Still Scared

Domestic situation aside, there were some spectacular adventures awaiting outside. Mornings in the warming sun spent eating Strawberry Pops or just-plain-All-Bran. Playing with the dogs or just laughing as they chased the pedestrians in the street. I was at peace with the sun in my lap. Which made me realise... I had been spending far too much time indoors. Always in front of that frikkin PC, trying to waste as much time as possible, and for what! Outside I felt alive and inspired. The real adventure was a trip in the car though.

Lee-Anne's mom spent a week with us. She can only be described as good natured and content. When the weekend approached, we made off for the village of Nieu-Bethesda, halfway between Graaff-Reniet and Middelburg. To get there, we had to take 15km of dirt roads along some winding and bumpy roads through the Karoo. Ask yourself first, what is the Karoo? Is it a barren and boring semi-arid ecotype? Is it the place of sheep farmers and flat-out hardship? In a way it can be, but that was not my experience. My preconceived notions of the Karoo meant I was delighted to see what it was really about. There was thornveld, grassland, karoo bossies, mountains and the sunsets. So picture it. We drove off the grassland onto a winding road up through the thornveld to a new plateau. The Compassberg mountain in full view on the horizon, covered in snow. Blue blue skies dotted with little white-candy-floss mushrooms. A pothole here and there and Malachite Sunbirds dancing from flowering Aloe to Aloe, like pretty whores visiting all the men in town. The road descended from the plateau and within a few corners later we were looking down on a huge canyon. Bradley stopped the car. Out came the camera and binocs. It was only until the camera was away that I really took in the view. A pair of Black Eagles drifted in the currents above while the water tripped over the rocks below. A lone basalt spire seemed defiant in the path of the water, and a tree grew from the top of the spire. How stubborn nature can be. Back in the car, Nieu Bethesda came into view.

Nieu-Bethesda is nestled in the same giant canyon, a canyon forged by a tributary of the Sundays River. The day god rested. The village didn't even have tarred roads. Dogs lay in the street lapping up the sun and keeping eyes on the tourists. We made our way to one of the "Country Kitchens" and took in stories from the owner, who I'm sure was trying hard to look like Ernest Hemingway. Home-made Ginger Beer and Lamb Curry hit the apetite spot. After being harrassed by the Pied Starlings we made our way to the Fossil exhibit they had in town. And I'm talking about real fossils, not the old folk in town. The little museum was a gem and the walk along the river bed proved to be a good hands-on paleontological experience. The clouds above looked like massive waves now. Another cold-front was due.

The highlight of the Nieu-Bethesda trip was a ramble through the Owl House. It's an art project done by a single woman in the early 1900's. Surreal and weird. Her house is full of mirrors and crushed glass on the walls. And lots of owls, staring at you with their glassy eyes. Outside, massive concrete and wire abhorations stand, sculptures inspired by arab writings, the bible and other spiritual works. Camels, Cranes, Women in servitude, Pilgrims. Wire messages and spray-paint - just plain odd! Bjork comes to mind.

The sun was setting, so we scoffed down some rusks and took off back to Middelburg up a different road. When the sun finally set, we were on the top of the ridge, panoramic views on either side. On the one side, a setting sun and shadows. On the other side, a pink landscape with the shadows of the ridge cutting through it. I waved to where my shadow should be but it was lost in the distance. I was either too far from the sun or too far from my shadow, caught in the middle between leaving a legacy and being inspiration. Sunsets in the Karoo are magical things. The Karoo can't give you a massive expanse of water to reflect the sun's dying rays, but it can give you skies that turn apricot in the speckles of high-altitude clouds and shadows that stretch for miles.

How easy it could be to find yourself lost in such a virgin landscape. Many of the days out there in the sun were similar, but I was in for a surprise. Bradley's colleague John was down from Joburg to work on some GIS data of Cranes. The first day, we went out onto the farms to test the data, data that flagged Crane roost sites that were near powerlines. Powerlines are without a doubt the highest threat to Blue Cranes. Since Cranes only roost at night on shallow patches of water, it's quite easy to identify where the powerlines and water-sources cross, if the data is there. It was an overcast day. Driving along the N9 towards Graaff Reniet again approaching the Lootsberg Pass. The clouds dropped lower and lower until our bakkie was driving through them. Spotting Cranes today would be hard but when we reached the other side of the pass, visibility improved. It wasn't long before we saw snow drifting down. When we stopped in at one of the farmsteads and Bradley played diplomat, I was taken aback by the sight of a Peach Tree in full blossom, with the snow all around us. It's not everyday you're walking around in the snow and the trees are in defiant blossom. The snow worsened, but even in the snow we saw Cranes going about their foraging business, unperturbed by the stationary bakkie and its three oogling occupants. We decided to hightail it to the Wapadsberg Pass before the snow trapped us on the wrong side of the mountains. We ascended the pass and discovered a new land, covered in white. A little further on the road to Cradock and not a spec of snow to be seen. Man, Cradock must be a boring town!

