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I am heading south, assisting the dorter to semigrate. Cape Town truly is one of the greatest cities in the world. It is creative and progressive, but where do many of this city’s hipster travellers want to go?
East! To the Karoo and Eastern Cape beaches. Just stop the gangsterism and kidnapping and they will be here.
Odd thing this, how the aloes and euphorbia are always taller on the other side.
Interesting to see how much passion there is for indigenous gardening here in Cape Town where tiny patches of ground in sardine-can gentrified homes are bursting with umsintsi/erythrina and ikhubalo/pelargonia/geraniums whereas back home we have an unhealthy and shameless approach to “clearing the bush”.
I realised something deep into our journey — of course we did the back roads, who in their right mind wants to crawl along the boring, speed-trap infested coastal freeway when you can scream through vast Karooscapes and still be under the speed limits.
The thought came early in the morning in our divine Karoo Art Hotel bedroom in Barrydale, that parents don’t only chaperone their children into the next exciting phase of young adult life.
It’s us ballies who are also actually doing the departing and fare thee wells.
In the mornings, I feel marvellous as we greet the mist and cold, this time outside the window of the cosy Royal Hotel in Steytlerville.
Gosh, I relish these Karoo hotels for their proprietor-led hospitality, their off-tone but well-loved art and homely decor, and sound of Karoo starlings, rural outside street voices, and their stillness.
I realise this more so as we enter Cape Town and hotel, after restaurant, after designer lighting store and Yoga studio flashes past.
The traffic may be thick and interminable, but it never goes slowly when it’s free to move.
Our travels took us along the R72 coastal road. What an error, for I know the Makhanda N2 is way less clogged with trucks, one of which held our laden Golf and newish driver back for many kilometres and caused a few tears of frustration.
Even the 30 minutes of stop-goes on the way to Kirkwood were almost fun in the sun. We knew we had escaped the city-to-city motorised beasts.
And beyond that historically scary citrus town, home to a lot of apartheid cruelty, we were free to roll.
The splendid finger of the Cockscomb peak told us so. And then came the lesser-known thrill of humanities’ longest driveway — the single lane cement road from Steytlerville to Willowmore.
It has mostly level gravel either side and oncoming vehicles must all put one wheel on the dirt to avoid catastrophe.
It’s mind-bending to thunder along at more than 100km/h seemingly on your driveway at home.
Fate, that enormous unknowable, has the dorter behind the wheel on the cement strip when not one, but three flaming orange trucks hurtle towards her.
What can I do but be the journo dad and video it. I get two on film, and it’s all dust and baritone tyre rumbling, but the soprano is fabulous — the dort using four years of UCT theatre and performance training to literally sing out the terror with much profanity and a little blasphemy.
This does a wonderful job in keeping her hands steady on the wheel. I am proud of her for holding her nerve and the line.
Thanks to “catastrophising” I am still here, on a couch in Bo Kaap scribbling this.
Our next moment of Red bomber joy is the Huis Rivier pass, not one or two curves but many where you cross the Huis Rivier three times as you drop in and climb out the valley.
I have noticed that the confidence to “speed” at 115km/h, has not arrived with enough skill set to take corners, which we tend to enter with not enough braking, apex aiming and looking up and out at the exit point.
She is keen to learn and I babble on about feathering the brakes to help the front wheel tuck into the corner, until the gong of reason strikes me on the noggin: this is a car not my motorcycle: I have no idea how to corner in a four-wheel cage/car.
This is humbling but, in a corner myself, I make it up as I go along, along the lines of get into a higher gear to have more power or torque in the corner so that you can accelerate out of it, and slow down to the speed you (or passenger dad) are comfortable with.
It seems to work and there is great fun doing the twisties — and don’t worry about anyone behind you. My old cycling bud’s advice rang out in my ear: “What is behind you has passed. What is in front of you is all that matters.”
When I hear fascists droning on about their sad, sorry childhoods these days, I am almost tempted to adopt this sporting advice and focus on what is in front of us.
