BAVIAANS KLOOF BERG PLAAS AUGUST 2005

BAVIAANS KLOOF. BERG PLAAS. 13 AND 14 AUGUST 2005

The week before this weekend had been a really busy one for us. Barbara and Cathy had driven to Cape Town on Wednesday as Cathy was trying to set up a branch of Stefan’s Photo and Video business in London. Cathy had contracted a cold, which she had passed on to Barbara. Barbara had missed her flight back to PE on the Thursday and when she finally got back on Friday was not feeling at all good. Meanwhile I had had people from our Head Office staying in PE for the whole week. Fortunately we have some good friends who helped me cope with Ally’s afternoons. Our friend, Tim, was in Botswana for a work assignment where he was trying to assist the owners of a dying bakery to survive. Another running friend of ours, Andy Bolton, was in Egypt and on the Red Sea for a scuba diving trip. His daughter, Caroline is an instructor in Port Elizabeth and was part of the expedition.

This is weekend had been planned by Niel and Vanessa (Wiebke and Silke) for some time. Herman, Tracey, Leah and Kim were also part of our group. So were Charles and Ian. Ingrid felt that she would be better at home alone for the weekend. We also met Vanessa’s sister, Chanelle, Ian and friends Bruce and Jenna. The weekend started with Herman and Tracey collecting us in an Isuzu double cab with canopy at just after 08.00am on the Saturday morning. We traveled in convoy to Humansdorp where we took the Hankey turnoff. But about 10kays into this road we encountered an accident where a big truck had gone off the road. And there were three big breakdown vans trying to pull the truck back onto the road. We heard that it could take as long as two hours to remove the obstacle and so turned around and went back to the Gamtoos River where we took the road to Loerie. From there we headed on to Hankey and Patensie. In Hankey we stopped off for a short break, coffee and sweets. And then we drove on to the kloof.

One of the interesting features of this part of the drive is driving through what must have been a riverbed many millions of years ago. The road cuts through a mountain of river stone that is about ten meters high. The Groot Rivier is on the left of the road and when we came to the dirt section we crossed the river a number of times. When we found a weir where the river was flowing over the road I asked Herman to allow Kim to sit on the bonnet while he drove through the water and I filmed this action sequence. We did this with Ally and Kim a few more times during the trip. Great fun for the children and me. We came to the Kondomo campsite, which is the entrance to the Baviaans Reserve. Here we met up with Scott Rollo who is a friend of Neil and a Volunteer Ranger for the reserve.

At this point the drive becomes quite tough, as the road requires a vehicle with a high clearance. Herman handled the driving with a degree of care and at no time were we, as passengers, worried. The road (or track) of the first pass consists of mostly rocks, very little grading of the road has been done. This section of the road has a number of hazardous twists and turns with a narrow road and sheer cliffs falling off to the right. As we drove we stopped a few times to admire the magnificent views of mountains and valleys that Baviaans is famous for. Soon we reached the top of the pass and the turn off to Bergplaas. Bergplaas consists of a single long hut with an indoor fireplace. In this (fireplace) room there are two double bunks, adjacent to this is the Kitchen, which has a sink, the next room is the bathroom where the bath and toilet are set up on a kind of throne. The next two rooms have two double bunks each. Barbara and I chose the room next to the bathroom. It could be said that we were the only people to have an “en-suite”.

We unpacked the three vehicles and soon turned the empty bungalow into a home with provisions sufficient for 50 people for two weeks. Seems like we may just have brought a little too much but as one of the children put it: “food is precious because there are no shops around.” Once we had unpacked, Tracey and Herman were quick to bring out a big bag of wood and the outside fire was soon blazing. Tracey had brought rolls and Boerewors to feed us all. Herman showed us a special trick where the Boerewors is wrapped in newspaper and made into a king of Christmas Cracker and put into the fire. The outside of the newspaper burns but inside the 'wors is cooked to perfection and this was quite a hit with the hungry group. Barbara had not been feeling well as she had caught a cold from Cathy on their way to Cape Town earlier on in the week. But when Niel suggested a drive down to the river, I decided to walk and Barbara agreed to walk with me. Tracey, Chanelle and Vanessa also wanted the exercise and so Niel went ahead and we walked what we expected to be about five Kays. Barbara and I stopped to look at the game as well as a number of other natural features of the fynbos while the Tracey group went on ahead. It is my opinion that walking is the best time to have “quality time” with anyone. There are few distractions from conversation, one does not have to look the other “in the eye”, and exhaustion is the common denominator.

