22nd January 2006 Day 2

After an early morning cup of coffee on our stoep we checked out and went for a breakfast of boerewors (farmers sausage), eggs and fried tomatoes at the famous Drosdty Hotel, built in 1806, this hotel with its famous façade is one of the true landmarks of the dorp (town).

We walked off breakfast by doing a tour of the town. Being a Sunday, most establishments were closed, but the museums and galleries were open. We walked past two jovial old ladies sitting on their stoep waiting to be picked up for Sunday lunch, and walked past Reinet House and the Old Residency. We wanted to go to the Hester Rupert Art Museum, but noticed that it was temporarily closed. We walked past 5 minutes later and walked in and were met by a thin man with an unkempt thin moustache whose upper lip was quivering. After engaging in the expected small town small talk, the man proceeded to tell us that he had eaten a pie the night before and it had too much pepper in it and his stomach did not handle pepper that well. Zach and I wanted to take our time at the gallery but did not want to see a man die while were in there, I don’t know if he lasted that day.

A sure highlight of the town is the Old Library Museum, it has a great history of the town, with brilliant San and Bushman art. It also houses an exhibit on Robert Sobukwe. Sobukwe who founded the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was born in the town. It is a great exhibit, there are also a few references to and photos of Benjamin Pogrund who was his close friend and biographer.

We left town, one of my observations was that Graaff Reinet is a hub for taxidermy. If you ever study the art of stuffing animals, know that you can probably find a job in Graaff Reinet.

We left the town and went on and up and up to the Valley of Desolation. I had been here before, a spectacular reserve just next to the town. We did a small hike went off track, did some bundu bashing and took stock of the wonderful birdlife, fauna and flora and the breathtaking views.

This is a great place to unwind and an even better place for those Kodak moments.

We headed off to Nieu Bethesda, one turns off to a dirt road and travels for about 25 kilometres to the hamlet. As one enters, you see a severe change of pace, the cattle cross the road at their leisure, the few people walking the street take everything in their stride and things happen slowly.

We checked into the Owlhouse Backpackers, expecting to find two Scandinavian female tourists in the backpackers, we were surprised to find that we had the whole backpackers lodge to ourselves.

We set off straight for the place that made the hamlet famous or should I say infamous-Helen Martins Owl House.

I was here in 2005 and believe that this is definitely one of South Africa’s most intriguing places to visit and definitely the most bizarre.

Martins had a dull, dour life, after a failed marriage she moved to the town to care for her convalescent mom and ailing father, when they passed away, she was left stranded in the village.

Her life, home and garden were transformed when having a premonition one night. Inspired by the bible, William Blake and Omar Khayyam she turned her windswept garden into the Camel Yard. Just imagine walking into this yard with hundreds of sculptures in close proximity to one another.

She and co-worker Koos Malgas created this site that will no doubt leave you agog. There is an eerie quietness in Nieu Bethesda, people from Graaff Reinet refer to the people from Nieu Bethesda, as “weird”, “inbred”, “strange”. There is definitely something strange in Nieu Bethesda and this is best typified by the Owl House.

Outside the venue you see the wire artists selling their goods, Nieu Bethesda is a hub for creativity, famous authors, artists relocate here, but many of the inhabitants from the township are highly skilled in weaving, wire art etc and there goods are propositioned to you as you enter and leave the venue.

As we left, the wire artists disappeared under the sparse cover as the heavens opened. We had heard of a micro brewery and restaurant on the other side of the river, in the poring rain and an underwater low bridge we crossed. It was not heroic stuff, but it was not that fun walking across in close to knee deep water.

Once on the other side went in search of the brewery only to find it shut for the week, this time we walked over the foot bridge over the water.

One needs to understand that you can walk the length and breadth of the hamlet in about 20 minutes, there are some wonderful local community trusts which develop local talent, a police station which saw no activity what so ever and some impressive churches.

The main road was dead quiet, we walked into Egbert’s Coffee Shop. Egbert Gerryts, who I understand has sadly passed away recently, relocated to Nieu Bethesda in the early 90’s, he left the bright lights of Pretoria, left a job at the university and came here to write. He opened a small, but excellent book shop and coffee shop. I had his lemon meringue pie which was in the league of my mom’s lemon meringue pie. When asking for the price, he pointed to a jar and said I should pay what ever I felt it was worth to me.

I wondered whether people would just walk out and never pay, but I doubted it, it is a system which I am sure worked for Egbert, a system of trust, and as a just reward for some great pie, I paid much more the pie than I normally would of.

Egbert would not really engage us about why he came here, except to tell us about the book he had written about the hamlet.

At about 16:00 we ventured across the farm lands and lush green grass to Pienaarsig which is where the township is. On our way there we passed a grandmother and her two kids Boeta and Klara. They were two of the cutest children I had seen in a long time, with it being a small town, people are naturally friendly and everyone greets one another.

Pienaarsig was just as quiet as Nieu Bethesda, except for two men drinking wine out of a coke bottle sitting under a shady tree talking away loudly.

On our way back we crossed paths with the grandmother and Boeta and Klara again, they were engrossed by our digital cameras and soon we started playing games with them and swinging them around.

There was little if anything to do, it was a Sunday, all restaurants were closed, and we went to the owners of the backpackers lodge, Ian and Katrin for dinner, well healed travellers, they had settled in Nieu Bethesda for some time now. They had a very young daughter who seemed as if she had just come out of the Village of the Damned. We were joined by an American educator who was about to start teaching in the local school. Sitting outside, we proceeded to have pancakes for dinner. It was a wonderful, quiet setting, we were both quite hungry but did not want to eat too much. We did not want to take advantage, no one takes advantage of anyone in this village, or so we thought…

I thought R25 was a lot for 4 pancakes, and I commented to Zach about this, who told me that I had just been charged R50 for those pancakes, I could not believe the audacity of our hosts to exploit us like that.

Sitting outside looking at the glorious Karoo sky, I could only muse at the highway robbery, but I still felt very safe to leave my car doors unlocked, by about 21:30 I was asleep, we had to get up at 05:15 to make our way to Sutherland…

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1) Zach overlooking the Valley of Desolation
2) Murals in the Owl House
3) Late Sunday Afternoon Games with Boeta and Klara