You can buy me expensive chocolates and I will enjoy them but my favourites are Smarties! For those who are not South African these little chocolate pebbles are covered by different coloured crisp sugar that you can suck until the chocolate oozes out or bite sharply into them. A packet of them goes down well in the middle of the night. I had bought them to make Smartie biscuits but somehow they found themselves on my bedside table!
So I chewed and pondered on many things. Especially childhood memories of Fish Hoek. Along the beach there is a catwalk set into the rocks. The rock pools were a delight of bright sea urchins, pebbles and small klippie fish that darted in and out of little caves. One larger pool was called Skellie, I don’t know why, and we would dive off the rocks into the deep pool.
P.W. Botha became Prime Minister of South Africa and Apartheid had the effect of making South Africa a pariah in the international community of nations. P.W, as he was called, needed money and allowed the Chinese long liners into False Bay. They were after great white sharks for shark fin soup. Suddenly the whole eco system of the bay was affected and the rock pools were emptied of their occupants.
This got me thinking of the diminishing lion populations of Africa. If these great predators are endangered the whole ecosystem of the great parks will be in danger. Susan and I were in Etosha pan, worrying about being late for the gate of Namutoni when we saw this pale lioness in attacking position, her tail stretched straight and her gaze fixed upon a hidden prey. We held our breath as she stood immobile, the fading light giving a luminescence to her coat. Time stood still until we unfortunately had to depart but the picture has remained clear in my mind and whenever I am in great pain the picture comes into focus yet again, comforting me.
As a girl I loved the train journey to and from Fish Hoek to Cape Town. The rail runs along the sea from Simonstown to Muizenberg with a great view of False Bay. Along this section the train stops at St. James, Kalk Bay and Clovelly. We would go to the bioscope at Muizenberg on Saturday and on the journey back would alight at Clovelly and walk to Fish Hoek along the beach.
These days the road winds between the little towns with the crags of Table Mountain chain rearing on the right hand, the breakers bashing themselves on the rocks on the other side. When my first grandsons were small I took them fishing with little nets for klippies at St. James and we caught two each, watching them swim around the bucket. The time came to return them to their pools and the two boys burst into tears, wailing at the loss of their fishy friends.
When we moved to Fish Hoek my father built our house himself. The lounge/diningroom was on a wonderful sprung floor and the local Old Time Dance club came every Friday evening. One of the members brought his young son, Donald, five years older than me but the two of us learnt to dance these gracious dances. I was around 16 I think, Donald would take me walking on the Fish Hoek mountains singing The Road to the Isles in his lovely baritone. He finally left Fish Hoek to take up a career in banking in Rhodesia as it then was, now Zimbabwe. That was the last time I saw him, but we have corresponded ever since. He now lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife Jan. Donald is also a writer, mostly of poems and over the years has sent me many an amusing naughty poem!
I learnt to waltz at those dances and loved to dance with my father who took long steps when we danced to The Blue Danube! None of my boyfriends could match that! However, one of them could jive and when we took to the floor at Royal Cape Yacht Club, the other dances would retire while we performed!
The Lighthouse on Kalkbay pier
These days the road from Muizenberg to Fish Hoek has become very trendy. Kalk Bay has a restaurant called The Brass Bell on the station where the waves crash against a huge picture window. Further along is the little harbour with a breakwater that keeps the huge waves at bay. My father used to fish off this pier and I was always terrified that a wave would sweep him into the sea. There are trendy restaurants in the harbour now and you can buy fresh snoek straight off the boats. The snoek is a relative of the barracuda, long and silvery with pointed teeth. This fish is delicious on the braai or barbecue, brushed with apricot jam.
Simonstown Harbour yacht basin
The railway ends at Simonstown which was a British Naval Base when I was a girl. A Great Dane called Nuisance used to catch the train to Cape Town where he would round up all the sailors who were a little worse for wear, see them onto the train and escort them back to base at Simonstown. There is a statue to him in the town and also a good book about his exploits.
Just Nusiance
The South African Navy runs the base now and when a boyfriend and I were stranded on his yacht moored in the little harbour, the dinghy having broken loose in the brisk southeaster wind, I radioed the Navy for help. They very kindly sent a boat to take us ashore.
I was awarded my Queen’s Guide badge by Lady Joy Packer at Admiralty house in Simonstown. Lady Packer wrote a book called Grey Mistress about her husband’s destroyer that she followed to ports around the world where her husband Sir Herbert was based. She loved South Africa and wrote a novel called Valley of the Vines a love story set in Constantia in Cape Town.
Lady Olave Baden-Powell came to Cape Town and a pageant was performed in her honour. Fish Hoek Guides were dressed in ancient Greek robes to represent the Dhodhekanisos Islands in Greece in the pageant wearing ancient Greek robes that were in reality sheets! Our venue was a stone amphitheatre just below Table Mountain and the perfect site. I was thrilled to be included and Lady Olave shook all our hands.
Lady Olave’s husband was of course Lord Robert Baden-Powell of Gilwell and the man in charge of the siege of Mafeking. Mafeking as it used to be called is a town on the north west border of South Africa with Botswana. During the Boer war the British wanted to divert Boer troops from the conflict in Natal and a small garrison was to be set up at Mafikeng under the command of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell.
Lord Robert Baden-Powell
The Boer General Cronje was sent to attempt to occupy the town and defeat the garrison. The Boers underestimated Baden-Powell’s resourcefulness. He manufactured structures that looked like railways and guns and then proceeded to make a canon out of scrap that was called The Wolf. This canon was used to fire bits of scrap at the Boers. He also found an old muzzle loader holding up a gate post that they used to fire at the Boers, naming it Lord Nelson. He made grenades from dynamite and eventually even constructed a small railway across the town. All in all he managed to convince the Boers that the garrison was a greater force than they had thought. Here it was that Baden Powell conceived the idea of a Boy Scout movement using children to carry messages and assist in hospitals.
When he and Lady Olave married she started the Girl Guide movement. I was a patrol leader in the Fish Hoek Guides and used to take my patrol hiking up the mountains that surrounded the village. We often camped overnight. I think that time in my life led to my love of adventure and curiosity to experience the bush.
Reading this blog over a good few times, it is a bit too much about me but it does illustrate just how chance and other influences can change the direction of one’s life and introduce new perspectives and experiences and make new friends.
I was sixteen when I joined Carinus Nursing College and lived in the nurses’s quarters for a while. One day I was persuaded to go on a blind date. The young man belonged to a sailing family and I was immediately hooked. I remember us sailing to Saldanha Bay on the West coast of South Africa and coming back in thick fog. The Suez crises was on with the canal closed and Table Bay was full of ships having to take the Cape Route. Foghorns blared all around us in the ghostly fog as we weaved our way through the huge ships.
I left nursing, as I was not suited to it. My mother was keen to get me away from my young man so sent me to the UK to join my father who was tasked with changing the South African railways from steam to diesel and was inspecting the diesel engines being built in the UK. I sailed on a Union Castle Liner docking at Southampton. From there I travelled with my father to Scotland then down to Manchester and began to look for a job. Seeing an advertisement for crew on a yacht heading for South America I had a choice to either take up the offer or join British European Airways.
I hitched a lift on the back of a Harley Davidson and we rode from Manchester to Chichester where I was to meet the skipper of the yacht. It was the 1st of May and England had her best dress on, with fields of blue bells and daffodils. I took an instant dislike to the skipper of the yacht so returned to become part of the second intake of air hostesses for British European Airways.
I fell in love with travel and learnt a lot about independence during that time. Returning to South Africa after two years I found a job, dated my young man again but that alas, did not last and I met my future husband who was also a yachtsman.
Two babies later, Susan and then Michael, my marriage was in trouble and I took up riding at a nearby stable. Here came the biggest twist of my life. Jill Perks owned the riding school. She was an interesting person. She was convinced that there were diamonds in the Cape Flats and every riding pupil had to first help to dig the potential diamond mine before mounting their horse! Needless to say we never found diamonds!
Jill rode an enormous thoroughbred called Fra Diavolo. Fra Diovolo (Brother Devil) otherwise known as Michele Pezza was a guerrilla leader who resisted the French occupation of Naples in 1771. He featured in a lot of folk lore and Alexander Dumas included him in a few of his books. Fra Diovolo sauce is a fiery tomato based sauce.
Jill was a tiny woman and looked like a pimple on the huge horse who had a wonderful temperament and was not in the least bit like his namesake. I really took to riding and Jill bought me a little thoroughbred mare who had everything wrong with her!
One day Jill was trying to teach me to jump when two men arrived and stood watching as I fell off again and again. Jill introduced Trevor Botten and his friend Alan Higgins and we all had tea. Trevor asked me if I really wanted to learn to ride. My answer was yes. “Be at Muizenberg beach tomorrow morning at six and I will teach you to really ride!”
