for free wine) and offset it by buying a tree, food vendors used biodegradable packaging and the WWF was there in force doing spray-on panda tattoos and sharing information with a guy decked out in a panda suit.
Despite the goal of leaving the estate in better condition than it was before, limited camping space for more than 15 000 people led to the protected wetland dividing the camp from the main grounds being overrun with tents and people, while widespread theft led to many dubbing the festival “Robbing the Daisies”. Still, the festival has much to teach international events, and a constant policy of improvement leaves me excited to see what next year will bring.
As we rode back to Cape Town at a significantly faster rate in the minibus and trailer supplied for tired cyclists, we contemplated doing it all again. Our vote? A decided YES. - Cape Times
l See www.eco-friendly-africa-travel.com, or www.facebook.com/EcoFriendlyAfricaTravel or www.twitter.com/greeninafrica