Author Archive
December Holiday – Part 1
2013 – 2014 December holiday
The onset of the holiday
It was the first morning of the holiday that I woke up in my caravan. Today is Madiba’s funeral. In Qunu. But no, we have not been invited. Otherwise I would mos have been there. So now I’m at Gouritsmond.
The awakening is like after having received anaesthetics. The previous day’s travelling was not as uneventful as it should have been. Then followed pitching tents, hitting what now feels like thousands of tent pegs, unpacking, repacking and all the rest. It felt as if all the lubricants have been drained from my joints during the night. But, tadaa! It is holiday and I need not get up. I can’t.
Eventually I do manage to get out of bed.
Sitting in the wind under the gazibo feals heavenly. When sitting in the wind feels like an event in itself, you know it’s hot. And holiday.
Taking a leak
The heat has been broken by early morning showers. I wake up with a drop of watter falling on my arm. But I’m not sleeping outside. Paaah! My caravan leaks water.
Normally I set my caravan up at a slight angle to the rear. This is enough to cause water to leak off the edge of the caravan before it could form a puddle at the spot where it sometimes leak into the caravan. But I neglected to do so this time.
I get the last tube of silicon at the shop at the gate, and set to work to fix the leaks. I’m not the handiest of handymen. After a while I’ve got everything covered with the silicon. Mostly myself, but some bits of silicon did make it to what I identified as the offending areas. According to my dictionary what I am doing is termed scamp work. Well, it probably goes with camp work, huh?
I also tweak the angle of the caravan a bit. She now sits slightly on her haunches for a good leak. Of the water that runs from the roof mos now.
I’m now satisfied that the caravan will not leak again. As long as it does not rain.
Rare species
We often spot two rare species that are found here (so maybe they’re not so rare then?). The river hare and the tortoise. The one is quicker than the other.
Did you know that it takes the tortoise 13 seconds to cross a standard tar road? That’s if he takes his time and does not sense a threat in the form of a big 4×4 trundling down on him. Thén he can cut that time to 10 seconds. I’m sure this is information that you’ve been absolutely dying to know for years. Well, there you have it.
Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to time the river hare crossing the road, but I can tell you for a fact that he is remarkably quicker.
To infinity and beyond
The Gouritsmond library hosts an annual booksale. Given the size of the town it is a remarkable sale that they put up there. We normally arrive in town in time for the booksale.
Paying between R5 and R15 for a book a R100 can solve all your idle moments for the rest of the holiday and beyond. Virtually to infinity and beyond, to quote Buzz Lightyear. Now we are geared for proper lazy holidaying.
Keeping busy
Down at the sea the beach services crowd is keeping the kiddies busy. Their master of proceedings proclaims that they will be building the biggest sand castle ever. All the pee-wees join in. I decided not to let them in on the secret, but I can sommer tell them beforehand, this won’t be the biggest sand castle ever.
Not even close.
Part 2 follows…
December holiday – Part 2
Of bicycles and friends
The mechanics of bicycles, and more in particular of its brakes, have always been a mystery to me. Like most other things mechanical. As a safety precaution I don’t ride a bicyle of which I have worked on the brakes myself, so it has never been much of a problem.
But now our youngest is riding around with his rusted bicycle that we brought along. Fortunately he is unaware of my lack of confidence and experience in repairing brakes on a bicycle. It works a bit like peace of mind: even if your peace of mind is based on false premises, you still have peace of mind. How cool is that.
So Kleinboet is happily riding around on his bicycle of which I fixed the brakes. I can think of no reason to shatter his peace of mind.
Then one morning our tea session with the neighbours gets rudely interrupted.
A boy of about fourteen arrives in a huge hurry. There has been an accident. Kleinboet fell on the tar he even bounced as he hit the tar he is bleeding and crying and does not look good it was an accident and he (the messenger) is very sorry he did not intend for Kleinboet to get hurt but oom must now come immediately please.
Few things can catapult one into action than a report of bodily harm to your kids. We rush over to where a crowd has formed. Kleinboet is in the middle, lying in the road. A fellow camper that might have been either a para-medic or a doctor reports that nothing seems to be broken, and that Kleinboet will survive. I pick him up (Kleinboet now, not the paramedic) and rush him over to the caravan so that we can attend to him.