Jill had a dream of becoming a playwright. She wrote a play and roped me and my friend Bobby in as the leading lady and man. Bobby was over 6 ft tall and I only 5ft 4. She produced the play at the Masque Theatre main road Muizenberg and it ran for a week. That was my one and only attempt at treading the boards!
Jill finally met Rosalie van der Gught, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Rosalie was a brilliant teacher and taught Jill who left her husband and took up with a puppeteer. From there she wrote plays and when she died the Cape Times newspaper devoted a half page to her obituary about her success as a playwright.
But I digress. The morning that I arrived at Muizenber was brisk with the Indian Ocean waves pounding upon the hard sand. Racehorses circled waiting for their riders and I was shown how to get a leg up while a beautiful liver chestnut gelding called Quatre Bra stood obediently. For the next two weeks I walked him around the ring being taught how to pull up my irons (stirrups), crouch like a jockey until my thighs ached, and hold the reins as they should be held.
Finally the day came when I was allowed to trot down the sand track next to a well known jockey in that jockey position while he slapped my back with his stick and told me to get down lower! Then I was allowed to canter and from there on I progressed to riding very good horses and becoming part of the famous Beverley Stables crew. I rode gallops on the turf at Kenilworth and one stands out in my memory.
Trevor had three top class sprinters in his stable and one morning he decided that they would gallop together over six furlongs at Kenilworth racecourse. The horses were Rumba Rage by Drum Beat, a stallion that had been the fastest horse in the world, Eastertide sired by a prolific sprinting stallion, Royal Pardon and Benzol whose sire Silver Tor was not in the Jockey Club stud books but very fast. He put two top jockeys, Stanley Amos and Johnny Cawcutt up on Benzol and Rumba Rage, me on Eastertide. These horses were so fast I hardly took a breath. Trevor very cunningly had me as the lightest weight win the gallop! What a thrill!
My life as I grew ever more passionate about thoroughbreds and I attended the yearling sales, learnt how to judge a good horse and finally married Trevor and had TJ, my youngest son. I often joke with TJ that he exists because I fell off a horse!
Trevor introduced me to Jenny, who was destined to be a friend until the day she died some time ago. Jenny was a vibrant redhead and she and her husband were looking for a house to rent. They had three children. Her husband, Stew as we called him had been a Flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. I found them a house at Zeekoe (hippopotamus) Vlei (shallow lake) where I lived and Stew taught me how to cook duck le orange. Jenny and I joined the Cape Hunt and Polo Club and rode to hounds together.
One day Jenny asked me to come and exercise the Cape Hunt and Polo Club hounds up on Sir Lowry’s pass. I fell off and was obviously badly injured. Jenny rode back to the stables returning with a little yellow Volkswagen and a bottle of whisky. She made me gulp some and split it over me. Jenny told me to keep sipping until we reached Groote Schuur hospital. The young intern who saw us there shook his head and pinched his nose at the smell of whisky, obviously taking me to be a drunk. “How did this happen?” he asked Jenny. “Well you see, we were chasing men in the mountains and Molly got so excited that she fell off!” The intern burst out laughing and sent me off for x-rays. He took one look at the film and told me to go home, lie flat on my back for three months and my broken pelvis would eventually heal!
By chance I met Peter who was editor of the YOU magazine. Peter had a dream of living in the Greek islands and drinking red wine. However he found time to read my first manuscript of July Fever that I typed on an old Imperial typewriter. He remarked. “You have a story here. Go and write it again.” Later he asked me if I had ever had sex. “Of Course, I have children!” “Well write it like it IS!” He made me rewrite the book five times until he was satisfied! The novel was a great success and made book of the month for a Durban newspaper at the July of 1980.
Eventually I gave up the horses and began to sell houses. I decided that I really wanted to learn to sail deep sea yachts and joined Rod’s sailing academy in Simonstown. Rod had crewed on one of the round the world yachts and was a great seaman. We got on well and he asked me to partner him in the purchase of a Miura, a 30 odd foot yacht built by Van der Stadt especially for Cape waters.
Michael turned eighteen and came into his inheritance. He was keen on hitching as crew on yachts around the Caribbean eventually ending up at Antigua for the famous racing week there. He asked me to come with him so I suggested we sail arou nd the British Virgin Islands after which he could find a berth, hopping from island to island until he got to Antigua and I would fly home. We found an outfit that rented bare boats but this required me to get my Skipper’s ticket. I had a practical test by the harbour master in Simonstown on a blustery day while still in crutches and passed thanks to Rod’s coaching. Mick and I had a great time sailing around the Islands and when I thought we had run out of luck we met a French couple on their old Norwegian trawler bound for Bermuda. We were invited for a drink and I still remember the taste of the wonderful rose wine they offered. They happily took Mick with them and he worked his way to Antigua.
I did very well at selling houses and moved back to Zeekoe Vlei. One day a family bought the house opposite. Ever gregarious, I went over to meet them and that changed my friend Annie’s life. Amazingly we are still friends today!
Annie was a housewife with four children. She could not drive and was housebound when her husband was out to work. Annie had the most infectious laugh and I decided to teach her to drive. The independence this brought her changed her life. I was instrumental at encouraging her to become an Estate Agent and Annie was off on a journey of her own.
Annie’s boys sailed dinghy’s at Zeekoe Vlei yacht club and eventually David became my tactician when I raced the Miura on Wednesday afternoons at Royal Cape Yacht Club. Annie turned out to be a natural business woman, TJ and her youngest, Lucy were great friends. Rod got together a scratch crew to hire a class yacht at Cowes with the aim of sailing there during Cowes week. I excitedly put my name down. Rod then suggested that he and I and his girlfriend have as sailing holiday around the Greek islands afterwards. I asked Annie if Lucy could come and I would take Lucy and TJ with us. She agreed and TJ still says that was the best holiday of his life!
Rod had hired a 32 foot class yacht. The owner was on board with us and Deca navigation had just come out enabling us to tack very close to the shore. A highlight was seeing the Queen Mary make her way through all these pesky little yachts on her way to the Atlantic. We had a shakedown cruise across to France then returned to Cowes and won the first race in our class!
Then we went off on our flotilla holiday. As Rod was so experienced, we were allowed to do our own thing. We sailed from island to island, the two children loving every minute of it after which they went home and I flew to Ireland to visit the stud farms there and to see Goffs the auctioneering house.
Another chance meeting led to a friendship that was to last until this day just as Annie’s has. I decided to take TJ, then seven, to ski in Austria. The tour leader was Joy, together with her husband Colin. Colin got frostbite on his finger and was banned from going onto the slopes again. I came back early one day and knocked on Joy’s door to hear Colin’s voice inviting me in. I entered to find him lying in a hot bath with a beer to hand. He hastily covered up the necessary parts and bade me join him with a glass of wine.
I sat on the loo and we had a jolly chat with a few good laughs. Enter Joy to find her husband with one of her tour group! We have chuckled about it ever since and are still the best of friends. Tragedy also struck her after the birth of her two sons when eventually Colin succumbed to the blood disorder that he had.
Of course Susan, Mick (Michael) and years later, TJ all rode. Mick joined the equine division when he had to do his army stint, Susan married a thoroughbred stud master and TJ played polocrosse.
Hard times came and I moved to Philadelphia, very near Atlantis, the town erected by the government for the coloured community, part of their separate development policy. We stayed on a small holding in a little wooden cottage that TJ and I built. He was now at school at Sacs and I was battling to find work. I had some remaining copies of July Fever and took one to a woman I had heard of preparing yearlings for the racing stables. I desperately needed fuel for my little car to take him to school the next day.
A large woman was lunging a yearling. The yearling could not understand what was required of him and kept stopping or bucking or turning to her with a puzzled look. Diz, as I learnt was her name, would break into swearing that would make a sailor blush. She would then lift her head to the sky and apologize to the Lord. “I promise I won’t do it again Lord.” Within minutes the swearing would commence again.
She finished with the yearling and invited me in. I asked her if she would like to buy the book. Diz told me later that she was just as broke as I was and had a bit of cash to buy cigarettes but thought I needed the money more than she did! We became friends and one day she found an advertisement for coal fired Dover Stoves. She bought one for each of us and many a good time was had around my stove with a pot of soup and a jug of wine. Our friendship grew and we had great times together, the stories are too long to tell here but will appear in other blogs from time to time.
Another friend at that time was June Washington. We cooked many a family meal together and when I decided to answer an advertisement for a trip to Mozambique she accompanied me. That is a story on its own but it led to meeting my friend Nic Tass of Turtle Cove in Tofo who has turned out to be a friend for life together with his wife Nelia. More of that in another blog too.
Michael returned from a stint in London after attaining his Accountant’s degree. He decided to buy me a house and we picked Langebaan also on the West Coast but nearer to Cape Town. Here I met Denis Lees and began to take painting lessons with him.
