Look for a little dot on the west
coast of South Africa – we are here at Lambert’s Bay. The town itself is
primarily tourism and fishing with a fish processing plant.
Our mission has been to avoid big
cities and that was how we planned our route. Today’s drive was relatively
unremarkable especially as the first part (through Cape Town on the freeway)
was carried out in the fog. Again the use of names in English and Afrikaans can
prove confusing if you aren’t aware it is normal to switch back and forth –
Kaapstad – Cape Town – Kaapstad – Cape Town! We did see more large areas of
townships in the suburbs, some of them pretty awful with garbage everywhere and
one place with inhabitants using the roadside to relieve themselves. They are
all fenced and it seems like they think if they throw the garbage over the
fence it isn’t in their yard and therefore not a problem. We do seem them out
sweeping the dirt around their homes so do keep the immediate area tidy. We
realize culturally/historically all their garbage would quickly rot but that is
not the case today. It really gives a bad impression of Cape Town in spite of
the great things we have read and been told about it.
The remainder of the drive was
done mostly through farmland – mostly grapes/oranges and cattle/sheep grazing
areas but over two mountain passes as well. At the top of one pass the leaves
were just starting to change colour. About 50 consecutive kilometers of the
drive was under construction. Don’t know why they just don’t finish a stretch
before tearing up more. One difference in the construction area is the use of
people standing at the side of the road frantically waving red flags to slow
traffic. Must be a boring job and hard on the shoulders standing there all day
waving a big red flag.
We decided to stop at one of the
farm stalls expecting to see nice farm fresh produce. They did have a great
variety of specialty sauces, etc. but no produce at all! Along the side of the
store there were a bunch of little black kids playing with rocks, throwing into
the air and catching them. Besides the Canada stickers and pins we had picked
up in the dollar store before we left were 3 hacky sacks with Canada on them so
Doug threw one to one of the boys. He was ecstatic and wouldn’t even let the
others touch it. As we drove away we watched him throwing it as high into the
air as he could and catching it.
There was a small town called
Piketberg about 50 km from here growing an unfamiliar crop. We bought a bag of
peanuts today that had the name of the town on them so naturally assumed the
unidentified crop was peanut plants. Then we read on the bag “product of
China”. So our original puzzle remains unsolved and a new puzzle has been
added: why would they ship peanuts all the way from China to this tiny town in
the middle of nowhere to be packaged? There are no port facilities nearby. Another
query to use the net to solve next time we get internet access. We are keeping
a list.
Upon arrival in town we checked
out a couple of restaurants mentioned in our guidebook with the idea that we
might have a seafood dinner tonight. Both restaurants were closed, perhaps for
the season – perhaps permanently. We don’t seem to be having any luck finding
fresh seafood in all our travels along the coastlines. Every attempt has been
thwarted either with no place to park, or nothing too appealing in the shop. There
are restaurants in town but that area looks somewhat unsavoury. It is probably
safe but there are so many blacks hanging around with seemingly nothing to do
but sullenly stare at you it makes one feel uncomfortable.
Again we find ourselves camped on
the ocean, this time the Atlantic, and in behind a very high fence with razor
wire at the top and a 24 hour guard service. We were given pensioners rate
again and opted to select one with our own personal ablution block
(bathroom/shower). Hope it is quiet tonight. We did carefully select a spot
near a young family and a grandma type out knitting in the shade so let’s see
if it was a good choice.
In the bay there are many surfers
and schools of dolphins playing in the waves. They are both having a blast.
Tomorrow we head toward the
Kalahari Desert. The way we have it planned this will take us until Thursday as
we slowly make our way north. Here it is 5 pm again and we have no idea where
the day has gone!
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| Processing Plant |
Sunday, May 4, 2014. Springbok Caravan Park, Springbok, Northern Cape,
SA – 450 km
Norma actually managed to sleep
in (7:25 am) this morning, a first since leaving home. With the tide coming in
in the bay beside us a few of the surfers were taking advantage of the waves
and whooping and hollering in their excitement by 7:30! As we left the
campground we were commenting on this being the most “normal” neighbourhood so
far until we got a little further and again there were the German shepherds and
pit bulls in the electric fenced yards.
We made a later start and were
treated to seeing more zebra in a farmer’s field, with his cows. There is so
little apparent for them to eat in this desert environment it is a wonder they
survive. Wonder what the farmers think of them sharing with their cows. We also
saw two bat-eared foxes – unfortunately road kill – but our first spotting of
them, and a yellow mongoose running across the road in front of us.
Today’s drive took us through a
large grape growing/wine making area. After the Clanwilliam dam you could see a
long series of aqueducts weaving through the country side to provide
irrigation. We soon after found
ourselves in a very barren desert area where there was nothing to see for mile
after mile except the very occasional sheep or cow. This has been our loneliest
stretch to date. At least they have numerous picnic areas along the road so you
can get out for a break (no bathroom facilities though).
Forgot to mention that in the
cities whenever you are stopped at the robot (traffic lights) there are hawkers
trying to get you to buy something, be it cords to charge your phone (they seem
to have 50 in their hands at a time), newspapers, fruit, souvenirs or almost
anything they can come up with. As advised we always have all our doors looked
and don’t make eye contact with them.
After checking into the Springbok
Caravan Park we headed out to the Goegap Nature Reserve. It is only 12 km from
the town. They have a very nice succulent garden and a dirt road loop through
the park. We saw our first gemsbok and several springbok. The gemsbok are huge
and have very impressive, long, black, straight horns. There must have been a
bit of rain the last while as there were some desert wildflowers including
little yellow flowers just popping up in the sand with hardly any green plant part
attached to them. Studding the landscape are “quiver” trees, a species of Aloe
– apparently the natives used to make quivers from the round straight branches.
This campground is the first one
in a few days that has toilet paper! We seemed to keep running into that in the
Western Cape so hope now that we are in the Northern Cape that won’t be the
story. There are 37 bicyclists who are also camping here. They are on a ride
from Cairo to Cape Town in 121 days, quite a feat. As you can imagine most of
them are pretty young so we are hoping they will be really tired after their
days ride and will be heading to bed early. The showers are buzzing with
activity just now!
You all know how males like their
remote control cars, trucks, planes and boats? Well we saw the ultimate
tonight. The people setting up camp across from us have a remote controlled
travel trailer. If we hadn’t seen it with our own eyes we wouldn’t have
believed it. They disconnected the trailer from the vehicle, connected the
power cord from the outlet to the trailer then got out a remote controller that
directed the trailer all around the camping spot until they had it positioned
where they wanted it!
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| Quiver Tree |
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| Gemsbok |
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| Desert Sojourn |
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