Padkos and baobab mysteries on day one

Jim Armstong and I step out the door into the face of a tusked elephant while in the background our pickup bus approaches emitting gales of laughter at the shrinking violet on the steps.

Jimbo, 70, sets off towards the giant and his ride, later claiming: “I didn’t have my glasses on.”

Brian Katz, 75, chirps: “If you need glasses to see an elephant, I’m not cycling with you.”

This is Grandads Army on the northern border in Mapungubwe National Park, about to set off on their 1,500km 14-day outrageous cycle home to East London.

Now we are eight cyclists, aged 55 to 80, under the leadership of road captain Randall Leendertz, 55, and nine support crew of cooks, caterers, drivers and media freelancer-luggage packers.

The grandads can stress and fuss, but these are the thin exhaust fumes of a finely tuned caravan.

In an eternity of three days to trek north — sjoe, the road network is a pox of potholes, E-tolls and traffic cops — we start symbolically on a platform overlooking the ancient confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers.

The sky lowers and a cold 60km wind pierces the thin, Day-Glo branded tees as we pose and laugh for the camera on the sunrise deck.

There is a sense of continuity.

We stopped for a bucket-list tour of the Origins Centre at Wits University.

There the 2.6-million-year-old story of SA’s first inhabitants, the San and Khoe (the official spelling), is told in a darkened space with all our glorious beginnings bathed in stage lights.

It is beautifully curated and narrated by chief guide Brian Mogaki who, among all the serious stuff about tools and survival, notes that braaiing started 300,000 years ago.

Finally on the road, the grandads and dads are relieved to be finally pushing pedals.

At the time of riding, we are 45km in and will finish the 112km at Louis Trichardt after five hours with mining trucks, dust and wind but no rain late this afternoon.

The biggest issue so far is that leading grandad, and my mate, Gerald Berlyn says I ate his padkos.

But all I am thinking of are ginormous baobabs and what a crazy, wonderful padkos our life is in South Africa, where the Springboks rule!