Denis and his wife Laura had a wonderful house with the studio on top at Jakopsbaai (Jacobs Bay). Laura and I cooked many a good meal in their roomy kitchen with glasses of wine to hand. When I moved to Joburg they moved to Taiwan where they stayed for five years teaching English. Denis recently popped up on facebook looking for me. I learnt he was living in Reitz and I travelled down there, only a two and a half hour journey for three days of tuition. He is a wonderful teacher. He has moved on to Balito Bay so I will go and see him there in the new year.
Molly, Dennis, and Eleanor
Susan and I started a little magazine for the West Coast called Out and About on the West Coast. This led to me travelling in South Africa to begin with and we began to take her four children on adventures. When I ventured into Botswana, Namibia and Zambia we produced guidebooks for the three countries. Susan taught herself graphic art and did all the advertisements that I sold. I did most of the travelling and selling but she joined me at times and we had exceptional times together. We marketed the books at the World Travel Fair in London, ITB in Berlin and at the convention centre in Durban.
Diz was instrumental in introducing me to Joy Bianchi. Joy was born on the Isle of Wight and arrived in Africa when she was seventeen. Her brother was working on the copper mines in Ndola in then Northern Rhodesia now Zambia. She married charming Con Bianchi, he with twinkling bedroom eyes and a great dancer. In next to no time she was living in the bush with four children! She had met Diz there when she too was on the copper belt with two children, Sue and Dori. There was a thriving horse community there.
Diz somewhere on the Delta
I met Dori when she joined Diz in Philadelphia with her little daughter Jordan. Sue met her husband, a vet, there and the two immigrated to Australia where they have a chain of veterinary surgeries and two now grown up daughters.
Joy lived in a large old farmhouse in Gaborone. Her daughter Eileen had married an air force technician who had a terrible accident while on duty in Walvis Bay in Namibia. He became a paraplegic and Joy and Con dedicated their lives to helping the family and the two boys Glen and Ryan. Con built a riding stable for Eileen to teach riding and have an income. The boys became friends with Susan’s children especially when Susan moved to Maun in Botswana. Tragically Glen was electrocuted while working in a fuel from plants factory during his grandfather’s final days.
Joy and I enjoying a glass of wine on the West Coast
Tj had been working in London and let me know that he was returning overland. Could I meet him at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe? I did and he greeted me. “My Mother I presume?” Tj was keen to go into the Okavango Delta and so was I. Accordingly we travelled to Maun where I met Tiaan Theron, one of the best guides in Botswana. Tiaan took us to the mokoro station in Moremi where we met our poler who took us into the delta.
The first night it rained cats and dogs. Lions roared! Elephants screamed. We shivered in our little tent but the next day the heat was back. Our poler turned out to be an excellent guide and one morning very early we crept up to within twenty feet of a feeding elephant. The poler kept testing the wind with his licked finger and after a few minutes we retreated. We were captivated by this wilderness and when Tiaan picked us up and joined us for a beer I asked him if he would take my grandchildren into the delta. “Provided they know I am boss and they listen to me!” Many adventures and years later we are still friends.
One year Tiaan phoned me and said he had a safari company for sale. Mick and I persuaded Susan who was then living with me in Langebaan during a difficult divorce to take up the offer. Mick put up the money and Susan and her kids lived in Maun for many a year.
Over the years whenever I went to Botswana I stayed with Joy and we had a very deep friendship. Joy was a top dressage judge in Gaborone so we had horses in common. However finances caught up with Joy during her retirement and she finally relocated to the UK. Her dog Thebe, a harlequin Great Dane, spent the rest of her life with Joy’s one son Ricky who lives in Kleinsee with Susan. Thebe has just recently died. Very sad, as she saved my life twice when under attack at Joy’s house outside Gaborone.
Michelle, Ryan and Jacques fishing in the Limpopo
I cannot talk of Botswana without mentioning Norma Watson and her husband who owned Le Roo La Tau at the time. The name means the footsteps of the lion. We were always welcome there and Steve, their guide, took us on some very memorable safaris. Norma was a patron of the lovely Khama Reserve that is a sanctuary for breeding rhinos.
Eventually Susan and I were doing books for Namibia and Zambia as well. We first went into Zambia when a man in rags with an AK47 under a tree was the road block. How things have changed. Our books became so popular that we were ultimately hosted by top safari outfits such as Robin Pope Safaris and Shenton Safaris as well as Norman Carr Safaris.
Jenny came with me on a walking safari with Robin Pope safaris at Mupamadzi river in the remote north west of the park. One morning we came back very hot and Jenny told our guide that we were going to take a skinny dip in the shallow river. He obligingly cleared thee camp of staff and Jen and I wallowed with bums to the sky cooling off! Jo Pope told us that the other guests had so enjoyed our company that we were welcome any time. Susan I stayed at Nsefu on several occasions.
Robin Pope Safaris
I stayed with Derek Shenton at Mwambo and Kaingo camp often. One night he took me on a night drive and we heard a peculiar mewing sound coming from a lioness. Sometime after I was in Kutze Reserve in Botswana, where there were very curious lions and I heard the same noise. We got into our vehicles immediately and sure enough the pride came walking through.
Time moved on and the road was a long one from Langebaan to Mozambique and Botswana. Mick had married Mandy and lived in Johannesburg as did TJ, married to Maud. Mick had one daughter with his first wife Marie, Meg currently working in London. Mandy had two girls who readily adopted me as a granny. Kate is an accountant and living here while her sister Sarah is living with her father in New Zealand. TJ and Maud were also living in Johannesburg and both Mick and I thought it would be better to move up here. Mick sold the Langebaan house and bought the cottage that I now have in a retirement village.
Joy and her one son live here as does her cousin Gail who has also been a friend for all the years I have known Joy. The other son lives in Cape Town and has a young son. She has recently met a life partner and they travel into Kruger National Park frequently also spending weekends away at the little known places around the country.
I have made new friends here, belong to Four Seasons Art studio under Sue Prior who has proved to be another friend. The other artists come from all walks of life and were very supportive during my time in hospital for the new hip replacement bringing me a marvelous hamper that also contained goodies for Jack my little dachshund.
I am travelling again. Just come back from Nelspruit and Kruger Park and will be off to see Susan in September where she lives at Kleinsee on the West coast then off to Mozambique for the Christmas holidays. Who knows where next? Probably Balito Bay near Durban for more art lessons from Denis. See him on the internet under Denis Lees and please check in to Four Seasons Studio as well. My adventures in these countries are often featured in the novels I write and the blogs I get out every two weeks or so.
These days I am always losing my car keys and wander around like a lost soul until the redoubtable Thomas appears and finds them, firmly placing them were I can see them. Thomas is one of the gardeners here but has a heavy load on his shoulders. His brother was killed and it is Thomas’s responsibility to care for that family as well as his own so he does odd jobs after hours.
As a young student nurse I lost my glasses. I was nursing at Groote Schuur, the famous hospital in Cape Town where Chris Barnard pioneered the first heart transplant. In my ward was a veteran of the second world war his body still riddled with shrapnel that had to be removed piece by piece. He was an ardent Catholic and told me he would ask Saint Anthony to find the glasses and that I should pray to the saint too. Sure enough when I went down to Clifton beach in my off time the next day a kindly beach attendant produced them like a rabbit out of his pocket! Saint Anthony had heard my prayers!
I am always losing my way especially in Pretoria! Susan and children and I were on our way back from pastures far when we got lost there but were cheered up by little Ryan spotting a whole wall of advertising for Tassies, a red student wine that is a favourite of mine and can be found in the remotest corners of Southern Africa! It still amazes me how that and Coca Cola are delivered into the most out of the way places over the most appalling roads!
My family still laugh about the time when I had them driving round and round on our way to Mozambique looking for a guest house that I always stayed in but had forgotten that was on the way to Botswana!
One thing I do have though is a penchant for finding lost souls especially at Christmas time. One year at Mozambique I met Graham and his lady Cheryl at the bar in Turtle Cove. They were camping, family in far off places, knowing nobody. I invited them to join us for Christmas lunch. On Christmas morning Graham was the first on the beach to see the local fishermen take to the sea in their tiny rowing boats. They fish for marlin and sailfish and swordfish. For marlin they have another boat following them in case of capsizing. None of them can swim. This morning the catch was swordfish and Graham bought a kilo and surprised the rest of us with fresh shichimi for starters! I must say it took a lot of 2M beer to do the thing but it was divine! Graham and Cheryl are still friends albeit that they stay in the UK now.
Another Christmas also in Mozambique we asked a young woman who was teaching yoga at Nic and Nelia’s lovely yoga centre at Turtle Cove. Agni travelled the world teaching yoga and the marvelous dances she did with a hulahoop. She made me a small dream catcher that still hangs on my patio. Lets hope it is catching and holding a couple of dreams I still have!