The Bike Prof sends me this piece of wisdom: “At 96 years old, the esteemed American philosopher and professor Noam Chomsky has been silenced, losing his capacity for speech and writing.
“This marks the end of an era for the ‘throne of words’, the very instrument he wielded to dissect and reveal truths about global power structures.”
Throughout his impactful life, Chomsky gifted us with profound insights, such as: “Nations are not inherently impoverished; rather, it is the systems governing their resources that fail.
“Truth is not a gift bestowed upon you; it is a personal discovery that demands your own effort.
“A classic tactic of control involves fabricating an external threat, seemingly more menacing than the controllers themselves, who then position themselves as the populace’s protectors.
“History’s starkest lesson reveals that rights are not granted benevolently; they are seized through struggle.
Distorting historical narratives to spotlight only ‘great men’ serves a purpose: it cultivates a sense of powerlessness in the masses, fostering the belief that change can only be initiated by exceptional individuals
“Distorting historical narratives to spotlight only ‘great men’ serves a purpose: it cultivates a sense of powerlessness in the masses, fostering the belief that change can only be initiated by exceptional individuals.
“The world’s complexity and ambiguity can be unsettling. Resisting this confusion, however, leads to intellectual conformity, merely echoing the thoughts of others.
“To dominate a population, instil the belief that their suffering is self-inflicted, and then present yourself as the solution to their woes.
“The Western world will eventually lament its superficial ideologies that estrange individuals from their intrinsic nature. The pursuit of authentic faith and belief is paramount.”
Dorter and I decide that the Karoo Art Hotel cannot be missed. Our overnight there is memorable. The decor of art-meets-history suits our souls, but she puts it more succinctly: “We feel comfortable here.”
Well, she is more than groovy about it all, for at midnight as a dining room full of gay couples on a “reunion weekend” gets going with loud singalong renditions of Abba in the bar at midnight, she is torn with indecision — to stay in her fine linen bed, or join them dancing on the tables.
The food and care is wonderful. The staff interact freely and the baking is phenomenal.
We gladly pay R35 for six buttery, delicious biscuits. Just for the once-only experience. Because we are from the poorer cousin Eastern Cape.
Our final adventure is the most intense. The first proper Cape storm bliksems us on the last day.
Outside Worcester the prefrontal gusts slam into Rockin’ Red. We have two suitcases lashed to the Hold Fast roof racks.
I pray they live up to their brand name.
The dort is gripping the wheel as an entire quarrying complex vanishes in its own white dust.
This time biking technique works well. Loosen the shoulders, make micro adjustments, even sail with it then ease the wheel over.
The way to crash is to yank the wheel in panic, oversteer, get into a tank-slapper weave and roll.
A rainbow bursting from orange RDP homes and ending in the city centre heralds our arrival in Worcester.
And the rain comes barrelling in so hard it drips on the driver’s feet on the pedals of our lovable rust bucket.
The rescue brakkie in his tiny soft space between the boxed TV and front seats decides somewhat conveniently that it’s wee time, and with the road a sinew of flood runoff, we gratefully pull off into the largest filling station complex ever built on a wailing, windswept wasteland.
I decide to stop on a deserted corner of the parking lot to let the dog use the lawn.
“No ways am I getting out into this, dumb human,” the toothless teddybear mouths in the gale.
Your dog, your problem, I silently intone.
She leaps into the howling tempest and I drive off to find refuge in the harbour of a bont burnt-orange Ford muscle bakkie.
We hustle into the food court, ignore those prissy Cape signs about “only lead dogs for the blind allowed on a leash” — pretend you are blind if approached, I tell the dort and we tuck into hot choc and slap chips, surrounded by mossies also seeking refuge.
I do the stretch to the tunnel. The Hex River range is striated with cascading fountains, big spray from passing vehicles blind us until we get into the Huguenot tunnel. And emerge into calm, rainless heaven, even a bit of sun.
We get dort settled in her designer yuppie loft pad, and with money running out, it’s time to fly like a homing pigeon to where it’s quieter, cheaper and less crammed.
Cape Town is good, but the Eastern Cape is better.
Daily Dispatch
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