My alarm clock woke me up at 5.30am, I was really surprised that I had actually managed to get some sleep.  Everything was ready and packed, so all I needed to do was make coffee, eat and most importantly go to the toilet.  Possibly TMI, but I know there are no toilets at Millers Point and the prospect of being in a wetsuit all day and not having gone to the loo filled me with dread!

All business attended to, we hit the road in good spirits.  We left in plenty of time because we knew we would be hitting rush hour traffic and didn’t want to be stressing about time.  As ever we had planned the logistics down to the minute – so fundamental in these types of challenges.

It was very strange driving to a swim in the daylight!   The 9.30am start time seemed odd to many, but it had been very carefully chosen to enable me to have every chance possible of completing the whole challenge within 48 hours.  There were 2 key factors that we had to consider.

1. Here in South Africa there is a curfew between Midnight and 4am and this needed to be respected.
2. The last 3km of the climb are quite exposed and after reconnoitring the route I decided it was not something I would want to do in the dark, especially because I knew how tired I would be by that stage. Coming down in the dark would have been very dangerous as my crew can attest to. We later named the decent the valley of a thousand skateboards on account of the big boulders moving under foot.

Looking across the Bay, the Ocean looked amazing, flat with barely any wind!  Yes, the weather gods appeared once again to be on our side.  Let’s hope the jelly fish and shark gods were also going to be on our side.  I certainly didn’t want a repeat of the last time I attempted this swim where my throat almost closed up from blue bottle stings.

We arrived at Millers Point at 8.30am.  My awesome support crew of Derrick and Debbie from Big Bay Events and Dylan were already there getting the boats prepped.  False Bay is known for sharks, so the common consensus is that it is wise to have two support boats either side to deter sharks from attacking. Whether the sharks have been taught this or know they’re there in the dark is up for debate.

We had a quick chat through my feed plan.  It was going to get very hot, so we decided I would feed every 30mins from the start – 250mls of high5 carb powder mixed with an electrolyte and juice for taste.  On the 3^rd hour I would have a high5 protein shake and after 5 hours I would have some treats from my selection of jelly sweets, liquorice and carrot cake.  The treats would purely be for boredom though, not for nutritional value.

Karl and I headed down to the jetty and I started to get prepared.  I had spent the last few weeks debating whether or not I would swim in my Zone 3 Vanquish wetsuit.  Ultimately, I decided it was 100% in my best interests to wear it, not because of the water temperature, but because of the energy I would conserve for the remainder of the challenge and because of my known allergies to jelly fish – the more skin covered the better!

I lathered up with a mix of Vaseline, sudocream and suncream, followed by the mandatory cap and goggle faff and then headed down to water.

‘Eeek, here I go again, seriously Andrea do you never learn?’

I waved to Derrick to start the clock and then I started to wade into the water.  I chose not to wear a watch, I typically don’t on the challenges because I find it distracting.  I know I have done the training, so now it’s just about feel and execution.  Based on my current fitness, if the conditions are good I know I can swim 3.8 – 4km per hour comfortably, but you never know what can happen once you are out in the middle of the ocean and I don’t like to be distracted by stats.  My motto is very much ‘one arm in front of the other’ concentrating on just 30 mins at a time.  What will be will be!  Turns out I had to recite this to myself many times throughout the day!

I started comfortably knowing that I had a tough 48 hours ahead of me.  My internal juke box was loaded, and I was ready for a good sing fest.  My rendition of break my stride was rudely interrupted by a smack of jelly fish and it quickly became a sting fest!  It still amazes me how they seek out my one bit of flesh showing.  I kept swimming, fortunately it wasn’t blue bottles and I just had to hope the antihistamine injection I had the day before would combat the reaction.

The next few hours were spent thinking about why I didn’t seem to be moving away from the coastline I had started from.  I was swimming strong, but I could definitely feel that I was swimming against something.  The water felt heavy, and I was working harder than I wanted to.  On the next feed Derrick confirmed my thoughts, I had only moved 2.8km in the last hour.  A quick calculation in my head told me that I was in for a long day!

The target was to be out of the water and get cleaned up, fed and watered and ride to Hermanus before curfew kicked in at midnight. At this point I recited my motto for the first time in the day, ‘one arm in front of the other, what will be will be.’  I tried to find my rhythm, but it was proving to be a lot harder than I had hoped.  Derrick and Debbie kept my spirits up for the hours to come and I tried to remain my positive self – but even that was starting to fade! My thoughts turned to calculating what Friday would look like if I couldn’t make it to Hermanus before midnight!  Would it still be possible to complete in 48 hours?