It is not surprising then that when I came across the tale of the Lost City of the Kalahari while delving into the archives of the South African library in Cape Town that I was instantly captured by the story that begins in 1885 when G.A. Forini, a wealthy American, set up an expedition into the Kalahari as it was then called. Now its name is the Kgaligadi.
Farini took as his tracker an old man, Gert Louw, of Bushman extraction whose tales of ‘a hunter’s paradise’ lured Farini and amongst whose things Farini found diamonds.
Farini was not lured by the prospect of wealth; the spirit of adventure burned brightly within him. He also took his son ‘Lulu’ with him. Lulu was a portrait painter and photographer, a young man of courage. This was a time when photographers from all over the world were descending on the City of Gold, Johannesburg and Kimberly and the big hole.
After arriving in Cape Town they set off on the mail express bound for Kimberley. I think that must have been a Cape Cart. On the fifth day of their journey they were near Rietfontein accompanied by the Little People who knew the area well.
Farini was interested in sand and stone and all living things. He was not the type of person to falsify reports of things that he had seen. Their next camp was Tunobis on a plateau around 3,460 feet above sea level and nearly 10 feet higher that when Galtona was there so that Farini deduced that Lake Ngami was getting gradually shallower.
Another three days and they were at the Ki Ki mountains and then pushed on to the K’gung forest where they camped under large trees. They shot a giraffe and the next morning lions were feeding on the kill when Lulu arrived in the wagon.
Lulu left the wagon and ran through the grass with his camera on his back to take a shot of the lions feeding. He calmly focused the camera and took the shot then Farini and Lulu and his companion opened fire on the lions.
The lions charged in the direction the bullets were coming from and Lulu dropped his gun, got back under the black cloth of his camera and focused on the charging lions! He took one picture and, when a big male charged the camera he charged the lion with his tripod. This proved too much for the lion and the animal retreated!
Their supplies were dwindling and Farini resolved to go to Upington to replenish them. Travelling south they camped near Ki Ki mountain beside a long line of stone that looked like the wall of China after an earthquake but which proved to be the ruins of quite an extensive structure, in some places buried beneath the sand, but in others in full view.
They traced the remains for nearly a mile. The general outline was in the form of an arc, inside of which lay at intervals of about forty feet apart, a series of heaps of masonry in the shape of an oval or an obtuse ellipse, about a foot and a half deep, with a flat bottom, but hollowed out at the sides for about one foot from the edge.
Farini got his men to excavate with shovels and the joints of the stones were perfect. He thought this must have been a city or a place of worship. The following day they continued with the excavations and came upon a pavement about twenty feet long intersected with another to make a Maltese cross in the centre of which must have stood an altar.
When he returned Farini wrote the book ‘Lost City of the Kalahari’ that contained a map of his journey but the many others that followed could find no trace of the lost city and he was discredited.
As late as 1959 a Dr. Haldeman regularly took his family on an expedition during the July school holidays having read Farini’s accounts, looking for the lost city. “We went to places nobody had been before, shooting game for the pot. My son Scott, 16 shot his first buck, Lynne 14, helped her mother with the camp cooking, May and Kaye 11 years had to do the washing up while Lee, 4 was the camp mascot.
On one trip they wanted to reach Khakami, and Mapare, the chief of all the Mkalaharis recognized his father’s picture in Farini’s book. He agreed to go with them. They eventually came to Bohelo Batu meaning ‘the people who died’. Those that had reached the pan to find it dry had died.
On their journey they passed Manung pan and later Lekubu a few miles from Khakami pan. This country fitted Farini’s description of the location of the Lost City but they did not find it.
At Khanzi they showed the picture of the Lost City and asked if anyone had seen it but the answer was no. That night there were two leopard in their camp and they heard that a leopard had come into a hut in Kang and killed two children and that a boy, sleeping by the fire had been killed by a lion.
They planned their next expedition with Martinus Drotsky who discovered the Drostky Caves along the Western delta of Botswana to be their companion. Charlie Swart had reported seeing a fabulous ruin of white stones in 1905. A half mile long wall with pillar posts at a single entrance, enclosed a half moon circle of buildings and graves. He rode out from a border beacon for about sixteen miles to see it but the beacons were now non-existent.
There were many stories about this and Martinus Drotsky had heard that there were seven Bushmen tribes with seven ancient villages in the form of a star with a big secret and sacred place in the middle of them, which could be the Lost City.
Martinus was 73 at the time and in his youth he could run down a steenbok (small agile antelope) within thirty miles and kill it by hand. He could crawl down a porcupine hole and kill it just as the bushmen did. He would crawl in naked with a four foot pointed stick, then make a mound of sand between him and the porcupine to prevent the porcupine making a pincushion out of him. He would then kill the porcupine with the stick and pull it out and have food for a week!
He is rumoured to have once ran 125 miles through the sand and brush in twenty five hours without taking food or water!
In the area of this search they were visited every night by friendly Bushmen who told them that all the Bushmen knew where the ruins were but were too afraid to tell them. One said “The stones were cemented together with better cement than we have today.” One man took them to his father, who had seen the ruins, but the old man also refused to tell. Their search took them on through the Aha mountains past Kai Kai to the Drotsky caves.
The Haldemans returned again and again as did others too, to no avail. Lawrence Green in To the River’s Edge quotes a letter he received in 1936 from Mr. Paver saying “When you see the country you realize that one can spend months searching the sand dunes without covering a fraction of the area in which the Lost City may be situated.”
Lawrence met Dr. Borcherds in Upington who told him that he had recently met farmers who had been poaching game in Botswana and found the Lost City and their description tallied exactly with Farini’s in his book.
Dr. Borcherds told them that a policeman patrolling on a camel had come across an ancient stone quarry in the desert. Deep in the sand the sergeant discovered the remains of what looked like a boat some fourteen foot in length. This did not surprise Dr. Borcherds as it was believed that the rivers once came south from Lake Ngami to join the Orange River.
No doubt the dunes will one day give up their secret to a modern day adventurer. My friend Tiaan Theron rang me one day very excited that Lake Ngami was flowing south and we set off for a picnic immediately. Hundreds of water birds were wading in the shallows as the water came pouring onto the pan. It is a long while ago and I don’t know if since the waters have once more retreated. I do know that the Savuti Channel that was dry for many years suddenly had water one year with no explanation, this is possibly due to the plate deep beneath the Botswana earth that shifts every now and then altering the landscape above.
The area in question runs along the border of Namibia northwards to the Western Delta and the distances involved are vast so who knows, one day the red desert sands may shift again to reveal the mystery that has captured our imaginations for so long.
When I first began my travels in Southern Africa I had a very old moth-eaten Ford Cortina bakkie (pickup). The vehicle took a lot of amused comments from friends but I would ask them if their beautiful motors had ever driven to Katimo Mulilo. Of course the answer was no so I would smile and I am sure the bakkie gave a gentle cough!
On this particular trip I drove through Botswana to the Ngoma Gate border between that country and Namibia. Ahead of me were three huge brand new 4 x 4s carrying a number of large men. Fortunately I arrived at the border just in front of them as had nipped past them while they were watching elephants on the sand road through Chobe National Park in Botswana, and was processed into Namibia. My destination was Kaliso lodge on the banks of the Zambezi where I hoped to see flocks of carmine bee eaters flying in and out of their holes in the banks of the river.
I had not been there before and was sure that I would get stuck along the way, so my plan was to be ahead of the 4 x 4 group so that they could either dig me out or pull me out if I got stuck too badly with their up to date safari equipment. I duly got stuck and a local wandered by, stopping to help me get on my way. I arrived at the lodge and settled down with a beer in my hand watching the river. Some hours went by and I wandered what had delayed the other group. They finally arrived all having got stuck and they said they had had great difficulty in getting the vehicles out! Yet again my old Ford had come through valiantly!
The next day I took a boat trip down river. My guide and I anchored and watched the brilliant bee eaters as they busily flew in and out of their nests! The flash of carmine against the muddy bank and the constant chirping kept me clicking away with my camera. Returning to the lodge I had lunch and was approached by one of the waitresses. She asked me when I was due to leave. I replied that I would do so the next day. She then asked for a lift into Katimo Mulilo and promised to take me on a route that had firmer ground so that I would not get stuck. I willingly agreed.
We left early the next morning and as we drove along she bade me stop. Puzzled I did so. Two men hopped onto the back of the bakkie and she told me they just need a lift to the gravel road. Reaching this she extracted some money from them and beckoned to some other bystanders who scrambled aboard. The lady whose name I have forgotten, took fares from them too. All along the way to the town people hopped on and off. I was an involuntary taxi driver! Reaching Katima market place the lady got out, counted out the money and gave me my share that was greater than hers. My first and only stint as a taxi driver!