Middelburg, when we finally got back, was covered in at least an inch of snow. I loved the way it crunched under my boots and left well-defined footprints. I decided against taking the Subaru onto the high-school rugby pitch and doing doughnuts through the snow. A decision I regret now. :D Still, my Scooby proved a great source of entertainment for the locals. When driving through town, I let the engine reach and grab, much to the delight of the liquor-store faithful. The car was dirty from the snow, so I decided it was time to take it to the only car-wash in town.

There, a man named Jannie in his late 40s ran shop with 2 others locals. Jannie took a personal pride in his washing work. I sat and failed miserably at reading the next sadistic short story by Roald Dahl as I watched them clean the Wagoon from top to bottom, inside and out. Jannie and Martin (one of his mates) were asking questions about the car, questions I was happy to answer. I in turn asked them about their lives in Middelburg. Jannie was a retired cop with no regrets for leaving the force, after he wrecked his back in service. Martin on the other hand, was an english speaking Natal boy realist with a distaste of being called "Oom". We laughed at some white-trash walking into the shop next door with an old South African flag on his shirt. We laughed at how you can now advertise your ignorance by wearing such a T-Shirt. The car was spotless when Jannie handed me the keys and I paid up. Then I did something unexpected. I gave the keys back to Jannie and said he should take it for a spin. (With me in the passenger seat of course!) He had this huge smile on his face as he closed his fingers around the keys. He pulled off quite gingerly onto the main road and snapped it into 2nd. Then he eased in the revs till the car was singing at 6000 RPM and snapped it into 3rd gear. (Man, I love second gear in my scoob!) An unceremonious u-turn later we headed back to the Car Wash. Jannie got out and paraded over to Martin and said: "Jissie Martin, maar daai ding fokken trek!". I smiled inside and said my goodbyes and thanks. :) Turns out, Middelburg doesn't get a lot of fancy cars in town. The N9 doesn't even cut through town, so seeing a Subaru in town is rare.

The rest of my time in Middelburg was easy-going, but it was time to leave. Field work dwindled as Bradley succumbed to office and administration work. As fate would have it, Bradley had a week-long conference to attend to in the Free State and I felt like my time was up.

The last weekend was mindblowing. Saturday was spent in the Valley of Desolation, a spot in Camdeboo National Park on the outskirts of Graaff Reniet. Lee-Anne and I walked around town taking in the sights as Bradley went to the local Radio Studio to record his weekly Conservation talk. On the way to the Valley we dropped off the DJ in the township on the edge of town. Camdeboo is a minor success story in terms of national parks. Local land has been donated and somehow the park manages to survive right on the edge of Graaff Reniet. The park itself is a typcial Karoo park, but the highlight is the Valley of Desolation. In the middle of the park, overshadowing Graaff-Reniet is a massive rocky-outcropping, mountain even. We drove past the dam which was almost at capacity and entered the park. The mainroad took us past herds of Zebra, Springbok, Rooi Hartebees then started to ascend. Twisting up towards the top, new views at every turn. The trees parted at points on the journey, showing us the dam from elevation and bits of the town below. Then we came to a peer of sorts in the mountain-top. We parked the car and took the brief walk to the top of the lookout point. When I got to the top ahead of the others I jumped on a rock and stared out in total amazement. The view I was presented with was breath-taking. The sun was descending behind me. A long blade-like cloud stretched from the west all the way to the east as if the sun had severed the sky with one slashing strike. I faced the town and twisted over my left shoulder to see the rest of the mountain range and the slowly setting sun. To my left, in the valley below, 2 black eagles were soaring in what was left of the afternoon thermals. Looking further right, the shadow of the mountain range was covering Graaff Reniet. I could make out schools, churches and the various income-based houses. The rich homes with massive trees and swimming pools. The poorer folk had to live out of town in RDP townships. And there was this river surrounding the town, almost as if the town was a frying egg in a hot pan and the river was playing with the edges, as a bored breakfast cook would. Various mountain ridges faded into the distance behind town. Each successive range being more blue than the one in front of it until you couldn't make out the sky from the mountains anymore. Horizons melting together with the sky. Looking to my right now and a lone peak juts out of the totally flat surroundings. Massive waves of rock stretch away from us to the right. Waves going out. If time was inconsequential, I'd be walking on watery rock watching the waves as they head to the beach. Now I've got my head over my right shoulder and I'm following that long cloud to the hilt. The sun is drooping.

We hurried back to the car and drove half-way round the rest of the mountain to see if we could catch the point where the sun turns red. The birds were singing their dusk sonnets and the sky was turning that Karoo Pink again. We missed the sun setting, but the view below us made up for it. A towering rocky outcrop that was home to Starlings, Kestrels and various Dove species. The echoes of their calls made it seem even more epic than it was. We had 20 minutes to leave the park. Just as well we had to leave, I would have been lost in this world, on purpose.

