The journey to Somerset East

Early early we were ready to go this morning. All packed up and off to Cradock first for a bit of essential shopping and then we hit the road out of Cradock, firstly to go and look for the Egg rock. Even at 40 mt high and made of Dolorite, we could not find it, only to find out later that it is on a well disguised road, with little , if any indication. We bank that one as a "non compliant". After this we get on the go to Somerset East, but no normal road again, this time it is the road via Mortimer to Somerset East. Obviously this is now all on gravel and mainly the D-roads. It is also beginning to rain very lightly, but the Randalls are not phased by this at all. We reached Mortimer all right and then we took another road on the map going past Bloemfontein. We thought this interesting and headed off on the D2503. We travelled on through mud and gravel and I opened many gates and went through and old pass, with beautiful hand packed road bases. Clearly in years gone by this was a frequently used pass, however with the new tar roads most of these roads are only used by local farmers, I would assume. We went past Bloemfontein, a Cattle and Hunting farm. It was like a picture from days gone by. It is a huge set up with an old homestead and beautiful surroundings, all in white and green.
And so we continued for the rest of the day over gravel pass, after gravel pass, amidst, yet again the most unbelievable scenery. The roads was a challenge in many places and there was mud and gates and hills and I expected a leopard to appear any moment from the mountains, but only sheep and cows and one black-backed jackal.
After we had been on this D road for an hour and a half, I saw a farm on the left and was sure that it was Glen Avon, which was sort of towards the end of the road, however there it was only Glen Craig, which was like a position I thought we had passed a long time ago, In my defense, I have to say that the map was last updated in 1999 and I am sure thing must have changed since then. It was a bit of a surprise and we quickly had to "regroup" and have something to eat and get out of the car an.d take a pic or two and settle back into the journey. The road had been rough and Dick was concentrating hard and breakfast a long time back.
Luckily the cloud had  started to lift and the rain was gone and in patches the sun was coming through. We arrived in Somerset East at about 4pm and went to the campsite where we had booked for 2 nights. We had sort of a feeling and Dick had said that this was the one place he was not sure about and low and behold, that was the case. The security guard on duty came to us and said that the ablutions were not of a desirable state and offered to get somebody to make them desirable,but once I had seen it, I just knew that now matter how much effort went into it, there was no way it was going to be desirable to me tonight. We called it off and booked into a Self catering place and are now warmly settled into Somerset Lodge and we are having a good bottle of wine and we are going to have a PIZZA tonight.
All in all a great day, travelling through this wonderful country of ours and seeing placed that the Politicians don't even know about, so surely low on the list of places to be screwed up. So stay off the high ways and enjoy the by ways!!

The Mountain Zebra National Park.