From Katimo the next day I was waved down by two young people. The guy wanted a lift to Popa Falls where he hoped to pick up a lift to Windhoek. The young lady was his girlfriend and they parted with big hugs and kisses. Together we set off along the Caprivi strip, the road bad, mostly sand that runs directly East to West and as the sun began to set I had it shining directly into my eyes! Hell watching out for animals being half blinded. Elephants and plains game wander backwards and forwards along this stretch. The young man, I forget his name, told me that his girlfriend had a two year sponsorship to try and come up with a method to keep elephants out of the villagers’ fields. So far she had managed to rig up a system of bells but of course the wily elephants worked out how to pull them down!
Along the strip quaint little shops appear with original names. I was amazed that one of them called itself Sarajevo. Obviously news of the tragedy unfolding there had even reached this remote spot! We finally reached Popa Falls, really a series of rapids on the Kavango River that rises in Angola and brings the flood into the Okavango delta each year. We camped and swopped tales over the fire and my fellow traveler was lucky enough to be offered a lift to Rundu the next day while I meandered down the western delta, stayed at Sepupa Swamp Stop for a night that my friend Tiaan Theron had built. At the time he had a barge there and we would putter along the river and its many channels anchoring for a night at one of the islands.
There is often a barbel run along this stretch of the river when the water churns with hundreds of fish and birds are thick in the air. It is truly a thing to see. The next day I headed for Maun where I ended up staying for several months!
I turned eighty years old yesterday, the 26th January. I was born in 1939 and the Second World War began in the September. On these warm nights I have lain awake thinking about the events I have seen and experienced during these years.
I think the earliest memory was of the air raid sirens that would require us to gather at Aunty Phyllis’s house nearby. I remember the house clearly and I must have been three years with the war into its third year. I remember my father in his Cape Town Highlanders kilt being photographed with his mates, however he did not pass the medical due to a missing little toe and in any event he was needed by the railways to maintain the steam engines that pulled the trains taking soldiers up the East Coast where they were to engage the German army in German East Africa. One of his mates never returned and another came back with one leg.
My paternal grandmother, Granny Goodwin who was Cornish, was born on a ship in Sydney harbour (I never did hear the full story). Granny had bought me a sunhat, a pair of sunglasses and a little cardboard suitcase. She lived opposite us at Hazendal that is now Sybrand Park in Cape Town. One day I was very cross with my mother so donned the sunhat, packed the suitcase and ran away to Granny Goodwin! The next morning she gave me mealie pap (maize meal porridge) for breakfast and I hated it so ran back!
My two cousins Jean and Tom Swarbreck lived nearby, as did Tommy Webb, another cousin. My father had grown a field of prize strawberries that were ready to harvest on his birthday on the 24th October when we would enjoy them with my mother’s homemade ice cream that I still make for my grandchildren. One year the naughty boy cousins picked and ate the strawberries before the birthday and were given good hidings! Not to mention the sore tummies!
Every year my father would have a bet on the premier horse races such as the Metropolitan Handicap in Cape town and the Durban July in Durban. He would have a bet and take part in the railway workshop sweepstake. I was six when the Durban July was to be run and I fancied a horse called Mowgli who was favorite at 9-2 along with his rival Radlington who was 12 – 1.
Mowgli as a two year old had dropped in the middle of a race. He was odds on favourite and was racing to what seemed certain victory when he checked in his stride and dropped back falling as if he had been poleaxed. The veterinarians put it down to heat stroke.
Because of this incident my father was convinced the horse would not win and changed my bet! Mowgli and Radlington were locked together at the finish and the judge took ten minutes to decide that Mowgli had won by a couple of inches. My father had to pay me out as a matter of honour! I had no idea then that horses would play a prominent part in my later life or that I would write a novel called July Fever that would be launched at the Durban July in 1980 to rave reviews in the press.
Durban July Photo Finish 1952
When I was seven and attending Observatory Girls school my parents sold their house, and decided to go into a partnership with our neighbours, Lalu and Taffy Ovenstone and buy a chicken farm in Kuilsriver. They decided that I had to continue at that school and I had to walk three miles to the station in Kuilsriver, take a train to Salt River, change onto the suburban line and get off at Observatory. This was when I became aware of the race division in the country with separate carriages and benches for white and black people.
The second world war was over and in 1947 King George, Queen Elizabeth and the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, were due to visit South Africa arriving on the frigate Vanguard. My father promised that he would take me to the city to watch the ship arrive. Crowds were due to line the streets and the dock area. The day dawned and I was so excited to see all of the fanfare, but the morning was incredibly hot and my father’s prize pig, a huge animal, fainted with the heat. We spent the day pouring water over it while listening to the arrival on the radio! I was bitterly disappointed, but the pig recovered.
One afternoon on the way back from school my train was stopped at Bellville station and everyone told to disembark. It was explained that the line had to be cleared for the White Train carrying the Royal Family was due. Imagine my delight when I had a first class view of the King and Queen and the two princesses. The Station Master realized that I must be very hungry while waiting for my train to reappear and gave me a pastry with what looked like squashed flies in the middle but I ate every bit of it before my train arrived and delivered me safely to Kuilsriver where my mother was frantic with worry.
The Royal White Train
Later I learned that my mother’s cousin Amy Van der Schyff’s husband, Richard was a chauffeur for the Government Garage and had driven the Royals around Cape Town to all their appointments. He told us how Princess Margaret, a wonderful mimic, would take off all the dignitaries including General Smuts, the Prime Minister!
At the time my little sister, Veronica had polio and one leg was in calipers. She was pushed around the property in a pushchair and would ask for it to stop while she gazed into a wooded area. When asked what she was looking at she would say “A funny little man.”
Finally Lalu asked her to describe the little man. She did so and when next in the village Lalu asked about the previous owner who had died before we moved in. The description tallied with Veronica’s description. Apparently the owner had hated cars and declared that no vehicle would be allowed on his property! My parents had an electric blue Terraplane and the car would never start on the property but would once down the driveway and onto the farm road.
Behind the chicken runs was a stretch of fynbos the Afrikaans name for the indigenous vegetation now world famous for the spring flowers in the Cape, and I would love to walk through this veritable garden picking proteas and then selling the flowers on the farm road! The freedom fed my sense of adventure and my imagination. This experience would influence my life.
Holidays were spent on train journeys as my father had a first class free pass being a railway employee. We could plan our journey providing we did not retrace our route and loved travelling around the country listening to the sound of the train, tucked up in our bunks at night with the stars above. Meals in the dining car were special treats with spotless white linen, heavy silver cutlery and smart waiters while little stations passed by in the blink of an eye.
When I was ten my parents sold the farm and we moved to Fish Hoek on the Cape Peninsula. Fish Hoek nestles against the Cape Mountain chain on False Bay in the Indian Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean washes against the other side of the mountains. I joined the girl Guides and as a patrol leader took my patrol on weekend camping trips up the mountains. My friends and I loved the beach with its catwalk along the rocks where we would dive, pick up lost fishing sinkers and sell them back to the fishermen.
One day my friend and I were having fun in the waves on car tyre tubes when two dorsal fins approached. Our hearts stopped, thinking that they belonged to sharks but then the dolphins leapt over us and joined us in a great game. The two were photographed, made headlines and were named Fish and Hoek. They returned each summer for a few years.
I achieved my Queen’s Guide badge. Sir Herbert Packer was Admiral of the Simonstown naval basin. Britain owned the naval base at that time and I was presented with my badge by Lady Packer at Admiralty house. Lady Joy Packer was a writer and novelist. She wrote a book called Grey Mistress about her husband’s destroyer and the various ports they were stationed at over the years and a novel called The Valley of the Vines set in Constantia near Cape Town famous for its wines.
I grew up, left school and became a student nurse at Groote Schuur Hospital, that later became famous when Doctor Chris Barnard did the first heart transplant there. This was where I met my first love whose family had a yacht moored at Royal Cape Yacht Club. We would sail on the yacht around Cape Point to Simonstown or up the coast to Saldanha Bay. During the Suez crisis in 1956 we were returning from Saldanha in a thick fog and the many ships crowded the bay waiting their turn to dock having been rerouted around the Cape as the Suez canal was closed. Their various foghorn calls warned other vessels of their presence to prevent collisions, we were so afraid of bumping into one in the impenetrable fog on our way back to the yacht club.
My father, who was now Chief Foreman of Salt River works as were his father and grandfather before him, was sent to the UK and Europe to vet the new diesel engines that were being manufactured there by the great engineering companies for the changeover in South Africa from steam to diesel for the railway network. My mother was unhappy with my boyfriend and dispatched me on the Union Castle Mail ship to join my father. The mailboat as it was called left every Thursday from Cape Town docks and took 12 days to sail to Southampton.