The road that Niel had taken was the road that leads to Doodsklip and Rooihoek. I know this road from having to drive it on previous occasions. It was not just five Kays but more like ten Kays to Doodsklip where the man and children had a swim. As Barbara & I walked we saw a number of the Red Haartebeest that are common in the area. We also noticed what seemed to be wires stretching across valleys. We later on learned that this was a kind of Cable Car that had been used by farmers to transport produce, livestock and even farm labourers across the valley. Mmmm? Not too sure that I would have trusted it. After descending for over three or four kays the Tracey group decided to turn back for the camp. Barbara & I pressed on and after we reached the bottom of the kloof were lucky enough to see a pair of Klipspringer in the valley. Not long after this we heard the sound of Niel's vehicle and were happy to accept a (bumpy) ride back to the camp. We had walked for nearly two hours and about 6 kays. Margie Saunders had said that Brian, who had recently been into the Kloof, had said how bad the roads were. I did not find the roads to be worse than previous experience. But the Baviaans Kloof roads are very bad. Although we did not need the 4 X 4 facility of the vehicles, the high clearance was essential for these roads. We arrived back at the camp just as the Tracey Group were walking up to the hut. They must have had a tough walk as they had the uphill part that Barbara & I had avoided.

Charles and Ian had reached camp by this time. They had left a little later as Ian had a rugby match which his team drew five all. Charles joined us in our en-suite bedroom, taking the top bunks. Scott was also there and he had brought two trestle tables. These were really a great help with all the catering that had to be done. Beers were opened, Frisbees were brought out, Charles introduced a bit of “Survivor”, fires were lit and dusk turned to dark fairly rapidly. Niel had brought dough to make Rooster Koek. This is delicious when freshly baked on the fire.

Scott is a really experienced person in the outdoors and when he called the children to bring blankets for a bit of stargazing I decided to join this group. The adults meanwhile did the braai-ing thing. Scott proceeded to give an incredibly detailed and interesting talk on the stars and related matters. I was really impressed by the extent of his knowledge but even more taken by the amount of information that the children had as they were able to answer a number of questions to which I personally did not know the answers.

Some of the information included the make up of stars, planets, solar system, universe and our own Milky Way Galaxy. Then he spoke about satellites (we saw one), shooting stars, moons, comets and a variety of names of the various stellar objects. Something that I had never thought about previously was that Satellites are only seen soon after sunset or soon before sunrise as this is the time when the sun continues to reflect off them. The way to remember the names of the planets in order of their position relative to the sun is: Mnr. Van As; my jas sal u nie pas. This is Afrikaans and so the nine planets are: Mercury, Venus, Aard (Earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune & Pluto. He says that a tenth planet called Sedna has recently been discovered.

After the Star Chatter I attempted to cook a few chops but was totally unsuccessful as I realised later when Ally nearly choked on a piece of meat that I gave her. I am not sure if I was too tired or the fire was not really hot enough but I had totally undercooked the chops. We had been snacking the whole day, Herman and Tracey had all kinds of goodies for after dinner so I was reassured that no one would go to bed hungry. It had been a long day as we had been up early, had driven for three to four hours, walked for two hours and were all exhausted. So after a bit of fireside chat, a glass of red wine and some story telling, we seemed to fade into sleep rather than actually go to bed.

The indoor fire room occupants made themselves a double bed (from the bunk bed mattresses) that would have made “grandma’s feather bed” look small by comparison. On this double bed slept: Niel, Vanessa, Wiebke, Silke, Herman, Tracey, Leah and Kim. Sounds like it must have been fun. On our side of the bathroom we were unlucky enough to have been locked out of the bathroom by the last user. So any lady wanting the bathroom in the night would have had to taken a walk outside, into the fireside room, interrupted their fun, through the kitchen and into the bathroom. As you may be able to gather we were a very “together” group of people this weekend.

The night was to be long for Barbara who seemed to deteriorate in health during the night. But we were all up reasonably early, as tends to happen when camping. I was stiff in my rear end and thighs from the previous days walk, probably also from cramped & bumpy drive. The back seat of a double cab is not quite as comfy as a normal car would be. Shortly after coffee and rusks we decided to do the two-hour walk, which had been, recommended to Niel. It was a walk over the fields and down the gorge to a waterfall. Just after we had started out Barbara realised that she had taken on too much and that she would turn back. We walked on past the Boom, past which no vehicle could pass and up the pathways that I estimate was a road made by the resident farmers over one hundred years ago.

Ally had a fall and grazed her legs so when I saw the cliff face that we would have to descend I was quite happy to turn back with Vanessa, Jenna, Silke and Ally. There was a cool breeze blowing from the West and a distinct chill in the air. We passed Scott on our way back and I gave him my daypack in case he should need any eats for the walk to the bottom of the gorge.

