To heaven and back – How far will R10 000 take you in South Africa?

Over the past 12 months, each Getaway journalist was given R10 000 and told to see how far they got: Scotland, Bali, Hungary, France, Spain, Slovenia and Hong Kong. For the final episode, David Bristow took his stash to see how far it would take him in South Africa.

The trail started in Cape Town, by default of living there. The object was to see how far two of us, in a 2004 Kombi 2,6 loaded with bicycles and camping gear, could get before the wallet was empty.

The strategy: if there was a detour or country back-road, we’d take it, trying out the road less travelled and seeing as many of the places on our touring wish list as we could. Maybe to hell and back, or heaven if we got lucky. The aim was to get to Kruger Park and back, watching the detours and the budget, and return with plenty of memories and stories to tell…

A cat in the darkness
As so often happens, packing took twice as long as it should have and we set off into the teeth of a Friday afternoon rush hour. It took two hours to get to Sir Lowry’s Pass, where we realised we’d left the cutlery and crockery on the draining board at home. No turning back: Dassiesfontein farm stall had only antiques, but at Caledon we found plastic cutlery and cheap aluminium pots and pans. We could start to relax.

Past Swellendam we turned off the N2, up Tradouw Pass, and headed for Route 62. We drove the pass in the twilight. Close to the historic bridge a large, very pale cat danced into our light beams. A caracal? No, tail much too long. Leopard? As it hopped onto the stone retaining wall, its spots became just visible in the penumbral glare. Then it was gone. As the kloof disgorged us into the Little Karoo, a full moon rose over the Langeberg like a giant, ripe apricot. The signs were starting to look more than good.

Our first stop was the ever-popular Warm-waterberg hot spring, just past the legendary Ronnie’s Sex Shop. There wasn’t a square metre left for camping, but we managed to score the chalet of a non-arrival. After a braai of chops and mealies, we lay in the 38C mineral pool and gazed at the stars. Close to heaven, we agreed.

The Kombi exhaust had blasted a hole in one of our bicycle tyres, which meant Saturday morning shopping. Calitzdorp had ambrosial vintage Boplaas port that we stocked up with, but no tyres. Bargain of the trip was a mountain bike tyre in Ladismith for R38 from the Snuffel Winkel, which also sold tombstones.

We wanted to drive as many passes as we could and Seweweekspoort beckoned. The lovely road is not as muscular as the more lauded Swartberg Pass, but perhaps more enticing as it goes almost nowhere. We thought we could find a sneaky back road into Gamkaskloof, alias Die Hel, but there’s a very good reason why the road – built in the early 1960s – did not go that way.

Aristata guest cottage (named after an endemic protea) in Seweweekspoort looked like the kind of lonely place we’d love to linger, but we still had a long road ahead, so we looped back to Calitzdorp and took another back road via Matjiesrivier to the base of the Swartberg Pass.

We tend to imprint on the fantastic switch-backs and grand vistas on the northern side of the pass, forgetting the severity of the southerly approach. Each time you drive it, you have to marvel at Thomas Bain when in 1879 he set off to survey a line over the ‘Great Zwartebergen’.

It was his last and greatest work, and the last great pass to be built in South Africa in the 19th century.

At the apex of the plateau, a sign directs you to Gamkaskloof or Die Hel: “50?km – 2 hours”. You’d better believe it. And that’s just to the base of the kloof; it’s another 13 kilometres to get your permit at the Cape Nature office and a strong cup of coffee and chat with the conservator, Zannie van der Walt (now retired). Give that another hour.

The story of the gorge is the story of the Klowers, Boers who hid away here from British rule. They were ‘discovered’ during the Anglo Boer War by Denys Reitz while on the run from the Brits and slowly their story emerged. In 1962 a road was opened from the Swartberg Pass (much longer than from the Seweweeks-poort end, but the rock along the valley was granite-hard quartzite while that on the high ground from the east was softer sandstone).