A band played Now Is The Hour when the time came to say goodbye, and streamers waved in the breeze between passengers and loved ones left on the quay, tugs hooted and the ship began to move breaking the strands of streamers. Table Mountain towered above as the ship turned her bow towards the open sea leaving the Fairest Cape behind. My boyfriend’s yacht escorted the ship through the dock and out into the bay before finally turning back. The year was 1958, I was eighteen.
Union Castle Liner Leaving Cape Town
My father met me in Southampton where we were to take the boat train to London, then the famous Flying Scotsman on to Glasgow. There was a delay with the departure and eventually Father strode down the station, gave advice as to the fault and then we were off! One night in London and on to Glasgow covered in snow. I spent two weeks with a friend of my father’s, a district nurse visiting crofters in the Kyles of Bute before heading for Manchester where I replied to an advert for air hostesses for the brand new British European Airways. I was part of the second intake and my new friend Sue was in the first intake.
We flew Dakotas to the Channel Islands and Ireland. These aircraft had done service in the war as had the pilots who were of ex Battle of Britain vintage! On one occasion we had engine trouble and landed on deserted Biggin Hill, a famous airfield during the war. From Dakotas I was transferred from Manchester to Heathrow where I worked on Viscounts, a turbo-prop aircraft and finally the ill-fated Comet after which I returned to South Africa.
In later years I lived at Langebaan where the flying boats used to land after their long journey across Africa where one of their stops was at an island called Jungle Junction in the Zambezi River. How far air travel has progressed over the years especially with the wonderful Boeing aircraft.
Now we are in a new industrial revolution and certainly my youngest grandchildren will experience a very different world. There were to be many milestones as the years passed by, and no doubt I will write about them one day..
I can’t remember how it was that my great friend Diz and I departed from Lusaka in search of Shoebills, bats and Lake Bangweulu, however we did. Lake Bangweulu is situated in North East Zambia and that is divided by what they call a pedicle that belongs to the DRC.
With the unsettlement there we had to go south before turning north and travel back up the other side of the pedicle. Diz and I have quite a history. It almost prompts me to say Once Upon a Time!
I was living in Atlantis – no not the Atlantis – but a crazy idea by the then Nationalist Apartheid Government to create an industrial and residential site for the coloured population of the Cape well away from Cape Town. It never really worked and still does not. However it was there on our doorstep. We technically lived in Philadelphia (not the one in the States) the actual village of which was quite a way away.
I was on the edge of very real poverty and had some copies of July Fever my novel that was first published in Durban in 1980 to wonderful reviews by the newspaper critics at that time. Flat broke I had the idea of selling copies. I called on this woman that I had heard about that prepared thoroughbred yearlings for the racing stable of a leading owner.
I arrived to find Diz, a large woman, trying to teach a very confused yearling how to go around the lunch ring in a circle without cutting corners, trotting on command, stopping on command. The yearling was not co-operating and Diz who I later discovered was an ardent Christian was swearing like a navy when the yearling did not understand and would then apologize to the Lord above and swear never to swear again until the yearling became yet again confused!
Seeing me she gave up the task and we retired to her little black wooden cottage. I explained what I had to sell and Diz took the monumental decision to buy the book instead of a packet of cigarettes! The only cash she had at the time. Our meeting forged a friendship that took us on many an adventure during which I learnt something of Diz’s life.
Diz was living on the copperbelt in Zambia when the country gained its independence. Her two daughters were still young and she deemed it better for them to move to South Africa. Diz had always been a horse lover and while in Ndola took part in the local show jumping circuit, her eldest daughter Sue doing well in the sport. Arriving in South Africa and settling on a small holding in Philadelphia she progressed to schooling thoroughbred yearling horses for their entrance into the racing stables.
This trip was embarked upon when Diz had returned to Zambia and was living in Kitwe. I was in the country compiling my guide to the country called Inside Zambia and had driven up to visit her. Diz was keen to go exploring and we took the Great North Road to the Chinese highway and across the large bridge spanning the Luapula River.
We stopped and bought chitenges; lengths of cotton cloth that the women use for skirts or to carry babies on their side like slings at the little shops surrounding the bridge. We could see people walking through the river apparently unafraid of crocodiles. The guard at the bridge told me that the crocs there did not attack here only further north.
The local people of the Luapula region refer to the grinding grooves to be found here as footprints of men who lived here when the rocks were still soft. The first reference was made by David Livingstone in 1874 who recorded that the people of the north shore of Lake Bangweulu identified them as footsteps of God but had no knowledge of their origin.
The best site of these grooves is in Kasamba stream at Kasoma Bangweulu village on the Lake 2 km south of Samfya. The site is a National Monument.
Onward ever onward in all some 260 kilometers and we left the highway turning onto a sandy track with cassava fields and mango trees. Finally we spotted a sign offering accommodation and although this lodge that I had heard about in Livingstone had not yet opened we were made welcome and settled into our little chalet.
So there we were on the shores of Lake Bangweulu! We sat beneath a thatched shelter and watched a lake steamer on its way to the islands when the nodding black heads of bathers in the shallow waters caught our eyes.
Like some distant dream a bevy of beautiful nymphs emerged from the azure lake and made their way to us, sporting only brief panties. They danced for us before dropping down to lie on their tummies giggling and chatting. A couple of them went off to get their craft ware and I bought the embroidered apron that you can see below.
We were reluctant to begin the return journey but wanted to visit the village where David Livingstone died some 10 kms from Kasanka National Park and 65 kms from the Great North Road.
We stopped at Kasanka first, famous for the hoards of large fruit bats that fly in each November and December. Nobody knows from whence they come. They arrive in their thousands at the start of the rainy season and their weight as they perch on the branches of the trees causes the branches to break! As the sun begins to set they take to the air and block out the sunset, such are their numbers! We were too early in the year but Susan and I and Shaun saw them a few years later.
The next day we set off to find the village where David Livingstone died. The turnoff was 10 kms north so we had to backtrack but found the track although at a fork we took the wrong turn and arrived at the Chief’s palace that was a brightly painted house. Backtrack again and we were on the right track. Some 25 kms further passing villagers about their day to day business of pounding maize in huge pestles in front of their gaily painted houses.
We arrived at Chipundu School where there was a signpost and we parked the vehicle. An old gentleman approached us to guide us to the monument that was no more than a dozen yards away.
This old man told us that his great great grandfather remembered Livingstone and in fact his heart is not buried beneath the monument but slightly apart where a mupundu tree used to stand and is marked by a simple cross.
The heart was buried here in 1873 by his loyal bearers Susi and Chuma who salted and dried his body and carried it over 1000 miles across incredible terrain through Tanzania to Bagamoyo from whence it was shipped to Zanzibar and then to England where it was buried in Westminster Abbey with full military honours on 18th April 1874.
The tree, feared to be diseased was cut down and transported to the Royal Geographical Society in London. There is however a cross in the Anglican Cathedral in Zanzibar that is said to have been made from the tree. I visited Zanzibar and saw the cross but there is no certainty about that legend.
What a wonderful trip with history every mile of the way!
I fell last week. I am waiting for a new hip from the government hospital but the waiting list is one year. I have nine months to go. Occasionally my right leg does not listen to my brain and fails to lift. So I fell on my boob of all things! Very painful, with the pain going right through to my back.
In this retirement village that I live in news travels fast. I was in bed nursing the pain when there was a knock on my window. Enter Eleanor with an ultra sound machine and a rose. “Mary sent this.”
Now Mary has had some sort of throat trauma and cannot speak. Eleanor spends a lot of time with her and Mary communicates on a Tablet. Mary also has a digestive problem and has to feed herself each day with a syringe. Meet Mary on any of the myriad paths in this complex and she always walks with purpose, always smiles. Bends down to pat Jack. Mary lives each day of her life. Unbelievable courage.
I have the rose in a glass next to my bed. I asked Eleanor to please tell Mary just how much I appreciate her gift.
Courage is everywhere in this complex where more women that men live. I never cease to marvel at how these women, after lives that encompassed much pain as well as joy continue to live each day as it comes, many of them giving time to charity. This year we had a craft exhibition and the variety and quality of the work was outstanding! That is not to say that the men don’t have those qualities, it is just that in the part that I live in there are many more women living.
My other precious gift some three years ago is Jack. I was earning extra money doing pet sitting and was at a local veterinary practice handing out printed notices of my services. The receptionist greeted me having read the note. “You have come at just the right time!” It appeared that a young couple with a toddler had bought a Dachshund puppy without checking whether they were allowed to keep a pet in their flat. They were moving to a proper house soon but in the meantime did not know what to do.
In next to no time a very small puppy was handed to me with his medical card. He had had all the necessary injections. I agreed to keep him for three weeks until the move. I climbed back into my car and settled the little man on my lap. His name I was told was Jack.
Now I had some shopping to do and did not want to leave him alone in the car. As it happened my daughter was staying with me at the time. So I went home, opened the door and handed Susan this little animal. “I am going to do the shopping and will be back soon. Will explain later!”