Between the groaning and clenched teeth Kleinboet reports that his friend was doing these cool tricks with his (the friend’s – take note) bicycle. However, he still needed to work on the execution of one of these tricks. The problem came when he executed this one particular cool trick with Kleinboet sitting on the handle bars.
Civilisation
Civilisation seems to be reluctant to let go of his grip on me. I receive a call from the security company that my alarm went off. Paaah! I counted on the criminals to also at least stay at home if they cannot afford to go on holiday. Over the next few days I get another few calls. Eventually, between myself and the guy staying in our house, we get it figured out. One of my newly installed beams outside picks up on the sun’s reflection at a specific time of the day. So now we can just bypass that zone. Problem solved. No burglaries.
I often think of Bob Dylan while I’m here. The answer my friend, is sitting in the wind. Or something like that.
Kids do the darnest things
The thing with kids, nuh. Eisj……
I know our oldest has his last working day today. He will drive down from Cape Town tomorrow. But I also know that he comes off work at noon today. And I suspect Ouboet of intending to surprise us by coming today already instead of tomorrow.
At one minute past noon I receive a WhatsApp from him on how to locate Gouritsmond on the GPS, which he has with him for exactly this eason. So I assume he is now underway. Which means he should be here by 16h00.
So from about 16h00 I take up station under my gazibo from where I can watch the gate of the caravan park. By 17h30 I’m rather concerned. No Ouboet in sight, and there is no movement on Ouboet’s WhatsApp. Although I don’t want to send a message to his phone for fear of him checking it whilste driving, I nevertheless do so, innocuosly asking where he is. Ouboet immediately replies he is at a friend of his in Cape Town. I don’t believe him, but at least I know he is safe.
Just on 19h00 Ouboet arrives with a blaring hooter, very happy to have caught us by surprise. Later I notice the time on the petrol slip where he filled up at Riversdal. Exactly when he replied to me that he is with a friend in Cape Town.
The little sh*t.
Part 3 follows.…
December holiday – Part 3
The retreiver(s)
I sometimes go swim lengths in the tidal pool.
One good morning this very happy Labrador becomes upset with me in the water. He probably thought I’m drowing, so he promptly decides to save me. Maybe it was a Retreiver. I don’t hink he thought it through properly, though. I had no intention of being retreived. Ouboet is also there and notices the problem. He decides to retreive the Labrador. The Labrador does not wish to be retreived either. Eventually the owner of the Labrador interevenes and takes away the dog.
He turns out to be the only effective retreiver of the bunch of us.
Just in time, though, because shortly thereafter the Big Retreiver arrives. Someone alerted the local law enforcement officer of the dog running amok at the pool.
Your mother…..
Our youngest parcitipates in the talent concert in the community hall one evening. Whilst busy with a bit of blues on his guitar, a slightly unruly guy with no front teeth in the audience chats away loudly with his friends. Ouboet asks him te tone down a bit. The guy does not like it at all and gives Ouboet the Cape oral version of the middle finger with reference to his mother.
The next morning my wife and I attend church to pray for us and the guy without front teeth. We are the only people there, though. There is no morning service that Sunday morning.
Pity you, larnie with no front teeth, nuh?
Gone fishing
Fishing is not my thing. Unfortunately Kleinboet really likes this pastime. He will have to work a bit on his temper, though. He really does not take kindly to any fish getting away.
I’m not much of an assistance, though. On occasion I sought the guidance of my very avid angling neighbour at the campsite. He suggested I buy some harders at the shop for bait, just to get the thing going. The exercise turned out no-good. My neighbour still finds it funny that the canned pilchards that I bought did not work well. What is it with him. And the fish. They were not interested at all. I mean, the seagulls were very happy when we ended up throwing them with the pilchards.
But then neighbour takes pity on Kleinboet and takes him along for a fishting trip on his boat. I join in. We travel up in the Gourits river before throwing out the anchor for a few hours of organised loafing.
Some fish seems to actually have personality. Nasty personalities, that is. While sitting there and waiting for fish to nible on the hooks, a shoal of flying fish comes, well, flying past. As if they are mocking us. I’m sure I saw one of them give us a rude sign, but I could have been mistaken.