Back to Cape Town

I took the same route back to Slaapstad but this time it was different. No rain! The drive past Graaff Reniet towards Oudtshoorn on the N9 was rather boring, the landscape barren. At some points all you could see to the horizon was karoo bossies and dusty earth. So flat! Then Beervlei Dam approached. It was in stark contrast to when I drove past it the first time, there was water, and lots of it! I bet the farmers in the area cried tears of joy at the rain and subsequently helped fill the dam. I resolved to stop this time and was glad I did. I took a short walk up from the car-rest area below the dam, up to the dam wall. From there I took out the binocs and scanned the ridges. A massive Hammerkop nest amongst the rocks and a black eagle hid behind the ridge. I felt like I was being followed. The wind was cool. Motorists sped past as I picked some daisies for Mom on the way back to the car. "Hrmmph, Silly motorists! They don't know what they're missing."

Back in the car, it wasn't long before I reached the R341. I crossed swords with massive mountain ridges and cut my way through the passes. Fields of green, fruit trees, lucern and cattle farms. That distinctive and somehow-good-smell of cow manure. Some of the black mountains still wore their silky white underpants on their heads. Green rolling fields in front of them. 150km/h. Dang... a town approaches. 120. 80. 60. Argh, 3rd gear. It's Barrydale and boy was I happy the speed limit was 60. The town was beautiful! It was then that I realised why motorists sped on their ways - it's the destination. I was still a few hours out from Cape Town and the sun was setting once again. I'd be driving into the sun. I neglected to stop or drive around Barrydale, but I swore that I'd come back some day.

The rest of the return trip was just as beautiful, but as the sun set, traffic volume picked up as I neared Worcester. With the increase of volume and night-time came the SA driver's bad manners. Overtaking at night on an strange stretch of road proved taxing. People drive like idiots. Me included.

Once I was on the N1 the going was much easier. I was back in Cape Town, in good time too.

Scared to be someone else

I've been putting away the thought of some blogging for a while now and I don't know why. Maybe it's a routine thing, maybe it's the fact that I'm sitting at a PC again. Whatever it is, it doesn't feel as good as writing a letter, something that's personal. Blogging is like being a self-important mediocre attention-grabbing media-whore. Whatever that is. GAH! I'm so mediocre! :P

2 months away from the norm though. 2 months away from routine and stress and the same old-thinking. 2 months has given me time to re-evaluate what's important, what's missing and maybe even what's wrong and needs to be righted.

Destination: Cape Town and Relaxation

I was deliberating over the drive down to Cape Town, until I finally packed enough equipment that would make Ashanti embarrased and bundled it all into the Wagoon. The trip down was much easier than I first thought, being off-peak and in two stages.

I got into Kimberley at midnight, and decided to check out the local pub. What strange enthusiasm I had for mingling with complete strangers quickly subsided when I saw I was the only snow-white amongst the seven-hundred dwarves. I played the disillusioned tourist as I turned for the door. A quick tour of the Casino and I felt my eyelids droop, 1AM was looming and watching old people robotically fill machines with coins was taxing.

Not-so-early the next morning I got up for some run-down scrambled eggs and toast. Then I fired up the Scoob and nailed the remaining 8+ hours of driving. It always feels like I'm driving home when I head into Cape Town. Mom, Patrick and Mike have a house they can call a home too, it's got awesome views of the mountains surrounding Franshoek and Stellenbosch.

A week in Cape Town turned into two, after a timing mix-up with my hosts in Middelburg, but I wasn't complaining. :)

I spent a few days agonising over the intended trip and route choice. I could slip along the coast (after avoiding getting stoned by the locals on the N2) and take a sharp left at George. Or, I could motor up the N1 till Colesburg and then take the semi-civilised N9 down to Middelburg. So I took the prize behind door number 3, the regional roads. Mike suggested I head to Worcester then take the road-less-travelled to Montagu, Barrydale, Oudtshoorn etc. A suggestion which proved priceless.

When I left Cape Town at midday, it was raining. (The rain didn't let up until I got to Graaff-Reniet.) Overcast and drizzling, perfect conditions for my silver steed. Colours saturated by the grey light. A phonecall which turned out to be a job offer, another good omen. Then I slipped out of the next valley and was humbled by view. I was out in the middle of nowhere, a nowhere more beautiful than I had first imagined. A nowhere where I was just myself and no-one else. I wept and drove through the tears. Men can do two things at the same time.