We left Graaff-Reinet and headed off to Cradock along some real back roads, needless to say all on gravel. It was evident from the road that we travelled on that there has been lots of rain in the area and indeed we had some rain on the way to Cradock. The scenery was and is still absolutely awesome. We have taken many pictures and I am really going to make a serious attempt to add some going forward.
As it was cold and rainy and we were in search of  more airtime for the laptops, we decided to head into Cradock first for a cup of coffee. Well we then got the data bundle and then we decided that we need something to warm the inner us, so we stopped off for a bottle of that and then we were off to Mountain Zebra. It was sort of misty rain and cold, but we set up and made a fire and got going. We are getting really good at that. Lovely campsite and beautiful surroundings, with mountains every where.
The first day here we decided not to ride anywhere, so we walked up the "koppie" behind the campsite to see what we could see. Well, the "koppie" was quite high and we could see a lot and far across the mountains and valleys.The walk is about an hour and a half, including all the stops to look at birds, look them up in the Sasol bird book, agree on what we saw and then to tick it off as positively identified. One also has to look at all the Golden Orb web spider nests and this and that and take the odd picture. All these things take a lot of time. We just chilled for the rest of the day and watched the new crowd arrive late afternoon and how they set up camp and all the interesting/strange things that people bring along. I am sure others look at us and think the same.
Yesterday we headed off into the park to do some dedicated game viewing . It was a beautiful day with clear skies and this scenery that just goes on and on and on. The park is very varied in terrain and it is literally up the mountain and down into the valley. On the plains we saw big herds of Springbok and Red Hartebeest and strangely enough, lots of Mountain Zebra!
 Also lots of baby Springbokkies. They are still light coloured and nearly sort of grey/beige. Real "Ag, shame" moments. We got a fright when a little bokkie ran out of the veld right towards the car and then off on the road. Shame, man, where was his mommy? Down the passes and into the valley there are dams and we saw terrapins at 2 dams and at one dam 2big ones each with a small one, like a baby. We spent at least 10 minutes watching a group of Ground squirrels and their antics. They are so busy and on the go all the time and so alert. Would have given a lot to have some of  those working for me! Rare characteristics in many humans these days, say no more!!
Anyway after having done several "loops" we headed back into Cradock for another IT related issue. All this goes way past me, so I just go for the ride and enjoy the scenery. While Dick went to sort the data issue out, I popped into the Dept of Labour to check on my UIF application. Interesting experience. Register with your ID and wait. Luckily only 4 people ahead of me on the waiting room. Interesting observation in the waiting room is the photo of our current President, with the Photo of a previous one behind him, but the only thing visible of the previous President is the hair.  Well now I know what Mr Zuma will look like with hair. Within an hour I am into the only operating "cubicle". The person in the other one has a notice up on the swingdoor to say that "busy with back up administrative duties". I heard a bit of casual conversation going on, but who am I to say what "back up and  admin" means in this world. Needless to say the application is still  drifting in cyber space, regardless of the fact that the last words to me in the Bellville office was:' The application is correct and I can check at any office in SA, etc, etc. Well back to Gin and  Tonic and a Burger for lunch in the local, very old Victoria Manor Hotel.The hotel owns a whole street of restores houses which is part of their accommodation offer. They call it "Tuishuise", ever so "oulik".
The park has several game viewing "loops", amongst other three 4x4 only loops. Well we did them all and let me tell you they are true to their word when they say 4x4 only. These routes mainly take you up a mountain, which does not look all that formidable from the bottom, but once you are on it and you are heading up, you know that this is not the N1 between Bellville and Cape Town. Once you are on the top you sort of get lulled into a false sense of security. You are surrounded by these grassland, covered in purple Karoo Irisses, herds of Zebra, Springbok and who ever chose to be there at the time. We stop and look at birds and follow that identifying process again and we look for the elusive Cheetah and the  we generally forget that what goes up must go down and then suddenly you are no longer on the level. Oh, boy and then we are heading down. All I can say, is every time I was so glad my mother was not in the car. Luckily the Terracan is true to its name. It can cover the earth. Exciting times. It is to me amazing that you can do these proper 4x4 routes in the parks, at no cost and on your own, what a joy.
Our two specials for today was the Rock Monitor Lizard which we saw on the way up one of these roads. He was just doing what he does best and that was lying in the middle of the road. He reluctantly moved of, flicking tongue and all when we approached and the Black Rhino we saw on the way back to the camp.
What can I say, I mean how terrible can life be. You pitch your camp, you make your food, you sleep in your tent, you get up and you pack up and you see the amazing country that we live in and then you find home again for the night. I love it. We stop and shop in new places, we chat to new people in the campsites and you hear different stories all the time.
Tomorrow we  are off to Somerset East, another place where I have never been.