Then Kleinboet gets a bite. Huge excitement! For the next many minutes Kleinboet battles it out with whatever is on the hook. The fish is not giving up the fight lightly. Now he is this side of the boat, then on the other side, back and thro. Eventually, totally out of breath, Kleinjan gets his first real fish on board. He looks like he won the lottery (but had to run to get it).
I’d say he had a happy look on his face.
Part 4 follows.…
December holiday – part 4
New best friends
Oukersaand. The evening before Christmas. It’s a happy evening with people braaing and handing out presents.
I’m very pleased with a minatiure “fail” flute that I got for Christmas. You know that descending sound that often accompanies a “fail” moment in animation movies? Well, this flute does that. Like a minature sliding trumpet.
During the course of the evening we can hear our neighbours singing Christmas carols. We go over to render some assistance. It’s not that any of us can really sing, but at least we have numbers behind us. It does enhance the effort mos.
It’s quite nice, actually. It brings back good childhood memories of Christmas. And it’s quite devotional too.
Worsie is a visiting dachshund. He quietly sits next to his boss’ feet, minding his own business. But Worsie seems to like kids. So when Kleinboet wedges himself into the circle to join in with the singing, Worsie jumps up and start humping Kleinboet’s leg. The devoted atmosphere lasts for only a few seconds more, and then it shatters in thousand pieces of laughter.
Everyone enjoys the moment, except Worsie’s boss. Worsie is very happy. And Kleinboet likes the idea that Worsie likes him.
It’s quite a cute present this, I thought, giving a little hoot on my fail flute.
High days at the beach
On the big days the tidal pool is always packed with people. At least one lorry would rock up full of beach goers.
It was only from observing these visitors that I realised that the larnie new undies that my wife recently bought me are actually swimming trunks. I never knew. Now I do, although my wife still does not want me to swim with it in public.
My sister-in-law goes down for a swim at the pool. At the deep end she notices a kiddy busy drowning. She saves her. And sommer give the kiddy a lesson on water safety and how to stay afloat. When done with the lesson, she turns around. Only to find that a whole queue formed behind her.
“Antie, Antie, I also want to learn how to swim!”
Sis-in-law only came back much later.
The beach, which is about a kilometer away from the tidal pool, is just as busy. There I observe Davelin. Davelin is a rather busy little chap. He is probably about five years old. You don’t need to watch him to know where he is. You can sommer hear.
“Davelin! Don’t!” Presumably his mother.
“Daveliiiiiinn!” His sister. And his aunty.
“Daveliiiin! Ek moer vir jou.” Probably his uncle. Or his neighbour.
So Davelin runs past me and purposefully splashes in a puddle so that I get a good walop of water in my face. As he runs away he looks over his shoulder to check how succesful he was. Devilon actually looks like a rather likeable little stoutgat.
Well, and so the holiday comes to an end. What remains is packing up and getting back hom. Which turned out to be a lot more complicated that expected. But that story I already shared here on a previous occasion.
The end…
To the East of the West
A little tour to the Eastern part of the Western Cape
Part 1 – Gouritsmond and Boggomsbaai
Departing from Cape Town on a chilly Sunday morning we made it for an arranged (no, really) nine-o-clock breakfast with friends at Worcester. When we pulled in there the muffins were ready, and the coffee machine was also just heating up.
The idea of the tour was to visit the Harkerville forest to see what it looks like. As my wife published a book that plays out in the Harkerville forest we thought it to be a good idea to just go check that it really looks like how she described it in her book. Incidentally it was a perfect occasion to stretch the legs of my newly acquired five-year old wheels in the form of a Hyundai Tucson.
After the little problem we had with my Mazda bakkie earlier the year I was under some pressure to replace it with something more reliable. However, it turned out that my second vehicle was far less likely to survive any length of time with any level of reliability, and hence we replaced same with the Tucson. I digress, but I cannot resist the urge to just mention that I am very happy that I now still have my 16 year old Mazda.
Following a good breakfast and even better company in Worcester, we departed for the remaining 270 kilometers of our journey for the day. It was in the midst of a cold snap that hit the Western Cape, with temperatures as low as 2° Celsius.
Source: Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google
We arrived at Gouritsmond just after two in the afternoon. It then turns out that, it being Sunday, and outside of season, both shops in the town have already closed for business for the day.
The friendly neighbour, who was also the lady who let us into the rented house, was kind enough to provide us with the necessary foodstuffs to make it through the rest of the day. That is, of course, one of the charms of your small towns.