At this stage I had completely lost of all concept of time, but I knew it was later than I wanted it to be.  The sun had started to set and when I looked up at the land, it was still a lot further away than it should have been.  I had a brief moment of relief when Derrick informed me that I had 3.6km to go, I remember thinking it looks a lot further than that, but I’ll take it.  At the next feed I quickly realised that he had actually told me I had swam 3.6km in the last hour, because when I then asked directly how far to go, the reply was 5.6km. Cue my first internal mental breakdown – my goggles filled with tears.  It was now getting dark, and I had at least another 1.5 hours of swimming to go.  Is this the first of my big challenge’s I was going to fail?  I tried hard to banish the demons in my head, telling them on more than one occasion that I had chosen to do this, nobody was forcing me to do it!

On the next feed it was time to swap out my googles and add my swim lights.  I had packed the lights, but in all honesty, I didn’t think I would be using them.  ‘Come on Andrea, pull yourself together, you can do this, one arm in front of the other!’

Whilst I had got my head around the slightly longer swim than I had hoped for, I was struggling to get my head around how exhausted I was feeling.  With about an hour to go the thought of having to get straight on to the bike and push hard into Hermanus became overwhelming.  For the first time in all of my challenges I cried in front of people other than Karl who usually cops the lot behind closed doors!

After a few words of encouragement from Debbie, I cleared my teared filled goggles, had a stern word with myself and set off with only one thing in mind – getting this flipping swim finished!

I resolved with myself that all the crying and moaning in the world wasn’t going to get me to the end.  The only thing that would get me there was to put one arm in front of the other.  So that is exactly what I did, I kept my head down and followed the lights of the boat towards the shore. After a few exclamations of ‘what the F is that’ as a seal swam underneath me and I hit a big patch of kelp, I eventually started to see the bottom.  This meant one thing, I was finally nearly there!  I allowed myself to look up for the first time in ages and was extremely grateful to see lights of people on the beach.

Finally, after what literally felt like an eternity, I could feel the sand underneath my hands. I had made it.

Could I really now get on my bike and ride?

Stumbling my way out of the ocean I was super surprised by the number of people who had come to see me finish the swim. Even though it was dark I could see the white teeth of so many smiling faces. 

At this point, I couldn’t help but wish I was only doing the swim! I could put my feet up and celebrate completing what was undoubtably the toughest swim of my life.  Reality was I now only had enough time to wash up and get some food down before I got onto the bike!

Oh boy this was going to be a long tough night.

We were extremely fortunate to have use of our friend Kevins house in Rooiels for the transition.  We walked up en mass to the house which was a couple hundred metres away from the beach.  I remember thinking that anyone watching us must have wondered what on earth was going on.  With no context, I can imagine it looked like a search party for a missing person!

I didn’t really feel like doing anything very quickly, but I knew the clock was ticking to get to Hermanus before the midnight curfew.  I jumped (well stumbled) into the shower, washed up best I could and changed into my bike kit. A quick time check showed I now only had 15 minutes to eat and get on the bike.

I forced a small plate of chilli con carne and rice into me and tried as hard as I could to refocus my mind for the next stage – 70km ride (in the pitch black) to Hermanus.

I was joined on the bike by six very good friends (Cath, Holden, Visser, Cobus, Gerhard and Andrew) who I had met as part of the amazing Stellenbosch Triathlon Squad.  I hope they weren’t expecting me to be my usual social self!  I was also joined by another amazing Andrew, who rode his Motorbike behind us as support for the whole ride! Legend.

My normal challenge rules include no drafting on the bike leg.  I like to have the company to keep me entertained and make the time pass quicker, but I don’t draft.  After a short  steep climb out of Rooiels we hit the main drag. It was dark and my eyes were really struggling on the road ahead.  I realised quite quickly that the jelly fish stings had swollen my face and eyes to the extent my vision was impaired. This was a show stopper! After a quick chat with Karl, we decided that we needed to keep me safe by organising two of the guys to go in front of me and lead the way. 