We journey forth

When we left the Karoo Nat. Park we headed for Graaff-Reinet, via Murraysburg and Nieu-Bethesda and what a lovely journey that turned out to be.The scenery was just unbelievable. These Karoo "koppies" are so breathtakingly beautiful. I loosely refer to them as "koppies" but they are actually high, as in 1750, 1530 and such like. Obviously if you were to climb them that is not the high that you would do, but this is only something that needs clarification to the "blond" fraternity. The rest understands this automatically!!!
As you get closer to Murraysburg there are some huge Merino farms, of great historical value, with names like Kruidbosch, Kareebosch and Kraaifontein, All are close to the road and it feels as if you are driving right through their front gardens. Kareebosch is the farm where they H.F.Verwoerd launched the first land based oil well for Soekor in the sixties. Thank God it was unsuccesful!! So hopefully will the "Fracking" also be. There is a huge outcry at the moment in the Karoo against that initiative from Shell and the people from the Karoo need all the support they can get. So stuff the politicians and vote for the survival of our heritage.
From Murraysberg we detoured to Nieu-Bethesda. We stopped at the local pub for a G+T, where SupeRugby was on the TV, with 2 locals watching. The one with his own German type beermug and the other clearly local 'outjie" who has no TV at home. No words were spoken other than the odd bit of encouragement for the favoured team. Neither were SA teams,so I suppose it meant the preference of the day. While we were sitting outside a guy arrived that went into the pub and he was greeted by the guys inside as "Boetiegoed". Now you have to be at least 60 to remember anybody being called that. We went to visit the Owl house, which is strange experience at its best. Helen Maartens who was the "owl lady" clearly had some different ideas. Next to the Owl house there is a "fossil experience" which we also did. Now that is  a reminder of how insignificant humans are in the greater scale of things. There was just so much happening in creation before we even joined the world. Quite humbling.The young local guide, sans front teeth and very Afrikaans, was keen to share her knowledge about the fossils. Our tour was shared with a British couple with fancy state of the art Canon cameras, clicking away in continuous shoot mode at the fossils. I was not sure why, as I did'nt think that the fossils would go anywhere in a hurry after 150 million years!!
We arrived in Graaff-Reinet sort of late afternoon at the local caravan/camping site. Seems like it has seen better days, but the bathrooms are clean and the water is HOT. A few different sort of people around though. In 2 of the Rondavels there are some guys from Elsiesriver who are doing the "townships" buying gold for re sell. They go from town to town on the 'Platteland" to do this and then they resell the gold to goldsmiths. Strange life, I'd say.
Yesterday we went to spend the day in the Camdeboo National Park, which include the Valley of Desolation. It is another of those places where you just stop and reflect and again realise that there was a lot more in God's world before he created man. I am sure he sometimes regrets that. We also did the 4x4 trial in the park. Nogals a bit hairy at places, but we took lots of photos and Dick can write about that on his blog. I just hang tight, pray and get out to take photos.
Today we did the tourist thing in the town. What a historical place it is. It is the 4th oldest town in SA, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam. Hugely influenced by the Murray's, of religious background. Andrew Murray came here in the 18 hundreds, married a 16 year old girl and had 16 children. 11 made it to adulthood. 5 boys became religious ministers and 4 of the girls married religious ministers. Holy family!!!
We visited 3 museums, which is quite a lot for me, however it was so interesting. At Reinet house, which was the home of the Murrays for more than 80 years we were welcomed by Oscar(surname forgotten) who is clearly a character. He knows a great deal about local history and is also an author who writes a variety of books and enthusiastically told us about his  writings. We walked and photographed and had lunch and visited several old churches and ended up at the old "moederkerk" in the middle of town. It must be one of the most impressive churches on the SA platteland. It is huge. It can seat 1500 people and is in pristine condition. Clearly the community cares about it and looks after it. On the way out there was a guy, I was about to say elderly, but then remembered where we are in life, who was obviously involved with the church. I stopped to ask him if the church was still well supported, etc. He immediately informed us that he was not from Graaff- Reinet but from Aberdeen, a nearby town with a church with a very high steeple and that he was here to fix the church clock, which is perpetually in 3pm.
That one question from my side lead to a whole different load of information. Not only did the church in Aberdeen have this high steeple, it was also in need of painting and restoration and when the new "dominee" arrived 4 years ago, this guy was called to assist. The quote for the scaffolding was over R 80000 and he was tasked to come up with an affordable solution. Well, he did. He designed and built a contraption with 8 "legs" with pulleys and baskets and hydrolic lifts and they called it a Terrantula. They can now paint the steeple any time and when not in use retract the legs and hide it away. This guy is also a Springbok Bisley shottist, now shooting in the "Veteran Protea" team. He has been to 4 world championships. This guy, mr Van Rensburg, must be well into his sixties, is as lean as a machine, wears no glasses and is an "old Protea shottist". I mean, how good is that. The world is full of wonderful people, if only you were to stop and listen .
Tonight we and the "gold collectors" and one other lone traveller from Cape Town share the campsite and tomorrow we head off to Cradock and the Mountain Zebra Park.