Die Hel is the country’s number one secret spot. Again camping was not an option as a furious wind had sprung up, threatening to throw the Kombi off the road at times. We recommend Oom Hannes’s cottage, the last one down the kloof.

Driving to Prince Albert the next day, we marvelled at the castle-like dry stone wall embankments, the tortuous switchbacks and the courage of a man who would think little of forging a road through these muscular mountains that have been buckled and folded by the earth’s titanic heavings.

Prince Albert was as cute as its reputation promised and the beer at The Bush Pub was deliciously cold, but the service there was about as slow-paced as Bain’s progress over the pass and the chicken pie dry and stringy. We should have ordered the juicy-looking hamburgers.

Into the heart of the country
Our route took us through Beaufort West, a place I’ve never much liked. Neither the town nor my opinion has improved much. It has no saving graces, but exists by virtue of being on the N1 and a long way from anywhere else. It tied on this trip for the worst place in South Africa. Aberdeen is about as far as you can get from northeast Scotland, visually, but it has a nice dorpishness about it. Small, clean and old fashioned.

Graaff-Reinet, on the other hand, was charming. The soul of its 18th century architecture has been retained, thanks to its late patron, Anton Rupert. But why, thinking about so many other places, should it take a patron to save people from themselves?

From the Christmas-cake ‘groot’ church (purportedly a not-very-accurate replica of Salisbury Cathedral) and the amiable host at Pioneers restaurant in Parsonage Street (we were best friends after 10 minutes and a bottle of wine) to the period style of Carrow-Veld Cottages in Caroline Street, everything was what you would hope for when searching for the heart and soul the country. The marzipan on the cake was Jacob Hendrik Pierneef’s station panels, on permanent loan to the town.

Our next waypoint was Nieu Bethesda, put on the map by Athol Fugard’s play and movie, The Road to Mecca, that chronicled the sad yet inspiring tale of nave artist Helen Martins. Her coloured glass-encrusted Owl House and cement Camel Yard are now inter-nationally famous. It’s crude if you are expecting a modern museum, but there is much besides them to draw a traveller to this high, well-watered, secluded valley.

Like Benoni and Berea, it takes its name from the Bible. On first glance, you feel its connection to divinity is that it’s godforsaken. Certainly the townsfolk and early critics of Helen Martins’ anti-social lifestyle and her other-worldly creations at best mocked and at worst condemned them as the devil’s work. All that’s changed now and her house and garden are a museum partly sponsored, appropriately enough, by PPC Cement.

The area also happens to be the centre of the world detailing Permian and Triassic fossil evolution; that 100-million-year time when amphibians crawled out the seas and reptile-like mammals colonised the land. There’s a small fossil centre in the village, named after South Africa’s greatest fossil collector, Dr James Kitching, who grew up there.

You can also visit Ganora Farm seven kilometres outside the village to enjoy fossil and rock art tours, walks or 4×4 trails. But it is at Wellwood Farm, a little further out of town, that the real treasure is found. You’ll have to book to stay in this famous sheep stud’s Trymore Cottage if you want to see what is believed to be the world’s finest private fossil collection – and hear the amazing stories behind it.

Another reason to visit Nieu Bethesda is the Sneeuberg Brewery and Two Goats Deli on the edge of town. Andr and Michelle Cilliers are latter-day dropouts from city life and make the finest brew, including a honey ale, that you’ll taste this side of Alaska.

Try a draught with the lunch platter that includes plain, cumin, honey, brandy and olive cheeses, smoked kudu salami and fresh farm-baked bread.

We rolled out there and couldn’t get beyond the Zonnenstraal camp site across the farm road. It’s a lovely little site, but the temperature plummeted that night and we were forced to commandeer the small stable cottage where we piled on everything and still froze.

Roof of Africa
Our next ‘must see’ was Sani Pass. In the laden Kombi, through rural Transkei, it was a long day’s ride. We made it to Kokstad at sunset, amazed that we’d got through shambolic Mthatha at all; it’s hard to believe the town elders can be satisfied with the filth and chaos there. Then there’s the N2 to KwaZulu-Natal; let’s just say it is as picturesque as the Karoo, if not more so, but death has a hand on your shoulder most of the way.