Surprisingly my body felt quite good.  Although… I think anything would have felt good as long as it didn’t involve swimming!  We kept a strong but steady 30 kph average, rolling into Hermanus with 20 minutes to spare before curfew.  This stage was much more pleasant than I thought it would be, but I was definitely looking forward to ‘laying down’!  I use the words ‘laying down’ rather than sleeping, because I know from experience that the likelihood of me actually sleeping is very low.  As tired as my body is, I find it very difficult to switch off my mind, partly because the of the amount of stimulants I’ve had throughout the day and partly because of what lies ahead.  True to previous experience I lay awake for the next 3 hours, constantly reassuring myself that ‘resting’ was as good as sleeping. 

The alarm went off at 3.45am and I have to admit I was quite pleased to be getting out of bed – I had definitely had enough of the rest of the support team snoring and sleeping around me!  Quick change and mandatory caffeine fix and I was ready to get back on the bike, well as ready as I could be after a 35km swim, 70km ride and no sleep!

My eyes were still swollen, but much better than they were.  We set off on what I knew was going to be a very long day – 300 km of leg busting riding!  We had driven the route previously, so I knew exactly what lay ahead – lots and lots of relentless rolling hills.

It was dark, but the way ahead was perfectly lit by my amazing new extreme bike lights.  Lighting is so important not just so I can see, but so I can be seen by others out on the road.  For this challenge I used the endurance bike light and the phoenix rear light from extreme lights. The extended battery pack meant I could easily flood the road with light for the many hours in the dark. I have never experienced anything like these lights and I’d highly recommend that you check these out!

The good thing about starting the day in the dark is that you get to see the sunrise and typically it recharges you. Today didn’t disappoint. After 70 km the sun started to rise and it was spectacular.  I now only had 30 km to go until the planned breakfast stop.  We were moving at a good pace, so I hoped the café was open.  At this point I was definitely on a high and feeling good, but I had to remind myself that I couldn’t let myself get carried away, no high high’s allowed, there was still a very long way to go!

Phew, we made it to the café just as they were opening the doors!  It was nice to be able to sit down and have some ‘proper’ food and it was a very good sign that I was hungry.  A cheese and mushroom omelette with a large cappuccino was my breakfast of choice and it went down like I hadn’t seen food for a year!  The support crew were all still in good spirits and feeling strong, or at least that’s what they told me.

Quick refill of water bottles and slap on some sun cream and we got back on the bikes.  It was a stunning day, which meant one thing, it was going to get hot very quickly.  The wind so far was being kind to us, it was very light and almost behind us.  Those that have followed my previous challenges will no that this is unheard of. Ordinarily I’m always riding into a head wind – or maybe that’s just my legs dying ;-).

The plan now was to ride just over 100 km to the planned lunch stop – yes it’s basically like a rolling buffet, it’s awesome! The next 60 km were tough, the wind started to pick up and was unpredictable in direction.  I can deal with wind when it is in a constant direction, but ever since my big bike crash in 2019 I have a mental struggle with ‘gusty’ wind.  I’ve ended up on the side of the road in tears on a few occasions and Karl has had to come to the rescue.  This time though I have no choice, I need to banish the irrational fear and much like my swimming motto, I now need to keep pedalling one leg at a time.  No low, low’s allowed!

Karl had obviously started to notice the ‘fear’ in me and at 70 km he instructed an ‘unplanned’ stop to reset.  When we plan the schedule we always make sure we have some ‘contingency’ for additional stops.  I knew we were now eating into that contingency, but was reassured that we were making really good time and I shouldn’t worry. We had the biggest climb of the ride ahead of us in the next 30 km, so it was good to stop and refocus.

We set off for the classic Tradouw pass in good spirits. It’s a fantastic winding road climb  beside a deep gorge. The wind dropped in the valley which calmed my nerves but it did feel like we were riding in a sauna.  I now had one thing in mind, getting to the next planned stop where I would be rewarded with a milkshake. 

I was definitely starting to feel it now. I was tired and dehydrated. In 36 c heat, as hard as you try,  you simply can’t take enough fluid on board to keep you fully hydrated.  My body was still hanging in there.  I can definitely attribute the limited number of aches and pains to my awesome Vitus bike and my Kandesent bike shorts that never let me down on long rides.

The next 3-4 hours were going to be tough, but I knew I just needed to keep my head down and keep pedalling ‘one leg at a time.’  At the crest of the next hill Seweweeks Port Peak came into view.  It filled me with relief and fear all at the same time.  It is a pretty remarkable peak that proudly stands taller than any other mountain in the Western Cape.  I felt relief because it meant the end of the ride was in sight, but dread because I knew I still had the climb to come.