Karoo National Park

Wow, what a place to visit. It is beautiful and like ancient creation. It is true Karoo in all its beauty.
We spent 2 nights in the camp site, which is about 800 meters from the reception, but you cannot go there on foot since they have introduced lions to the park in November 2010. It means that you are stuck in the camp, especially if you are travelling with a roof top tent, like we are, however that is not a problem as they offer stunning walks in the park with a guide. We took the 10.30 option and was fetched at the camp by the field guide. You cannot walk on your own, even before the lions. Our guide took the 2 of us on a 2 hour hike in the veld just around the camp. It was fantastic. He shared field knowledge and just exerted his passion for the Karoo. We learnt about "kruisbessiebos" and wild rosemary and "karoo anker" and jewel beetles and toktokkies and lots more and all from the local area. It was such a full filling experience and we really enjoyed it.
The second day we headed off into the park to explore and to get to over night accommodation at iBesweni at the far end of the park. This was a special treat, as it was the first night in a house with a proper bed and a fresh fluffy duvet, hot shower and a fully equipped kitchen and a loo under the same roof as you. What a pleasure that was. The scenery from there was fantastic. These Karoo koppies and the vlaktes that go with it is just different and it changes all the time. There are also animals here, but the park is vast and the animals are scattered around. We saw a few big herds of Gemsbok and Red Hartebeest and some Springbok and Zebra, both the Burchell's and the Cape Mountain. We also saw lots of running Ostriches. Must have been national running day for them.
The road to the cottage is only accessable to 4x4 vehicles and that was quite clear why. It was not rough and inaccessable, but it was decidedly an advantage to have a capable vehicle to do the trip there and back. It was slow gravel travel at its best, with some challenges.We are spending the last night here in the camp again tonight and tomorrow we head off to Graaff -Reinett for the next few days. The nice thing is that most of the campers here tonight are heading home as school starts on Monday and we are not part of that crowd. We are just heading on into the next chapter of our trip.Life sucks, does it not!!!

P.E. to Beaufort West

We left Fish early on Sunday morning. Carl and his troop back to Pretoria and we back to our original holiday plan. This meant that we had to back track to P.E. and then get to Beaufort West where we were booked into the Karoo National Park from the 5^th of April.  As the others had to leave so early, we packed up the last bits at “Lo Shack” and then headed off to Port Alfred for breakfast at the restaurant at the mouth of the Cowie river. We clearly caught them a touch early and by the looks after a heavy night . The waitress was decidedly “moeg” and we had to assist with the putting up of our umbrella, but we had a good breakfast. It is a wonderful position where the restaurant is and well worth a stop off.

We dropped Emlin off at P.E. airport, ventured into P.E. to get some essentials and set off to Patensie where we were going to spend the night at Gonjah bushcamp. It is lovely there, but there are also no frills. It is a true bushcamp, with a donkey for hot water. This is not the transport type of donkey, it is the making fire under the hot water type. There is a bush loo and a bush shower. We love it. During the night you hear owls and frogs and all sorts of night sounds.

We left from there to travel through the Baviaanskloof, with the plan to spend the night at Willowmore, but Baviaanskloof is not a road to travel on in any sort of a hurry , so we spent the night at the wonderful camp at Doringkloof. It is one of the best campsites we have ever stayed at. We have been there before, so no surprises. The journey through the Baviaanskloof is really special. It is just the most amazing scenery all the time. You go over 3 mountain passes, obviously all gravel. The first one is Combrinck pass. It is an UP pass when you come from Patensie. The road has been improved and the bad patches are much better. The next pass is Holgat pass and that is a DOWN pass from our direction. There has been some road improvements, but clearly the money oer the contractor the bribe ran out on this one and towards the end the road is pretty rough. The next is Grasnek pass. A long and beautiful road and also not included in the “upgrade plan” Lovely to travel, though. We stopped off at the Padstal before Doringkloof for a cup of tea. This padstal is only open on high days and holidays and we were lucky as it was the first day of school holidays. So we stayed at Doringkloof, which is also called a “bush camp”, but the luxury variety. It is really in the middle of the Baviaanskloof  and if one were to spend time in the kloof to explore, really a conveniently situated place.

The next day we set of for the last stretch to Beaufort West. We stopped et the Baviaanskloof Craft shop. This is an initiative of the locals to get the community involved in producing crafts and then to have a central point to sell it all from. There was not a lot, but all in all a good idea, wiich I am sure will grow as time goes. We stopped for lunch in Willowmore a Sophie’s Choice . What a find. It is situated on the main street not far from the info centre. It is an antique shop, but not the heavy sort of antiques, more like “nice old stuff”, but boy does she have a lovely restaurant. Real Mediterranean style food. Dick had the quiche of the day , which was bacon and mushroom. Well the word “home made”  has new meaning now. It was packed with jummy bacon and mushrooms in a pastry “bakkie”. It smelt devine, it tasted like out of this world. I had a toast veggie and couscous salad and it was equally good. The attention to detail and the personal service was refreshing to experience, to say the least.

