Op die groot saai dag van die heelal
(On the big day of seed planting)
Het reeds ‘n entjie duskant Wupperthal
(Just beyond Wupperthal)
Oor die kaal Noordweste
(Across the barren Northwest)
‘n sakkie van die Here se beste
(a small packet of the Lord’s best seed)
Saad per ongeluk gelek, gelek en uitgeval
(Accidently leaked and fell out)

I came across this bit of a poem by DJ Opperman this past week, in an old church building in Clanwilliam. Clanwilliam is one of those dorpies that I could visit five times a year, and still, I will find something about it to like. Our first visit to Clanwilliam was 4 years ago. Oldest Son & Wifey had just celebrated their wedding, and Colin & I decided that having travelled so far to the Cape for a wedding, we would road trip back. Our car took us to Clanwilliam. I am surprised that the town allowed us back in, after the last visit when we disrupted the peace of the town. The first upset we caused in the town, was over a flower box, the second involved a graveyard.

After the wedding, as we were packing up our extremely overloaded car, the last thing to go in was a wooden box of succulents. These little plants were lovingly propagated and boxed up by new Mother-in-Law for the wedding, and there was just no way that we could hit the road without this floral offering. So, there we were, road tripping with a box of “Shrek Ears”. After checking in at the Clanwilliam Hotel for 2 nights, out came the flower box to enjoy 2 days’ worth of sun and fresh air. The flower box was truly very attractive, in fact so attractive that the folks in the hotel room next to ours complained to management because they did not have a flower box on their balcony and why were the people in room 6 given preferential treatment? To keep the peace, flower box was put back into the car.

I have a fascination with old town cemeteries. For someone who hardly passed her matric history paper (Some teachers have a lot to answer for, thankfully he did not manage to obliterate my love of history forever), I do have a very keen interest in history. You want to know the history of a town? Walk through the cemetery.  Next to the Clanwilliam Hotel is an Anglican Church. The yard around the building, which I could see from the hotel room window, had several interesting graves in it. And this is where we created the second upset. The church yard was locked, and the only way I could get in to see the graves (turned out it was graves of Scottish soldiers that died during the Boer War) was by climbing over the wall. My poor, long suffering husband (you can imagine who carried the brunt of this expedition) and I climbed over the wall, and I was in my element reading gravestones. We arrived back at the hotel some time later, to a rather stern receptionist, who wanted to know our business of climbing over walls. The vicar spotted us and wasted no time in reporting the violation to hotel management. Really. They need to control their guests better. But fortunately, Clanwilliam has a short memory, and we were allowed back.

Every year between August and September, Namaqualand explodes into a floral wonderland.  The type of flowers you will see, depends on where you are. You do not have to like flowers to enjoy the spectacle. I am trying to think of the best words to describe the scenery, but I can’t trump what DJ Opperman said: a small packet of the Lord’s best seed fell and accidently leaked. Finding Colin amongst the floral carpet was easy. I just had to look for a denim clad bottom sticking up in the air. Colin spent 4 days, bum in the air, face flat on the ground, photographing the slightest of flowers. For once, I let him be. I was quite happy to wonder off on my own, mesmerized by the diversity and oddity of some of the flowers.

Whereas our previous road trip took us into the Karoo to towns such as Williston (if ever you travel to Williston, be sure to visit the “Mall”. Or google it. No. It is not a Mall in the true sense of the word. It is a once-off lifetime experience), this time we headed in the opposite direction. We had booked to stay at “Languedoc” in Lamberts Bay. Now, a name such as “Languedoc” deserves a Google search. Had we been in France, it would have referred to a historical coastal region in France, somewhere close to the border with Spain. In Lamberts Bay, Languedoc has a completely different meaning, something along the lines of: Unless you break really hard, you will find yourself in the sea. In this tiny little town, we stayed in an authentically quaint Lamberts Bay house where we would fall asleep with the sound of waves in our ears and the smell of gannets in our noses, but somehow, in this setting, it smelled of West Coast – that little strip of land where so many of the heavenly seeds dropped. There we were, doing what we like doing best: exploring another dorpie. The town is known primary for fishing, lobsters, and its huge, smelly Cape Gannet population. In no travel guide, however, will you find the highlight of the town: The old man with his tortoises! This is where I lost my heart. On one of our walks, we happened to bump into a very friendly local who was only too happy to give us a spur of the moment tour of his multi-species tortoise family. Holding 3 little “rolling stones” in my hands, was priceless. That is until they piddled all over me, and as with any baby that had an oopsie, I was happy to give them back to their human. Baby tortoises, like baby elephants and rhino, are just born looking old with their wrinkled necks and bandy legs.

You reach a stage, where the flowers just blur into white space. Human eyes can only take in so much. We were traveling back roads – flowers do not grow too well on highways. Allowing our eyes an occasional break from flowers, we saw wild watermelons (locally known as Makataan, very good when preserved into jam) growing close to the ground. Yup. The car was stopped, and Colin was sent to pick one. We saw far too many cattle and sheep. We popped in at Darling for lunch at Evita se Peron. Here, Tannie Evita assembled the biggest load of “Africana-Kitsch,” where you can spend hours reminiscing about some of the items displayed. Those you remember from your granny’s house, and those you would rather not remember. Have you ever wondered where all the old presidents’ portraits disappeared to? Go visit Darling, you will find them there.

We were not quite ready to return to Botrivier routine just yet. It gets very windy here in the late afternoon which makes walking rather unpleasant. Today was a bit of an exception and off we went to go see how Beautiful Beaumont is doing. What a surprise awaited us. The almond trees are in full bloom. Apple and pear trees are showing buds, which surely will burst into life any day now. The vines are sprouting new green leaves. The season is indeed turning.

But too soon, we had to come back to yet another round in the ring with Eskom. This one ended on the ropes. Who knows. Maybe one day soon, someone will drop a small packet of heavenly Megawatts onto Eskom’s offices so they too can see the light.