The last 40kms of the ride were relentless. The wind had picked up and turned into a head wind and the rolling hills got longer and seemed to never end.  The sun began to set and we were once again riding in the dark.  I definitely lost my sense of humour on a few occasions and lay on the side of the road in sheer exhaustion on more than one occasion.  When we arrived in Ladismith, (100 meters from the accommodation) it took all the will power in the world to say goodbye to Andrew and Gerhard and continue past the accommodation and cycle a further 15km uphill to the base of the peak.  Cath my little ‘mini me’ joined me and finally after 15 hours on the road we got there!

My support team were once again incredible, it was a super super long day out on the road for them and there is no way I could have got to the end of the ride without them.  They kept my spirits up and weren’t afraid to give me a kick up the bum when I needed it ;-)

Now time to ‘lay down’ and refocus for the final stage – the climb!

I was woken by the alarm clock at 3.30am.  What?  I was ‘woken’?  Does that mean I actually fell asleep?  Wowsers miracles really do happen!  I’m not sure when I fell asleep or how long I was asleep for, but I can definitely say I slept.  I can not tell you how happy I was, this in itself would go down as a significant achievement. 

The happiness was short lived.  I stepped out of bed and felt like a 90 year old women – come on legs, now is not the time for you to fail me.  I assured myself that I had just 5 more hours of effort left, refusing to let myself think about the fact that I also had to descend after I had reached the summit. 

I taped my feet up, had a small bowl of cereal and headed to meet, Francois, Vernon and Schalk.  Once again I was being supported by amazing friends from Stellenbosch Triathlon squad.

We couldn’t leave before 4am because of curfew and had half an hour drive back to the start. It was 4.30 am when we arrived so we had just over 5 hours to reach the summit to remain within the 48 hour target.  From reading up, the typical time taken to summit is around 9 hours. It was going to be tight and there was no room for error or delay.

We set off at a solid pace, hoping we could make up a bit of time in the lower sections where it wasn’t so steep.  Vernon and I had reconnoitred the route a few weeks before so we had the gpx route on our watches.  This turned out to be a life saver because it would have been extremely difficult making our way through the untracked bushvelt in the dark.   

We got to our first checkpoint in good time.  I was forcing myself to eat as we went along because I knew it would be hard to take on board nutrition in the later exposed sections.  I was definitely fading, my legs were sore and I just wanted to sleep.  It was still dark, but my extreme lights head-torch was making it significantly easier to navigate the very untrodden path.

The sun gradually started to come up giving me a renewed sense of energy, but unlike on the bike there was no spectacular sunrise.  The clouds were covering the sky and the top of the mountain.  There was quite a chill in the air.

We checked the time as we approached the first scrambling section.  We were still on track, but there was no time for a break.  We scrambled cautiously up the revene, there really was no margin for error, it is extremely steep and exposed! It’s at times like these that I wish I had been born with longer legs. 

We moved from one steep section to another, it was relentless.  As we approached the last 30 minutes of the 48 hours, I was really unsure if we would make it.  We scrambled up the last scree section as quickly as my body would allow us and then finally the summit was in sight. With the constant encouragement of the support team, we raced (it felt like racing to me, although it was probably snail pace) up the last revene and made it to the summit with just minutes to spare! 

Wow that was brutal. 

Even today 2 weeks on, I still actually don’t know how I managed to make it to the top.

I definitely don’t know how I managed to scramble my way down the north side of the mountain!  Besides the toll the ascent had already taken on a battered body and bruised soul, the rocks kept sliding away under your feet, making any form of grip a real challenge  – we collectively renamed Seweweekspoort Peak to the Mountain of a thousand Skateboards!

To my support team

You know who you are! I could not have done this without you.  Each and everyone of you were simply amazing, you kept me going in my lowest moments even when you were undoubtedly feeling the stress and strain yourselves!  You guys really do rock.

To my sponsors

(Wiggle, Vitus, Kandesent, Zone3, Extreme Lights, High5, Sungod, Fohn, DHB)

Once again I am extremely grateful for the equipment, nutrition and support you provide.  Without this I simply wouldn’t be able to put so many unpaid hours into my charity work.

To my supporters

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Every word of encouragement along the way keeps me going.  Together we really can make the difference to the lives of young women and girls.

 Who wants to do it again? See you in August for the Sea To Summit UK Lakes edition – eek!!