Within an hour of our arrival, however, I had to leave again to take our student daughter to neighbouring Kanon, a popular angling spot, to pick up her friends who were out on a hike, and take them all to Boggomsbaai where she would stay for the next few days.
I afterwards found that Boggomsbaai even has its own website with some rather interesting postings.
On the beach at Boggomsbaai one could even find a spot to pitch your umbrella between the masses of people.
Back at Gouritsmond a short recce through the town revealed the damage done to the beach by the flooding of the river earlier this year (only days after we left having spent the summer holiday there).
What you see on the picture is meters of beach sand that had been taken away by the flooding waters, causing the water to now flow somewhat higher now as usual.
The local Municipality seemed hard at work. Various heaps of driftwood had been collected from the beach and put aside.
And given the lack of tourists and the lack of interest in swimming in the prevailing whether conditions, the plugs for the outlets of the tidal pool had been removed.
Of course I would have wanted to swim, but who can swim in such shallow water. So I rather gave it a miss.
In between heavy bouts of doing nothing, I found the time to do some traffic spotting from our front stoep, just so that I can say I did not do nothing the whole holiday.
The pictures says it all. It was hugely exciting. I like this place.
Part 2 to follow (with just as riveting action, trust me).
…
To the East of the West – Part 2
Part 2
Continuing our journey to and around the East of the Western Cape.
Harkerville and the Seven Passes Road
We sat a day aside to drive out to the Harkerville Forest to check things out.
[Source: Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google – You can click on the picture to enlarge it]
A short distance before we got to Harkerville, I recognised Garden of Eden on the left. No, not from biblical times, but from the occasion when I was about 8 years old and we visited this forest. I can remember that I quite liked the idea of wandering off on my own pretending to know where I am. Until I got lost.
With the amused guidance from a guy who sat on a bench watching me running up and down, I eventually made it out of the woods. Literally. By that time I was having difficulties breathing as I had something like an asthma attack as a result of the trauma. According to my wife this rather moving tale partly inspired some of the action in her book (which, included someone getting lost, of course).
The Forestry building at Harkerville.
Outside is a detailed map of the area. I notice the one name as “Koffiehoekbos” (Coffee Corner Forest). Sounds like my kind of corner of the forest.
There are various hiking trails, bicycle trails, and also horse trails.
Inside the forest you have a rather mysterious athmosphere. The silence is audible, save for the Knysna Loeries that you can hear and see from time to time.
I have no idea what these things are, but it seemed like something out of Lord of the Rings.
Karatara
Returning from Harkerville we decided to take an alternative route back. Once past that last water mass to the West of Knysna, we turned off on a secondary road. This road takes you a short distance to the interior where your travel on mostly gravel roads on a route that runs roughly parallel with the N2 in a Westerly direction.
[Source: Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google]
The winding road runs through forests and forestry plantations, going through various passes. The Phantom Pass, Homtini Pass, Karatara Pass, Hoogtekraal Pass. You cross seven rivers if you do the full route, namely Swart, Hoogekraal, Homtini, Karatara, Silver, Kaaimans, and Touw. (Source: http://www.southafrica.net/za/en/articles/entry/article-southafrica.net-the-seven-passes).
On this road the settlement of Karatara is found, North of Sedgefield.
[Source: Google streetview: 2014 Google Image Data: February 2010]
Apparently the woodcutters that were active in the forests had their licenses to fell trees revoked in 1939. They had no other skills or place to stay, and the government moved them to Karatara that was established for them.
Woodville Yellow wood tree
At Woodville we turned off to go see the 800 year old yellow wood tree.
The tree is said to be 33 meters high with a crown width of 34 meters, and a stem circumference of 12 meters. By any description, this is a largish tree, I think.
A notice next to the tree pleads with the omnipresent assholes to not damage the yellow wood tree, but to rather carve their names on a tree designated for this purpose (the asshole tree?).
By the time we left the tree, light was failing, and we took the escape route South bound to the N2 via Hoekwil. I think we missed a further few nice passes, but I did not want to traverse those with darkness falling.
We eventually arrived in Gouritsmond well after dark. Living in the city causes one to become unaccustomed to real darkness. It’s amazing to drive on the road running past Boggomsbaai and Vleesbaai on the way to Gouritsmond, and to experience the absolute darkness where there is no artificial lighting.