We reached Underberg through what seemed liked a tunnel of darkness. It was late and the Underberg Hotel was full. Luckily in the pub we found Bruce Willox playing darts. He turned out to be the laird of Under the Berg B&B, so we spent a comfortable night there (except for a burst water pipe).

Next morning we located Thaba Tours’ office at the hotel and booked a 4×4 ride up Sani Pass (a relief as the last time I’d done it was on a bicycle). Once all the lunch visitors had been shuttled back down the pass, we settled in around the fire to savour the unique atmosphere of Africa’s highest pub and inn. It must also surely be the coldest, most wind-swept place in Southern Africa.

The next day all the tour 4x4s were full, so Sani Top Chalet proprietor Jonathan Aldous arranged a lift down for us with a local Basotho trader and his wife in their bakkie. When asked what he thought about plans to tar the pass, he said: “We will thank them.” Kids in 20 years time won’t believe the adventures we had there.

The Drakensberg, with its bike rides up river valleys and rock art sites, was our mid-way high point. We lingered, first at Kamberg and then Lotheni, where violent thunderstorms forced us once again inside, this time in the very welcoming KZN park bungalows. One lightning blast knocked me off my feet at the cottage door, so we even had to cook inside.

At Howick we called in to do a lush Midlands mountain bike ride with friends, first doing some single track then riding through the fabulous Hilton College estate and along the rim of the very African Mgeni valley.

That night was spent with friends in Durban, where we were fatted for the possibly leaner times ahead, bedded in linen and down, and sent merrily on our way. Surely, eventually we would camp and haul out our treasured plastic cutlery.

Into the old country
From Durban we headed for Swaziland via the scenic inland route through Maritzburg, Greytown and Dundee. Tugela Ferry is in the heart of Zululand’s ancient blood-feud lands and it is always a shambles. We were debating whether to name it or Qumbu as South Africa’s untidiest place, when we reached tiny, dilapidated Pomeroy. There was a KFC outlet and for several hundred metres white polystyrene boxes lined the windward side of the fence line, about knee high. Like foam along a storm-tossed shoreline. Spectacular…

Once the Oshoek-Ngwenya border was crossed, there seemed to be an easing of tension: funny how South Africa is so tense. You feel it only when you leave. Then you miss it.

Swaziland is a really dinky, friendly little kingdom, although the young King Mswati is not as well loved as his father. Everyone expected him to ease up on the king thing, yet he has strengthened it against the forces of democracy. In Piggs Peak, late at night once again, after searching in vain for a place to camp, we met a most gracious Iranian woman running the only decent guesthouse in town. From the front Jabula B&B looks like a typical middle-class house, but inside it has all the charms of a home-turned inn by someone with heart. And a very welcome swimming pool.

From Jeppe’s Reef border post we skipped across the wedge of Lowveld that follows the Nkomati River to Crocodile Bridge gate into the Kruger Park. The Lowveld is always magical: I suspect it might be a primal, hominid brain-stem response: home!

We’d reached our northernmost goal. It was decision time: stay in one camp, or move around? We opted to spend all three nights at Lower Sabie and soon discovered why it was so easy to find a camp site in the park’s most popular spot. While the camp itself is green and set about by mature bushveld trees along the Sabie River, the camp site is an extension of the vast parking area, with gravel underfoot and but two shade trees – very much taken.

But what we suffered in camping, we more than made up for in the camp’s swimming pool and on game drives. Kruger just keeps on getting better and better. We braaied each evening (finally) and set off on a game drive before first light. We’d stay out all day, lunching at another rest camp, then slowly wend our way back to Lower Sabie. What can I say: on all three days we got to see the Big Five before lunch. How can you put a price on that?

However, some of the roads in Kruger (notably Lower Sabie to Biyamiti and the back road from Tshokwane to Lower Sabie) are rivalled only by the R38 in southwestern Mpumalanga as the worst in the republic.