We had a leisurely walk back to the hut and during this time I was able to chat to both Jenna and to Vanessa. As I have said, Walking is a good time to learn more about others. I learned that Wiebke was born in Germany and that her name means “Young Woman” and that Silke means “Blind Faith”. Both beautiful names! Jenna has recently joined Dimension Data after a stint with Quest Personnel and a variety of jobs in London and Cape Town, Vanessa is looking forward to opening the Naartjie clothing retail outlet at Walmer Park shopping center and Chantelle is an architect taking on all kinds of interesting projects such as hospitals, private homes and even the exclusive millionaires homes. We got back to the hut and were soon brewing coffee while we were able to see others on their way back along the mountain path. It seems that while we were the first to turn back, others had also decided that the descent was going to be too tough and only the really dedicated would reach the waterfall.

Once Niel had got back to the hut he got the Breakfast going. This was to be a feast of sausage, bacon, eggs, mushroom, tomato, onion and rolls. Simply delicious and very filling! Barbara, meanwhile, had wrapped herself up and was trying to overcome the cold symptoms. After breakfast there was a lot of lazing around. The Survivor game was restarted by Charles. This morning we were able to spot a few Zebra grazing on a field across from the hut. I took a few of the children for a walk around the old stone Kraal behind the hut and around the small dam. There Ally and Silke discovered some small spiders nests.

After coffee the general consensus seemed to be that we would start our drive home. We packed the vehicles and took a slow drive down the pass to the farm called Kudu Kaya. This farm is on the Ys River and has camping facilities. It is a citrus farm and is also the farm where we did the Kloofing expedition earlier this year. Chanelle said that she too has done the Kloofing thing many years ago. Herman pointed out how the Orange trees have a Lemon tree stump and then the Orange tree is grafted into the Lemon tree. This is done because the Lemon tree has stronger and deeper roots. Later on I spoke to my friend Keith Finnemore who farms Organic fruit in the Addo area. He explained that all South African citrus trees are grafted. This is to assist the tree to combat soil diseases and insects. It is also to produce the best possible looking fruit.

Keith has a farm with about 10 000 trees which is small for the Addo area but is about three times the number of trees that he estimates are to be found on the Kudu Kaya farm. The yield of oranges is measured in tons per hectare and he estimates about 500 trees per hectare yielding 50 to 60 tons. Herman & I had tried to estimate how many bags of oranges would a large tree yield. Keith explained that there are a variety of bag sizes and that the different oranges such as Valencia, Navel and Clementines (Naartjies) have different yields.

We had seen piles of oranges dumped on a field. Keith explained to me that only first, second and third grade oranges are sold. The 1st and 2nd grade oranges are exported and the 3rd grade oranges are for the local market. 4th grade oranges, that are not sold to the juice companies, are often dumped for fodder or used for compost. These would be oranges that have marked skins. The fruit quality may be perfect but consumers buy with their eyes and so the fruit is unacceptable. Keith did the thing that all farmers do and that is to moan about the strength of the Rand. A stronger Rand means lower profits for farmers and he says that half the farms in Addo are up for sale.

At the Kudu Kaya we also saw the aqua-duct that the farmer uses to irrigate the trees. The children found this quite a good place to wet their feet. But the water temperature measures up to the name of the river. Keith described the irrigation system used by this farmer is that water is fed to the dam via this aqua-duct and then pumped up to a higher dam in the night when Eskom rates are about a third of daytime rates. The trees are then irrigated during the day, which is the best time for irrigation, using gravity.

From here we drove back to Patensie and took the 7kay detour to the Kouga (Paul Sauer) dam. This was my first visit to the dam. The construction of a dam such as this one is something to admire. Of concern to me was how empty the dam seems to be. There was a clear distinction between the present level and the maximum capacity. Perhaps expected September rains would make a difference. Here I used the last part of my video battery and we were soon on our way home. Herman drove our vehicle and I was quite happy to have a little snooze in the back seat. We were home by about 17.30 and soon unpacking and sorting things out.

The next morning I was up for my normal Monday morning MPRG run. Andy was back from his trip and told us some interesting facts about his trip. For example: Cairo is a city of over 22 Million people but the city has no traffic lights. He had been exploring the pyramids in temperatures of 37 Degrees and diving in water that most people find comfortable to bath in at 32 degrees C. Tim was back from Botswana but still enjoying his sleep. I struggled to get up and then to stay with the running group, as I was still very stiff from the trip & the walks.

Thanks again to Niel and Vanessa who put the whole trip together. Also thanks to all the rest of the group. It was a great get away.

Peter Giddy
15 August 2005.