The seven passes road was an absolute delight. The Tucson behaved exemplary. I reckon I can safely say that a good day was had by all. Also for the visit we paid Knysna, which I will deal with in part 3.
Part 3 to follow.
…
To the East of the West – Part 3
Knysna and The Heads
Knysna is really a beautiful place. It is advisable not to travel through the town on Christmas or New Year. But then again, if you have nothing to do on those days, that would be a sure way of passing the time.
But I would not want to sound like I’m running the town down. A cursory look at a map would give a fair indication of (at least part of) Knysna’s popularity.
[Source: Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google]
Returning from Harkerville we went down to the Knysna Waterfront. It’s a rather cool place.
This guy was giving a display of utter motionless.
However, he did lick his ice cream from time to time. The guy in front, though, did not move. I later thought he might be dead or something, but no medics arrived.
We then boarded the John Benn.
The John Benn is the one on the far side. It’s pretty much like a double decker pub.
I reckon from a boating perspective it must also pretty much drive like a pub. The keel depth is half a meter, according to Cornelius who skippered the John Benn. Given the prevalence of the various sand banks, it is understandable.
The John Benn was clearly not built as a testament to speed and agility.
[Source: Imagery ©2014 TerraMetrics, Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google]
On the way to the Heads, you drive past the Featherbed restaurant. If you so wish, you can take the ferry destined for lunch at Featherbed. Apparently you also get a game drive included in the outing.
The Heads.
The weather on the day was a bit overcast, with a rather chilly wind blowing. In spite of that it was a very enjoyable outing. Next time we’ll try to include Featherbed in the itenary.
Tucson
Just for the petrol heads that might be reading here. The 2009 Tucson 2.0 GLS manual offers quite a bit of car for your money. I’m tempted to say its weight in gold, simply for the reason that this 2×4 SUV weighs in at 90 kilograms heavier than my double cab 4×4 Mazda bakkie.
The 2.0 GLS engine offers 104 kW (as opposed to the Mazda 3.4’s 108kW) but is geared differently. It feels vastly quicker and nippier than the Mazda, especially given the mass it needs to drag along.
The seven passes road we did we obviously did at a very leisurely pace, but the car handled the road with aplomb.
On the open road it can easily keep up with traffic. Although I prefer to drive at 110km/h, if need be the power is there to get you out of a tight spot.
Average fuel consumption over most of the trip was 11,2km/l. A strong headwind, and thereafter having a trailer full of wood hitched to the Tucson brought the fuel consumption down to just over 10km/l.
Rather splendid, I thought.
PG JONKER…
Cape West Coast
by PG Jonker
West Coast drive
April, the fairest of all months.
I know, the poem by C. Louis Leipoldt was about October being the fairest of all months. But Leipoldt did not live in post-1994 South Africa. More in particular, he did not experience the marvel of South African April with all its public holidays, interspersed by a working day here and there.
So making use of some of these holidays we went for a drive up the West Coast.
[Source: Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google]
First stop the West Coast National Park at the Southern part of the Langebaan lagoon.
[Map from the SanParks brochure – see also www.sanparks.org].
As a National Park you need to pay the preservation fee if you don’t have the Wild Card. The Langebaan lagoon has fynbos, internationally acclaimed wetlands, and a wide variety of birdlife and antelopes.
At Kraalbaai, on the Western side of the lagoon, you find the Preekstoel (pulpit). According to the Sanparks brochure the firs Khoi dictionary of 400 words was documented here by De Flacourt, the Director General of the French East India Company in 1648.
Also some house boats and yachts.
When we were there it was low tide.
From there we drove to the southern tip of the lagoon. Geelbek is a restaurant inside the park. This was also in 1785 where the VOC in the Cape of Good Hope placed a beacon to demarcate it northern most boundary.
A boardwalk takes you to bird hides.
Bird species Curlow Sandpiper, Sanderling and Knot travels the 15000km’s from Northern Russia every year to breed here. Over 250 bird species are found here. This is more than a quarter of the total of South Africa’s bird species.
The birds don’t hide in the bird hide, though. We do.
The Langebaan lagoon was classified as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention criteria in 1975.