Heading for home
Spending so long in Kruger curtailed our sightseeing and back-roading on the long homeward leg. Our first waypoint going south was Barberton, which got our vote for the most splendidly situated town in South Africa. On one of the cuttings along the Kaap River, I stopped to examine a block of greenstone; at more than 3,5 billion years old, it’s as old as anything on this earth.

Although its praises are seldom sung, the route from Barberton, over Bothasnek and Nelshoogte Pass, then down across the upper Nkomati River to Badplaas, is as beautiful as any road eulogised by Alan Paton. But from there things began to deteriorate. Once you reach Ermelo, you enter the Highveld coal-smog belt, which is not a nice place to bring up children. The pollution was so dense, at times we were slowed to a crawl, with headlights on in the middle of the day.

Then there were the roads. Those in Southern Mpumalanga are falling apart and attempts to shore up the damage of 15 years’ neglect with gravel are sad. The Chinese say a road is good for 10 years and bad for 10 000; they must have driven the route through Breyten, Morgenzon and Standerton. The provincial roads department has clearly been spending its budget on something else.

Things improved immediately we hit the Free State. The R26 from Bethlehem along the Lesotho border would have had Alan Paton writing yet another praise song to it.

At this point we started thinking about our bivouac. Massive anvil heads started building over the Maluti Mountains gilded in golds and purples by the softening sun. Fouriesburg, Ficksburg and Clocolan were not worth stopping (we weren’t prepared to settle for just okay, this was the ultimate road trip). Ladybrand was pretty in places, but seemed to offer nowhere to camp, so we bought supplies and pressed on.

Hobhouse and Wepener were cast in even more beautiful light, but did not offer so much as a public toilet. The clouds had by then turned from glorious to angry, very angry, the sky looking like Baghdad on the first night of a US aerial bombardment. When the pothole warning signs started popping up like obstacle-course targets, trucks came at us like B52s and the rain poured down like the Great Flood had started, it got scary.

Then, just 10 kays short of Zastron, we hit a huge puddle and the engine died. Completely. An hour on the phone to the local police and AA got us offers of help in the morning. Then the phone battery died. I wasn’t going to leave a damsel in distress, with a Kombi-load of booty, while I went adventuring into the wet night.

An hour later the engine started. We drove into town and, as if by some benevolent intervention, were guided to the Highlands De Oude Werf Guest House. Leslie and Leba Higgs were the most engaging of all the wonderful hosts we’d lucked upon on this trip. They gave us five-star lodgings, four-star service and food at one-star prices. You’ve just got to wonder about some guesthouse prices.

The next day was our penultimate and also the longest drive of the trip: Aliwal North, Burgersdorp, Steynsburg, Middelburg, Graaff-Reinet, Aberdeen, Willowmore, Uniondale, De Rust (best hamburger of the trip at the Plough sandwich bar) and Oudtshoorn.

Rivers that had run only sand for a decade were bursting their banks and flowers carpeted the Great and Little Karoos from end to end. Vleis were brimming with wavelets, lilies and waterfowl.

The law of road tripping is that the best things come unexpectedly, so don’t plan too meticulously or you’ll miss a lot. A blasting southeaster sprang up and was lifting or flattening anything not bolted down.

A golden froth of cloud drooled out the mouth of Tradouw Pass and over the Montagu mountains. For the umpteenth time, the weather had rendered camping a non-option, so we blew our budget on lodgings at Modderas farm cottages three kays west of Barrydale and polished off the remains of our Boplaas port.

But we’d also blown our minds on many splendours and the freedom of the open road. The verdict R10 000 will buy you either one week for one person on a budget overseas trip, or two comfortable weeks for two people touring South Africa. What a journey, what a land.

Postscript:
I have not described the Cape Winelands that formed the beginning and end of the journey as it’s our home turf. But if you live up-country, this will be your turn-around point. I suggest skipping Cape Town entirely and heading for smaller towns such as Tulbagh, Montagu or Riebeeck-Kasteel. It will make all the difference. Bon voyage.