24th January 2006-Day 3

We got up before the roosters started crowing, in the shadow of the moon we packed our belongings and headed off. Today would involve a lot of driving, it would involve entering completely unchartered territory and it would involve us only passing 4 cars on the road in over 13 hours on the road.

We wanted to take the dirt road to Murraysburg and make our way to Victoria West for breakfast, however, with the rains, it seemed too risky, we went back to Graaff Reinet and drove to Murraysburg passing a stuttering, dying lorry. Murraysburg is quite frankly a shithole. Once a hub for wool and mohair it is today a shadow of its former self and a bad start to a brief trip in the Western Cape.

Onto the N12 we headed to Victoria West, 12 km’s from the town, we saw a sign to Hutchinson, the only reason why Hutchinson exists is because the railway missed the town of Victoria West, so a junction with a few homes was built here. Many of these houses were deserted and empty, the junction had seen better days and was all but a forlorn ghost town.

Victoria West might be a small dorp, but it seemed much more like a city compared to the two towns we had just been to, but even having said that, it was remarkable to see that 08:30 on a Monday morning, things were moving so slowly. We walked the town on foot in search of a Karoo breakfast but did not find that many appetising places open. We went to inspect the building which housed the synagogue and to a few of the churches.

The Victoria West District Museum had good displays on fish fossils found in the area and on the natural history of the region. One also gains a good understanding of the history of the town through one of its other exhibits.

We also went to go see Mannetjies Roux, the legendary rugby players shop and museum, Roux still farms in the area. The real highlight and centrepiece of attraction in the town is the Apollo Theatre which has recently been gentrified. This is the only remaining art deco cinema in the country! It still shows movies regularly and is a symbol of pride for the locals.

We headed off to Loxton, no major breakfast, but were sure that the R63 would reward us with a great breakfast. We passed our second car. The towns were becoming smaller and further apart, one starts to understand just how big South Africa is when travelling on these roads. Nothing but farm land on either side of you, nothing but a few sheep and some shrubs. You just hope that your car does not break down here…

Loxton is a neat but tiny Karoo farming town. Nothing to do but hunt in the area or go in search of San rock sculptures, we did not have time for that and left Loxton.
Carnarvon is 60 KM’s away from Loxton, this is the regional hub for sheep farming, first impressions of the town were not that good, we found a local diner and curios shop and instead of having a Karoo brunch we had a deep fried bland rubbish, and the deep fried bland rubbish almost came out when I went to pay and realised the old South African flag was in the shop.

It was off to Blikkies Bar in the local hotel, it was lunch time and the bar was quite, now Blikkies (cans) Bar is famous because it has over 2000 bottles of different kinds of beer adorning its wall, the bar lady could not explain how all those cans made it to Carnarvon. The bar lady was very chipper of the fact that Springbok rugby coach Jake White had been in the area on a hunt.

After dealing with our parched mouths we drove around the town and off onto a dirt road to the farm of Sheila Snyman-Nel, Sheila, who must be in her 70’s is an energetic, no nonsense busy body lady. Her farmhouse which must be some 20 km’s away from Carnarvon is set under many large trees, it was like driving into an oasis. There were no pleasantries, she was in a rush, there was not even time to plug her book on Mountain Tortoises.

You see, Sheila has a tortoise reserve, now one might ask why the hell would you travel on a rough dirt road to see some tortoises… You see she has this tortoise which answers it to it’s name, Zach and I were gobsmacked, she yelped out Napoleon, and lo and behold the tortoise came to her. After a 5 minute tour and explanation she allowed us to use her bathroom and made it explicitly clear that we would not get tea, I enquired about the rush and before we knew it we were on the bakkie (truck) and on on our way to collect new born ostriches. We were on a god-forsaken road climhing steep hills and driving past a herd of buck. We arrived and had to collect the baby ostriches from their wary mother as they had been attacked by an army of ants.

It is not everyday that one gets to rescue baby ostriches and drive in the front seat with them.

She had to care for the ostriches and we did not want to interrupt her work so we said our goodbyes and headed off for Williston.

We were now heading to the Karoo Hoogland (Highlands), this would have been a dead boring drive had it not been for the many corbelled houses lining the road. It was getting very hot and we made our way to Williston to fill up. Williston was once famous for its stone cutting and tombstone production and this is the main reason to visit here, we did not have time for that detour, but one could safely assume that one of the more recent tombstones created must have been for the town itself. There was almost nothing going on, except for some excited school children walking down the street.

Soon it would be all dirt road as we headed to Fraserburg, it was only a 65 Km journey, but it was on a tough dirt road, we passed a car, but I started wondering why I had decided to take this route back to Cape Town, Williston was disappointing and I wondered that my verve to go to places where none of my friends had ever been was actually going to be worth it.

We arrived in Fraserburg, it is famous for one thing and that is its Pepper Pot, it has a hexagonal shape and is the symbol of the town. After a quick photo we prepared ourselves for the 125 KM journey to Sutherland.
Sutherland is by far the most famous town in the region and we wanted to go visit the world renowned SALT 2 Observatory. Sutherland is renowned as being one of the coldest towns in the country but also the best place to star gaze. The drive was the best one of the day, as we approached the town we saw the observatory and wanted to go see it the next morning. However, one had to book in advance and their were no openings, we hot, tired and bothered, our B+B looked worse for wear, the local eateries were closed and the town was barely breathing, disappointed we pushed for the N1.

I had wanted to go visit the Sheep cheese farm but it was in the wrong direction, and with my little car not made for off road travel we made our way for Matjiesfontein.

The drive was great, we passed our 4th car, but the rock structures and the cliffs were brilliant, it really felt like we were off the beaten track.
Matjiesfontein is a compulsory turn-off when ever one is in the area. The whole village is a National Monument. The Lord Milner is a grand old hotel which serves brilliant breakfasts, it was too late for that, but there was time to walk around the village, for Zach to rest under a palm tree and for me to bypass the old swimming pool come fish pond and go swim in the swimming pool. It was not allowed and taboo to that but I was willing to risk it as it had been a hot and sweaty day.

Feeling refreshed and reinvigorated we wanted to get closer to our final destination Cape Town. We drove past Laingsburg and Touws River and noticed massive road works just outside Touws River, it was time for a detour, we took the R318 and drove through the orchards and farm lands of the Koo Valley and the Burgers Pass, without some of the bends being very risky in the failing light, the views even at dusk were breathtaking. The change of terrain could not have been more stark. We drove through Montagu and decided to spend the night at Robertson.

We stayed at the Robertson BackPackers- much more active and livelier than Nieu Bethesda backpackers and after a great dinner in the town retired early so we could go to the hot springs the next day.

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1) The Monday Morning rat race in Victoria West
2) Blikkies Bar in Canarvon
3) Sheila Syman-Nel calling Napoleon
4) Zach taking time out in Matjiesfontein