A “draai” through the Free State.

The Christiana Camp site was lovely and the scenery superb, but EISH, the ablutions were shocking and the shower this morning was COLD!!!!! I must say it was a very hasty “shower”. 

We set of towards our next destination via the roads lesser travelled to Boshof, our first stop. This is the town where “Volkspele”, originated. They must have been terribly bored there, because to this day there is not a great deal happening, or maybe it is because there was not much happening that “Volkspele” started. Volkspele  is just another form of allowing girls and boys to dance together and smooch legally!!

We had a lovely experience in Boshof. We stopped for coffee at Bubu’s Coffee and Gift shop. This is situated in what used to be the original Magistrates Court, then it became a church hall and after that a mill and finally a coffee shop. Obviously there is a story behind all this, but too much detail, is too much detail.  The coffee shop is also a gift shop, with lots of the inspirational message  and little goodies for sale, much like what you get at the Christmas markets, etc, The music playing was, strictly sixties and early seventies, and played on no less than a Tedelex Blaupunkt music centre, on long playing records. This is exactly what I bought with my first salary from our good friend Peter who worked for the best music shop in Parow at the time. I paid all of R 300 odd for it then and it played for many years in various dwellings at top volume, Tommy, Shirley Bassey, Listz piano concertos and many other favourites of the times.

We also met 2 guys on bikes who were travelling through SA on the byways. They had left Velddrif a week or so ago and they were heading for the Caprivi in 5 weeks time and then to Luderitz. We shared stories and reminisced over the music and this and that and then they were off on their way and we were off on ours. The rest of the day was slow travelling through the Free State, stopped at little towns, taking pictures and eventually arriving at our next destination, which was Riverside Campsite on the Riet River. What a beautiful place. Owned and run by Lucy and Phillip van Wyk, managed with an iron hand and absolutely spotless. There are 4 dogs, of which one is a Labrador, who resumes the role of security officer. He sleeps either in front or behind our tent the whole night. His best buddy is a 9 month old Jack Russell, which is cuter than cute. Needless to say they have found the way around us!

BuBu's Cafe

Free State Travel

Free State Road block