The Swartberge kept me in awe, on a twisting towards Montagu like the snake that had been here before. Montagu is very pretty, I'm sorry I didn't stop over and take it in. Winelands, orchards in the first sprout of the season and more rain. Dips and rises, corners and fast straights. Sometimes the clouds would be just high enough, high enough to see the towering peaks overshadowing us puny humans as we muddled on on our conquest of the valley. A wet Oudtshoorn came and went and soon the sun was setting. On one particular bend, the sun was setting over a vast empty dam. It looked lunar-ish and lifeless peeking into the empty bowels of the Beervlei dam. I kicked myself for not stopping and taking a photo or three, but my destination was calling. Soon it was pitch black outside and still pock-marks of rain splattered on the windshield. Here I was, in the heart of the dry Karoo, and it was raining.

Graaff-Reniet passed by after I emptied my own bowels at the first fuel-stop I could find. "100km to Middelburg." I say to myself while trying to sing along to Live. "70 now. Lootsberg Pass, corners, yummy. Wrrrrrrp, no tsssh. 30. 20. 15. Argh. 10. Lights! I've made it! Wow, that's a lot of lights, this place must be civilised!" Your first greeting by Middelburg is a massive RDP development, cheap housing for the new masses in town. I had visions of spending my nights in a hut, visions which both scared and excited me. The town centre was typically small with all the basic ammenities, but it was lacking one thing I wasn't keen on finding: Stress. I quickly found my hosts street and made my way down it's wide berth. Some poor people, some rich. Rich or not, it would be my home for a while. In the end, I found number 28 and it turned out just right. Fear departed.

There's something to be said about meeting someone you don't know for the first time, especially when you're to spend time together. When I figure it out, I'll tell you. Anyway, I met Bradley, his wife Lee-Anne and a local friend: Darlene. Happy crowd. Awkwardness subsided after I managed to clean out the car, it must have looked like I was moving in!

That night I fell asleep on the small bed, the exhausting trip and pent-up expectation had taken it's toll.

Stuck in the Middelburg of nowhere

Middelburg, for the geography enthusiasts, is a lonely Great-Karoo town stuck halfway between Colesburg and Graaff-Reniet in the Eastern Cape, with Cradock (The hometown of Cow_Art) a stone's throw away too. Contrary to expectations, the town is nestled in a hilly area of the Karoo in what is prime stock-farming land. The town is also in the heart of Blue Crane country, one of the reasons I was here. (I'll let you figure out the other reasons.) The town features as many liquor stores as churches (and there quite a few liquor stores) plus all your basics including a library, Spar and various other retail outlets.

The average day for the first week was riding shotgun whilst Bradley and I investigated farmer sightings of the elegant birds. We saw 38 Cranes in the first 3 days. We'd also spend time pouring over maps of the area matching GPS coordinates of sightings to farm names and stand numbers. Which turned out to be too easy, I love map-work! Bradley, in my opinion, is more a diplomat for conservation than a ranger. His work is wide-ranged and far-reaching. This was most evident when we took a day-trip out past Noupoort to visit one of the farm schools. Here, Bradley gave a brief presentation on Crane Conservation to the wide-eyed pupils, followed by a puppet show, something some of the poor kids had never seen before. What is a child without imagination?

After-hours, I was on permanent dishes and tea-making duty, I felt I had to pull my weight where I could. Darlene visited often, which was good, I think things would have been a bit too weird if it was just the three of us, plus Darlene was bubbly and fun :) I also took up reading with a renewed vigour. I finished a novel and a number of short stories by Roald Dahl and Peter F. Hamilton. I was reintroduced to local TV, mesmerised by the Heartlines series and watching 50/50 stirred many memories. On some of the off days, I'd get on my bike and explore Middelburg.

Mountain Biking is a great way to get around. I saw plenty of Karoo Robins west of town, and even interrupted a Jackal Buzzard from it's fresh pigeon kill. The second time I went out on the bike, I cycled through the local township, gettting some amazed stares and shouts of excitement from the kids wandering in the streets. It must have been really weird to see this white-legged-freak go through the ghetto on a race-worthy mountain bike. I smiled and waved where I could, trying to shrug off my predisposed fears. I dreamt of sharing a beer or three with some of the locals too. My biggest concern was using the right greeting. isiZulu and Sesotho wouldn't cut it, I didn't know any Xhosa and saying something in Afrikaans would probably get me stoned, so I resorted to "Hello". My second trip through the same township, I stopped off at the soccer pitch to watch a local game for a bit. The score was 0-0, which became 1-0 when the team facing me conceded a goal. Probably distracted. :D My bike had endless punctures when I took the rough routes over Dubbeltjie country, so I stuck to the car-trails where I could. I felt alive!

At times I felt like I was in the way, especially from Lee-Anne's perspective. I got the idea that she didn't really have any influence in the decision to take on a volunteer for conservation work, and was therefore put out by the whole thing. Husband and Wife weren't exactly in love anyway. It just got uncomfortable.

Enough for now. Expect more later.