When I returned Susan told me that Jack had howled his lungs out at my disappearance! In those few minutes of sitting on my lap Jack had decided that I was his person! As the time came to hand him back I realized that he was so bonded to me that to send him back would be cruel. I consulted the vet who in turn consulted the owner who graciously told me to keep him and he would find another puppy for the family. Jack had found a home to his satisfaction!
Jack is well known and loved throughout the complex. He likes everyone, loves a few favourites and the staff always greet him. “Howzit Jack?”
One of my neighbours, Murray moved here only a week before her dear husband died. Murray somehow coped by joining the needlework group. She does the most exquisite embroidery. Jack and I often drop in for a chat. However a cat moved in, deciding that Murray had what was needed for any cat’s wellbeing. The cat lies indolently on the back of the sofa while Jack trembles at the end of his leash like some bloodhound on the trail! On the days that the cat is out on his rounds Jack lies exactly where he does! Occasionally he will sit on Murray’s knee surveying the world through the open doors.
Jack has one fault. He hates cats. When he was still a puppy I took him to Mozambique. We stopped overnight in Nelspruit at Mbombela Backpackers. Here two enormous dogs made a huge fuss over Jack so that he was covered by slobber!
However a large black cat that had the reputation of a Black Mamba snake killer lived there too. The Backpackers overlooked a vlei wetland that had tall elephant grass. Ideal Mamba cover. The black cat would stalk and kill this, the most poisonous and dangerous snake in South Africa. Very, very few people survive a bite.
The cat was on the kitchen counter and Jack gave a puppy bark at it. The cat flew to the ground and proceeded to hit poor Jack with a left and a right just as the line of a song I remember from my youth described! The song lyric ran like this: “Come on kid! Come on kid, hit him with left and a right!”
Jack also has the run of Heather’s house. Heather had to put her elderly Dachshund, Oliver down and loves Jack to pieces. Jack loves Pat. We cannot pass her house without him scratching for permission to enter. He makes a fuss of her and goes straight to her fridge, standing there in expectation!
One lady here has a severely handicapped son who visits occasionally and drives around in his little automated chair. Jack runs up to him and sits beneath his toes patiently allowing the man to rub him with his toes.
Barbara walks a lot and has offered to walk Jack when my hip gives trouble. Jack can spot her from a long way so I let go of the leash and he gallops up to greet her with much enthusiasm. He is happy to go and walk with her just giving a last look at me to get a double “Okay, go Jack!”
Jack and I had a routine for our walks. Early in the morning we would stroll so that he could read the newspapers on the due wet grass. At eleven we would take a proper walk for exercise. On a Tuesday I would attend art classes and come home in time for the walk. One Tuesday I was late and arrived at twelve. Now I enjoyed listening to a political commentator called Stephen Grootes at that time. So I settled with a glass of wine thinking to take Jack for his walk afterwards.
Jack had been restless with the disruption to his routine and in desperation jumped on to my bed and proceeded to bark angrily at Stephen Grootes’s voice emanating from the radio on my bedside table! I got the message!
Jack can get very angry at me. If he wants a second helping of chicken and rice and I refuse he sits in front of me the picture of indignation with his ears out, glaring, then with funny fierce barks registers his anger! If I tell him to stop he runs around in circles then recommences the performance until I am forced to dish out a little more!
I could go on and on but must be off to give a lift to a friend and thence to my son TJ and his wife Maud and their children Greg and Neve. Jack considers them part of his family and loves to visit! TJ will put this blog on the internet for me. It is useful having an IT son!
Sitting at my laptop on this miserable weekend in Jozie I am reminded of one such weekend when living in Langebaan on the West Coast of South Africa a good few years ago.
My sister Veronica and I set out on a blustery miserable spring weekend to see the flowers of the West Coast. The West Coast is renowned for its floral splendour in the spring when the winter rain has been good. Oh we hummed and ha-heed but in the end the picnic basket was packed and we were off, taking the coastal road to Elandsbaai or Elands Bay. (The Eland is the largest antelope in Africa and Baai is the Afrikaans name for Bay.)
Grey clouds accompanied us along wet roads with every flower hiding its light under a bushel. However we were intrepid in our search for a pleasant spot to drink a glass or two and eat our picnic and parked near the harbour at Elandsbaai awed by the fury of the waves crashing against the rocks.
Imagine our delight when a seal caught a wave, and, landing safely, promptly fell into his afternoon slumber. Just then a Kombi pulled up next to us and we became acquainted with our neighbour who owned Muisbosskerm, the outdoor eating restaurant on the beach near Lamberts Bay. We pointed the seal out to him and in no time we were into a heated discussion on the pros and cons of shooting seals for their supposed decimation of fish stocks.
Veronica and I took the stance that they had their place in the eco-system and nobody could say without any doubt that they were responsible for the demise of the fish stocks as there were a lot of factors involved. Our neighbour disagreed and a lively discussion ensued washed down with another glass of wine and friendly farewells.
We then made our way to the Elandsbaai Hotel where we were expected and made ourselves comfortable on the table and chairs outside braving the weak sunshine. These South African country hotels are few and far between but such good value where you can always find co-travelers to swap a tale or two with.
Later a walk on the beach found us chatting to some surfers in wet suits in pursuit of the right hand break that Elandsbaai is famous for. The cold Benguela current that hugs the West Coast does not deter these keen surfers.
Wandering back to the hotel we were told that there was just 10 minutes before their famous seafood platter was put before us. It was a feast to be remembered with the crumbed crayfish the star! We stayed the night listening to the sound of the crashing waves beneath cozy duvets.
Next morning we wandered out to the Sonskyn Kafee (Sunshine café) waiting for the sun to come out and tempt the flowers to open. Here we found a magnificent military type jacket bedecked with medals swinging from one of the beams. Mevrou, the owner, told us that it was her husband’s uniform when he was in the Eastonian Air Force. She had a book exchange and we picked up some reading matter.
Rounding the corner we came upon an old gentleman and his Jack Russel dog. He leant on his spade and regaled us with his grievances against the government taking his taxes whilst he had to clear the pavement of weeds himself!
Onwards on the coast road the flowers began to peep out. A woolly sheep gave us a thoughtful stare as her hoofs stood deep in the magical purple carpet of blooms.
Through Lamberts Bay where we could see the Cape Gannets in their white plumage with yellow heads and black marked beaks taking off and landing from the island. We drove past Graafwater (meaning water from a spade) with the sky clearing affording a magnificent view of the dam at Clanwilliam as we crested the last hill into the bustling town where stalls were everywhere and the info desk busy pointing out the vest viewing sites on the map.
After tea and lemon meringue pie in the gardens that were now at their magnificent best in orange, crimson, magenta and white we meandered off along the dam’s western shore stopping every now and then to gasp again at the pallet of colours nature had in her paint box.
We stopped at Citrusdal with the scent of orange blossoms in the hot still air where we bought fresh dates especially for Jamie Oliver’s sticky toffee pudding and a new cultivar of orange/naartjie (mandarin) that we were persuaded to try as it peeled easily, finding it delicious enough to buy a bagful.
As we rounded the corner on the Piketberg/Veldrif road the rain swept down again but we had enjoyed a marvelous two days that had paid off our eternal optimism, the unexpected highlight being the friendliness of the West Coast locals and the characters that we had met.
My new Book, Bring Me a Dream, will soon be available on KINDLE and AMAZON …
My friend Eleanor and I were off to Reitz to have a few days of art tuition with my first art teacher Denis Hilton Lees. Denis first taught me down on the West Coast some years ago and after a stint of five years in Taiwan teaching English, settled here in this farming town in the Free State of South Africa.
Along the road I tried to tell Eleanor about Denis and his family but in the end it was better to wait for her to find out herself. We arrived at around twelve to Denis striding to open the gate with a wide grin on his face. He ushered us through clucking Koek Koek hens to the kitchen where I introduced Eleanor to Laura and young Jessica and Benjamin amidst a few hens drawn in by the excitement!
Koek Koeks were bred in 1960 at the Potschefstroom Agricultural College by Chris Marais as dual purpose birds for laying and meat. They are easy to sex having distinctive marks.
The breed is in great demand and Laura breeds them, a clutch of eggs beneath the hen in the bathroom were due to hatch at any moment.
With wine and coffee for Eleanor, we repaired to the studio, an old double garage open to the elements with the valley and the town far below. A chicken run with rabbits hopping around was next door with beehives in the rear. Denis’s paintings and paraphernalia adorns the walls, music plays and we were into art talk immediately.
I had made my famous chicken liver terrine and brought bread and cheese and after a while we moved outside in the good weather to have a light meal next to the garden nursery that Laura has developed.
After lunch it was straight to work. Eleanor had brought a photograph copy of Table Mountain as seen from Blouberg Strand across Table Bay that she was keen to paint on a fairly large canvas. In next to no time Denis had persuaded her against copying it, to give it her own twist and Eleanor’s journey had begun.