Unlike the beach at Kraalbaai, the bird hide did not exactly have the two twelve year olds with us thrilled. Admittedly, we were not there at a good bird spotting time, so we have not seen too many of the more than 250 species.
Shades of green:
Lunch at Driftwoods in Langebaan proved rather popular with all, though.
It was now becoming afternoon, and we first took a vote on whether we would still visit the West Coast Fossil Park. I was quite surprised at the two twelve year olds’ enthusiasm. Maybe they had grand visions of Jurassic Park.
We arrived at the Fossil park after the departure of the laste guided tour to the excavation site. The lady at the laboratory was kind enough, though, to give us a tour through the laboratory – which is where the guided tour in any event ends.
Some interesting facts we learnt were that this is one of the richest fossil sites in the world. It was discovered in 1930 when phosphate mining started there. Unfortunately a great many of the fossils had been destroyed in the mining operations. Apparently as much as 80% thereof. Nevertheless, more than a million specimens found its way to the Iziko museum in Cape town. After the mine closed in 1993 it was developed as a fossil park.
By the end of our tour even our Jurassic Park enthusiast’s concentration was starting to wear thin. After all, if the 5 million year old bone is actually solidified into stone, it cannot be cloned, and the DNA won’t exist to churn out a new African bear.
Last stop: Stompneus Bay.
It does not get better than this, huh?…
Green Kalahari
By Johnie Jonker
Witsand
Route
Auto-routing on a Garmin can have its drawbacks, as happened here.
[Source: Imagery ©2014 TerraMetrics, Map data ©2014 AfriGIS (Pty) Ltd, Google]
Travelling from Gauteng, one would normally stick to the N14 from Pretoria to Olifantshoek, and turn left towards Witsand 7km after passing through the latter. This leaves 70km of gravel to cover to the entrance of the Witsand Nature Reserve.
By the time we realized we were not on the N14 anymore – you have to turn right at a T-junction to stay on it – we had already passed a few tedious stop-and-go sections where widening of the road is under construction. So we stuck to it and were pleasantly surprised by Postmasburg in terms of the development taking place there, new business extensions especially. The older part had a decent Spar where we could obtain our last-minute self-catering supplies.
Following the GPS routing, we learnt that the direct route to Witsand has recently been blocked by a new mine. The green route below is how we actually had to travel, with the red “shortcut” in the middle now fenced off and gated as mining property.
But a good road, with a very interesting Bergenaarspad 1:5 pass in it. As soon as the road leads into the Langberg to cut through it, it becomes somewhat washed out with some exposed stones – but not big – until it gets to the uphill section through the mountain, which is steep but paved with natural stone. Once at the top, the paving stops and the descent is rutted.
It was afterwards learnt that this cutting through the mountain was a community project where the local labourers were paid per day, instead of for the job. Naturally, they worked as slowly as they could to sustain their income over a longer period of time. So by the time they paved to the top from one side, the money for the project was all spent. Hence the unpaved other side.
Witsand Nature Reserve
The official web site is here: Witsand Kalahari Website. What follows below, are our observations during the visit.
Accommodation
Although this was school holidays, the reserve was almost deserted. Phoning on a Wednesday, accommodation was available for 3 nights from the Sunday. Moving this arrangement on by one day the day before our arrival was still fine.
Now that we’ve been there, I can understand this due to the location – nearest town 70km away. However, this is somewhat of a concern, as I cannot see week-end income only being sufficient to maintain the facilities, unless it’s being subsidised by the NC government. After all, there are only 10 each of both chalets and campsites, plus then the bungalows. So any follow-up visit should not be delayed too much.
The chalets however are rated as 4-Star. I have no idea what 5-star would be like, but this was hands down the smartest accommodation we had ever stayed in while on holiday. By pure coincidence, also the most expensive. Very private – you can’t see any of the other chalets from your own living area – and well maitained.
All chalets are centered around a tree – avoid No 5, the tree has died. We were in number 3 – sunrise side, but number 6 would be optimal if you’re after a sunset over the white dunes.
Also very well finished off – sleeper doors, good craftmanship and little things like pictures on the bedroom and lounge walls.
One drawback could be – the missing star – that the 3 bedrooms are serviced by the same bathroom – not ensuite – but this did not bother us. Maybe it would in winter. Seperate bath, shower and toilet with super hot water.