We arrived safely in Beaufort after all that lunch, all washed down with some Rooiberg wine. We are on holiday after all.

The Ashes Challenge

To get to the beach where the Ashes were to be scattered we were faced with several obstacles. Firstly we had to cross the Great Fish River mouth. Not too much of a challenge there as Clive and Melanie, friends from Pretoria had a rubber duck which could be used for this. Once on the other side there was the 2mt cliff that we had to get up on to get to the footpath leading across the dunes. Not a problem,, we took a step ladder on the rubber duck. So in various trips all 7 of us  got across with all our "stuff". This included a skottel braai and a gas bottle, a cooler box with ice, a cooler box with champagne, 2 tables, an umbrella, various mats to sit on, my camera and the food and Toti's ashes in a gift bag and the 2 Poodles and a Yorkie.
 The priest who was doing the ceremony and a family member from Joberg was still to arrive, but nevermind this did not deter us from getting the celebration on the way. We settled on the beach, which is probably one of the most stunning beaches on the coast and swam and had some champagne and put Toti's ashes on a towel for the last bit of sun. This was her favourite place on all the earth and she was always laying in the sun, so we thought it appropriate to do this.
Well the priest arrived by plane from Joberg and him and Emlin, the nephew, was fetched from PE airport by Melanie and arrived at about 12.30. So another boat trip to get them across. The priest arrived in shorts but with proper priest regalia from the waist up. Again the 300 odd metres across the dunes to "Old Woman's" for the ceremony.  First some MOET champagne and then the ceremony!!
We all gathered around the ashes, Anglican prayer books and all and sang Guide thee O my Great Redeemer, Toti's favourite hymn and then did the service. When we were done some of the ashes were buried right there in the sand and the rest was scattered in the sea. It was so what she wanted and then again so different and even if you imagined it, you could not believe that you were not watching a movie. Fellini at his best!!When all was finished we made fish and chips on the beach, as this was the way it was always done.
Later in the afternoon the whole process by boat was reversed. The Indian fishermen who watched us in the  morning were still on the beach and we dared not speculate what they had thought about this strange goings on.
At the end of the day we were all of one mind that Toti has been laid to rest properly and appropriately.

One week gone!!

I cannot believe that we are already been gone for a week and this is the first time that we are in a spot where we can connect to the Internet.
Well last Wednesday morning we left home at 4.30 and off we went to meet our friends at the Great Fish River mouth, just 30 km north of Port Alfred  It was a steady day's travel with a definite purpose and that was to get there before dark. Well with roadworks and stop and goes along the way and the odd stop for fuel, food and loos we were there at 5 pm and the party started.
"Fish" as the "cottage" is known to all of us, is a place with soul but without luxury. There is no electric lights, there is mostly no cell phone reception, unless you stand on the table outside when the wind is in the right direction and in the good old days we were not even allowed to wear a watch at Fish. There are also very specific rules and one of them is that you must have champagne first  thing in the morning on the dunes outside the house. Well this normally sets the tone for the day. In all the years that I have known "Fish"it has never been different and as we were all there to do Toti's ashes, we did not dare deviate from the rules. We also eat a great deal of really good food in between, mostly fish  in one way or the other.
 On our arrival there was "Fish paella" on the make, with all the required ingredients, from fresh mussels taken from the sea that morning, as well as Arikroks which Carl harvested that morning. All this after a 8 km walk. The prawns were from the local fish shop in Port Alfred. A  bit much expected to have gone fishing for them.
The next day was the "Ashes"  day. Well for some people it might sound simple to "throw my ashes in the sea", however Toti's request was a little more complicated than that. On the other side of the Fish River Mouth there is a set of dunes and then another beach, called "Old Woman's". At the time that she expressed her wish for her ashes to be scattered there the beach was accesses-able by 4x4, but those privileges were taken away many years ago. This left Carl with a bit of a dilemma, but being the chap that he is, he made a plan, a crazy plan,but none the less, a plan.
Fire is ready now for the braai. I carry on tomorrow.