I am busy trying to put onto canvas what it is like to be a writer and had done a canvas with him last time depicting the flight of ideas. Now I wished to express the loneliness of the writer. I described my idea and Denis just muttered “Crazy lady!”
Later we went off to Absolute B & B with a warm welcome from Johan and Marinda whom I knew, returning later for more art and the evening meal. I had cooked Babotie, a Cape Malay dish of mincemeat and mild curry and other spices with rice.
The Malay people were brought to the Cape as slaves to work on the new farms of the Dutch required to grow food for their ships plying to and fro from the Dutch East Indies. These people brought with them the spices of the east and their cuisine.
A bredie is a casserole of lamb pieces braised with onion and garlic and spices such as cinnamon and bay leaves layered with typically tomatoes or green beans but I chose to do it with butternut squash.
The following morning we were greeted by the news of little Koek Koeks having hatched except for one that was battling valiantly to peck its way out despite being the wrong way round. The hen had neglected to turn the egg. Laura helped by cracking the shell but left the sac as if she tore that, the chick would die. The little thing battled on and was finally out, very weak but with careful nursing recovered. Jessica has a name for each of the hens and the rooster.
Back to work with Benjamin’s drums beating out a rhythm accompanying us. The paintings progressed until a great noise on the roof distracted us. The rabbits had climbed up and were running up and down! Then Denis put on some music, electing a piano symphony and the whole flock of Koek Koeks rushed in to stand listening to the music!
This reminded me of a time when I was in Zimbabwe at the Victoria Falls. There was a new shopping centre near the falls and a restaurant with a stage where a band was playing live music. A small breeding herd of elephant were drawn to the music and stood feeding whilst they listened!
Driving down to the famous bridge the traffic came to a standstill while an enormous bull elephant made his way down the road ignoring the pesky motors and the bustle of cross border people until he found his path leading off the tar down to the forest! Lord of all he surveyed!
Our time flew by with the paintings emerging and Denis being Denis, a marvelous natural teacher and raconteur, until Eleanor asked him to help her with a painting she had in mind that featured a jar. So we had a lesson of how to draw an accurate elipse! Now I had only ever passed South African Standard Eight with arithmetic, never mind maths! Eleanor remarked that Denis taught us in half an hour what would have taken a week in University – she should know as she is a career headmistress! Wonder upon wonders this blonde head managed to understand the concept at least!
Eleanor has retired and is savouring her new found freedom by embarking on new interests and volunteering for new projects. She is at present revamping the library of a nearby school and has discovered a treasure of old books some of which have early South African history. I can’t wait to accompany her and get my nose into them!
Finally the day came before we were due to depart and photos were duly taken – see below with all Denis’s details for those in SA who would be interested.
We set off from Robertson, Cape Province, South Africa in Susan’s Opel sedan. Two women and four children, Jacques, Shaun, Michele and Ryan. I can’t remember their exact ages but the youngest was two and the oldest around nine. Our destination was the Northern Cape some 574 kilometres north set in the vastness of the Kalahari desert.
Nowadays it is called the Kgaligadi desert and is not a desert in the strictest sense of the word as it receives too much rain; some 5 to 10 inches annually. Early settlers called it the thirstland.
This desert is part of the 970,000 square mile Kalahari Basin that encompasses nearly all of Botswana and more than half of Namibia reaching southwards into the Northern Cape and Namaqualand. The Kalahari sand dunes are the largest expanse of sand on earth. This desert is home to the famous black maned lions and many other species such as the Gemsbok or Oryx an antelope ideally suited to the dry conditions. The Gemsbok has a carotid rete that acts much like a radiator and keeps its temperature down in this hot environment.
Our route took us across the karoo, a semi desert, on gravel roads through Calvinia where these days they have an annual festival at the end of August celebrating farming with livestock. August is the beginning of spring when the veld bursts into a kaleidoscope of colour. Food stalls abound with their specialty, sheep heads on the menu!
Onwards to Kenhardt. Along the road the rocks were black from the heat and Kokerbooms were silhouetted against the horizon. The San used to make their arrows from these strange trees. Here we stayed in a municipal flat and that evening the stars were like diamonds in the sky.
The following early morning in the bitter cold we took the children to see the famous Verneuk Pan (the word means trickery) where Donald Campbell attempted to break the land speed record on his famous Napier-Campbell Blue Bird.
Donald had a stressful journey to the pan as he lost his briefcase with important papers in it. Then he crash landed his aeroplane into a tree near Calvinia. Willem Louw was charged with the task of clearing the pan where puffadders and scorpions abounded. The temperature could rise to 42C in the shade. The track was supposed to be 16 miles long directly east to west and looked straight into the rising sun.
On the day of the Flash in the Pan attempt as it was named, was planned a tortoise was removed from the strip and named Blue Bird! After a few attempts with only one set of tyres left Donald took on the 5 kilometre (3 miles) record reaching 203 miles per hour (325 km). Donald eventually became the first man to exceed 300 miles per hour in Utah on land.
I can’t find the picture but well I remember the four children bundled up in winter woolies stand with the vast deserted pan behind them.
We then headed north to cross the Orange River. The River is called the Gariep these days, being the San name for it. It rises in Lesotho where it is called the Senqu and travels 193 kilometres to its mouth between the towns of Oranjemund and Alexander bay on the west coast of South Africa forming a border between Namibia and South Africa.
The river has many islands, some inhabited most irrigated and planted with vines. The canals that irrigate the lands wander in and out leading into Upington, the town that is the centre of this area. Upington harks back to 1870 when a chieftain from the Hottentot clan wanted his people to learn how to read and write. He appealed to the Cape Government for a mission station at Olyfenhoutsdrift and the Rev. Christiaan Schroder was sent to teach the people.
Rev. Schroder realized the potential of the river for irrigation and together with Japie Lutz lay building foundations and hand dug irrigation canals some of which are still there today. Later AD Lewis was the brains behind the canal system that supports this area along which grow vines for raisins and wine.
We took a photo of the kids standing on one of the bridges of the river, then climbed up to the Tier mountain, meaning leopard mountain with a view of the canal system and its vineyards. We stayed in an old farmhouse on Kanoneiland the largest river island in South Africa, a patchwork of vineyards and winding roads. We stayed in an old farmhouse with a communal kitchen and let the children lose to run wild while Susan and I had a sundowner or two.
The following day we took the children to Keimoes where we stopped to see the still working Persian water wheel used to keep the water moving along the canals in the old days. Onwards west to the Aurabies Falls in the Augrabies National Park on the Orange River where the water tumbles down steep rocky chasms to fall around 56 metres. The original Khoi name was Ankoerebis, meaning place of great noise.
Pofadder was our next stop and from there we visited Pella.
Pella is a mission station that has the most amazing Catholic Cathedral built in the mid 1880’s by French missionaries, J.M. Simon and Leo Wolf whose graves lie in the grounds. These Fathers knew nothing of building and consulted their enclyclopedie des Arts et Metiers which contained details of how to construct a building.
Within two years they finished it. It took more than 200 loads of sand, 400 wagon loads of stones, 200 000 bricks that they made themselves, 350 bags of slaked lime and hundreds of wagonloads of willow wood. Today this elegant sandy-toned Cathedral still stands as a tribute to the men of the order of St. Francis de la Sales.
When we arrived a nun welcomed us and took us into the wonderful building telling the story to the children. The mission grows dates and we left with a packet of these juicy fruits.
On impulse we decided to go to Onseepkans. This little settlement on the Orange River serves as a border post between Namibia and South Africa with traffic moving between Keetmanshoop and Pofadder.
Not a wise decision with a low slung sedan! The gravel road was rough, and taking a side track to see if we could get near the river we ended up in a of cul de sac, the sand too thick to reverse. Ahead lay a huge boulder and there was nothing for it but to drive onto this boulder in order to turn around! Full marks to the Opel although the undercarriage took some hammering as well as my nerves! The kids of course thought it very exciting! This called for a stop and a gin and tonic for Susan and a vodka for me!
So ended our first journey that left us with a taste and enthusiasm for more such adventures that did indeed follow over the years.
Returning to the lodge I had lunch and was approached by one of the waitresses. She asked me when I was due to leave. I replied that I would do so the next day. She then asked for a lift into Katimo Mulilo and promised to take me on a route that had firmer ground so that I would not get stuck. I willingly agreed.
I fell last week. I am waiting for a new hip from the government hospital but the waiting list is one year. I have nine months to go. Occasionally my right leg does not listen to my brain and fails to lift. So I fell on my boob of all things! Very painful, with the pain going right through to my back.
I have the rose in a glass next to my bed. I asked Eleanor to please tell Mary just how much I appreciate her gift.
Molly's Musings On Life And Travel 