The kitchen is also superbly kitted out. Proper stove, microwave, fridge and a myriad of utensils for 6 people. Even a Cadac gas cylinder with stove-plate, should the power fail. You are constantly surprised by what they have there.
Both grid and skottel at the fireplace, plus chains to hang your potjie – a No 3 supplied.
A 3-stitch panoramic from the main bedroom door. The entrance from the car is between the two buildings, on the left.
This image was taken from the lounge end of the chalet back to the sleeping quarters.
Activities
Most people go to Witsand for the novelty of the white sand, but also the roaring dunes. The temperature and moisture content of the sand has to be just right to hear this. March is not that time.
But you can rent a sand board and bicycle to pedal the 5km from the camp to the dunes and try surfing.
The bicycles are in a terrible state of maintenance. Bent pedals, broken gear shift mechanisms, loose flip-flop saddles, flat tyres. They’re going to have to sharpen this up soon. Rather take your own.
The sand boards are somewhat better, but you have to buy a tin of wax from the shop, otherwise you go nowhere. Some video clips here: Day 1, Day 2, Playing it Safe, More Wax, Please and That’s Better.
You also need to take along some cool dudes to show you how to drive a sand board.
Boegoeberg Dam
There really is a place like this!
My first memories of radio, was Fanus Rautenbach’s morning program Flinkveria.
It’s here that I heard that song for the first time, and often afterwards. It has gone out of fashion somewhat lately, though. It goes like this:
Boegoeberg se dam is ‘n doodlekker dam
Daar waar die meisies hulle hare was en kam.
and so on. Apparently the SA Army has different lyrics for it.
Route
Groblershoop is the nearest town. As far as we could see, it only has a main road, but at least a decent Agri Mark, 2 butcheries, general dealer, two fuel stations and offsales.
Regional Wine Review
Passing through, I acquired some of the local “Gordonia Special” wine. Last time I bought it was in Upington, where I was sent round the outside from the “Whites Only” half of the store to the “Non-whites” side to obtain a bottle. In the meantime, things have changed, and everyone was served over the same counter – through burglar bars that …
Men at work
Con men, that is.
I’ve been had. OK, I have a bit of a reputation of being had rather easily. But this guy was really good, ek sê.
One Friday morning this gentleman approached me just as I stopped at the Post Office. He ran out of fuel, he explained, could I possibly allow him to siphon off a few liters from my car. He indicated over his shoulder where his stricken car was.
I saw him leaving a white Discovery, the driver of whom unsuccessfully tried to assist him, he said, as one cannot put a hose down the Discovery’s tank. Same problem with my car, though.
It was a bit like watching Derren Brown (the guys who does the mind games on TV) in slow motion. To cut a long story short, this guy talked me out of all the cash I had in my pocket, instead of (as he suggested) filling his tank up with a quarter tank of fuel. Instead, also, of being relieved of the hassle of assisting him and sommer leaving my car keys with him so that he can siphon the fuel from my tank and return the car and keys to me later. He did offer his laptop that he carried in a shoulder bag as security, I should add.
Now, while this was going on, and while I parted with the money, I did not genuinely believe that this guy would return the money as he promised. It was a good story, though, which could have been reasonably possibly true. He was fast talking, continually expressing his embarrassment for having to ask for money, offering to triple whatever I give him to get him out of the fix. Working for his father-in-law from Piketberg, he explained, showing me some form of contractor’s card that he carried around his neck. He has nine children, he said, although he probably took his cue from my reference to my children, so this might not be part of his standard script. But not lame. Chirpy, I’d say.
Yet, whilst not really counting on the story to be true, and even less expecting him to really show up to bring back the money by 11h30, I still parted with the money. I would be interested in the views of any amateur psychologist out there as to how this can happen. But then again, stupidity and gullibility probably do not require psychological analysis. Or maybe guilt?
Expressing his sincere appreciation for my helping him out, he also offered to bring me a salomi on the house when he returns with the money.
He then left for his car. But in the opposite direction than where he initially, albeit somewhat vaguely, indicated where his car was parked. He once again promised to bring me a nice salomi when he returns the money at 11h30. [Come to think of it, he did not mention which day.]
Halfway across the street he turned around and asked “Chicken or mutton?”
“Chicken,” I said.
I never saw him again. Maybe I should have asked for mutton.…