This account picks up the story as we leave Rhodes in the Drakensberg Mountains of the Eastern Cape after our one night stay en route to Plettenberg Bay and Cape Town.
We have friends (Chris and Julie Marias) living in the small town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape, so we thought we’d make that the next overnight stop and pick up on all the skandaal from the Karoo. Chris and Julie are very talented writers and photographers who have done a wonderful book (amongst others) on this region (it’s now into its 3rd print run!) and on top of this are great people to spend time with. We had a splendid evening with them, nibbling on leftover braai from the afternoon and getting really gesellig over a bottle of red. But we are a little ahead of ourselves here…
We left early from Rhodes, the mountain air fresh and crisp after the massive storms the previous night. Fiona (the frightfully stern English lady that lives in our Garmin Nuvi 500 GPS) told us that we should route via the small town of Elliot. Now who the hell was Elliot? Well, it seems that the town was named after Sir Henry Elliot, a major in the British army who was well known for his peace keeping efforts between the various groups of the Eastern Cape Frontier. The town became a municipality in 1911 and was (is still perhaps?) called eCowa by the Xhosa people. eCowa means mushroom by the way.
Normally when we travel, we set up the speed control on the car at 120 kmh, put our ears back and go. But not on this trip. Most of the 4 days it took to get from Howick to Plettenberg Bay (a trip that you could do in one day if you really wanted to) were done at under 100 kmh and what a difference it made. We were able to look at the scenery, talk, relax even. Our route took us through some stunning scenery and little towns with lovely sounding names – Lady Grey (named after the wife of the then Governer of the Cape Colony, Sir George Grey), Queenstown (named after Queen Victoria) and Tarkastad (believed to come from the Khoi-Khoi word Traka, meaning women, or the Celtic word Tarka, meaning otter, and the Afrikaans word stad, meaning town or city).
We checked into our B&B in Cradock, set up en evening kuier with Chris and Julie, and headed out to explore this little town. The town was founded in 1818 when a Dutch Reformed church was built, which, interestingly, was based on that of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Cradock is named after Sir John Cradock, Governor of the Cape from 1811 to 1813. It is one of the Eastern Cape’s primary centres of the wool industry, and also produces beef, dairy, fruit, lucerne, and mohair. Close by is the Mountain Zebra National Park (well worth a visit even though we gave it a skip on this visit) and it is part on the Fish River Canoe Marathon. It’s a great place to do some walking and we explored the little streets and alleys, the Victoria Manor Hotel and the Tuishuise, a collection of restored Victorian era craftsmen’s houses in Market Street. We ended up on the sports grounds lining the banks of the Fish River, locals enjoying the early evening coolness with their dogs.
Chris and Julie had suggested we take a quick look at the tiny town of Aberdene en route to our next overnight stop at, well, we hadn’t actually decided this yet. Our idea was to get close to the Outenique Mountains just to the North f Plett, spend the night there and then we’d have a short run to the coast the next day, leaving some time to explore.
Aberdene is a tiny village just off the R61 and with the Cambeboo Mountains forming a backdrop. The Victorian architecture in the town is amazing, some of the buildings dating as far back as 1890 and there are two things we found fascinating: The first is that the Dutch Reformed Church tower, at 50m, is the highest in South Africa but it’s a little over 45cm out of true giving it the name of ‘The Leaning Tower of Aberdeen’. The other thing is that, while the post office at Cradock is pretty ordinary, the one at Aberdene is exquisite and way bigger and better than the size of the town warrants. Some say that it was originally intended for Cradock, a much larger town, but some clerical glitch resulted in it being built at Aberdene. It’s certainly worth pausing on your journey to take all this in and a stop at the local butchery for some biltong to nibble on the short walk around town will quickly get you ‘in character’.
If you suffer from Agoraphobia it’s probably best to do the section between Aberdene and Willowmore with your eyes closed. (Not a good idea if you’re driving, by the way). The plains stretch on for ever. Karoo bossies, the occasional trees along a drainage line and a windmill or two are all that break these vast plains. It’s incredibly beautiful and quiet if you stop at one of the picnic areas along the road for a cup of tea.
Chris and Julie had suggested that we have lunch at Sophie’s Choice in Willowmore and it was a great suggestion, the seeded chicken salad is well worth a bash. They had also suggested the Willow Historic Guest House as a place to stay and while it looked delightful and has a great restaurant (we had a lovely dinner there) we were looking for something out of town where we could do some walking. We found Finchley Farm, just 2km away on the R407. It’s small, well run, comfortable, has a very friendly female ginger cat (the only female ginger that we’ve come across) and some delightful tame meerkats. A working marino sheep farm, it’s just the spot to really get away from it all and in a moment of sheer brilliance we packed a bottle of wine and some glasses into a backpack before heading out on a late afternoon walk across the veld. Our walk ended up, without us intending to, on top of a koppie just as the sun was setting. We found a comfortable rock and sat there sipping wine, marvelling at the stunning beauty of the place. Not a sound could be heard, not from the skaapies nibbling the Karoo bossies, far below, nor from the small herd of donkeys walking down the dusty road heading out into the plains. Just us, the wine, the sunset and the Karoo…
Clearly the place marches to a different drummer on a Monday morning. We awoke to the sounds of a sheep farm in action: Sheep dogs yapped as bleating sheep were hearded into pens, men shouted instructions in Afrikaans, tractors headed out to the lands and, outside our door, the ginger queen mewed a request for a saucer of milk. I could live here!!
It was a shortish leg from Willowmore to Uniondale, over the Outeniqua Mountains via the very scenic Prince Alfred’s Pass and then down to Plettenberg Bay on the coast. As we got closer to the mountains, mist started to roll in so we took it very slowly, the narrow dirt roads restricting speed anyway. The pass was named after the son of Queen Victoria who later became the Duke of Edinburgh. Work began on construction in 1860 by Andrew Bain, his son Thomas and a team of men and from all accounts it was a gruelling labour. It’s probably worth spending some time exploring de Vlugt deep in the Keeurbooms River valley as many of Bain’s original buildings remain but we didn’t, stopping rather at a view sight on the climb out of the valley where we drank coffee and munched biskuit that we had bought in some Karoo dorpie.
On a previous trip to Plett we had dinner a couple of times at the Look Out Deck that has lovely views on the coast and the mountains behind it. Their fish and chips had been scrumptious and we were very keen to partake again, but would it be as good as we remembered? It wasn’t. It was better!
Fish and chips finished and the Sauvignon Blanc chilling in the ice bucket we chatted about the previous few days. What a lovely trip it had been. It really is the answer. If you stick to the main roads, travelling at high speed, stopping nowhere, focused on the destination, your holiday starts when you get there. If you do it slowly, stopping every now and then, exploring, your holiday starts when you leave home. Much better!
(For the photographers out there, the pix were shot on Nikon’s delightful little P300 camera and the images processed and the text written on an iPad)
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