by Joanne Glynn
We sit on the deck in the sun, watching giant gulls weave, timing the breakers between sets, and above the roar of the ocean we can hear others oohing and aahing as waves blast like water bombs on hidden high-tide outcrops. We’ve been sitting there for some time when we realise that we haven’t investigated the rest of the camp, so we wander over to the public areas. These turn out to be perched right on the mouth of the Storms River, which is pulled to the sea through a deep dark chasm. It’s wild, wonderful and untouched, and the feeling that something special is happening here affects everyone.
During the day car parks full of visitors arrive, and some go walking and some go splashing about on the tiny perfect little beach. We go for long walks, a boat trip up the gorge, and on the last afternoon we cut short a three-hour waterfall walk so that we can spend more time on our deck. As the last of the day-trippers disappear up the hill and the afternoon shadows grow longer and darker, a quiet, peaceful mist descends and the dassies come out on the grass to catch the last of the sun. They squeal to each other and race about the rocks, and later when it’s dark and cold, their calls carry over the thunder of the sea.
Sometimes it feels like we’re leading a charmed life. So much has fallen our way and so little has gone wrong that we’ve come to believe that all those warnings of doom and disaster were delivered out of jealousy, not concern. But there have been many near misses. As we approached Port Elizabeth we thought we’d drive in to Marine Drive to check out the beach and to look for a shopping mall with an ATM and Internet café. At the last minute we decided to drive on, and a couple of days later we read in the paper that a family of four were held up at knifepoint on Marine Drive and their car stolen. The perpetrators were later caught in a police sting, as this was their modus operandi, high-jacking fancy vehicles on Marine Drive. Then on page three is the news that a gang, again in Port Elizabeth, has been robbing people at ATMs and the last victim got shot in the stomach. Add to this, the plane crash in the Selous in Tanzania, the closing of the Serengeti due to flooding days after we were there, and Cyclone Flavio leaving Vilanculos flattened in our wake. The tail end of another cyclone hit Durban and Umhlanga Rocks four days after our visit, and all this on top of high autumn tides causing windows in Neil’s aunt’s apartment block to blow out and the road south being closed due to flooding. You have to admit that we’re leaving behind a trail of devastation.
MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW
The press here carries daily articles and letters to the editor about Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s slide into insanity. The statistics are sometimes incomprehensible. An inflation rate of 3000 per cent; four out of five people out of work; life expectancy one of the lowest in the world at 37 years for men and 34 for women; 3000 deaths each week from AIDS; and so it goes on. Some of Mugabe’s edicts are barely believable, like Operation Nyama announced early this year. In tacit acknowledgement that his people are starving, his cunning plan is for them to go out and kill the wildlife. Off you go — an elephant should keep you going for a week or two. Never mind that without animals there will be even fewer tourists, many of those lucky enough to still have work will be jobless and the input of foreign currency to the street economy will dry up.
The man has been out of control for years and any hope of him seeing reason has long gone, so now the South African press has turned their attention to his best mate, their own leader Thabo Mbeki. This man must have had some very good spin-doctors when he took office after Mandela. He was heralded as a quiet academic, a deep thinker who would, through diplomacy, honesty and subtle cleverness, take South Africa to further greatness. His performance since has been underwhelming and has disappointed both blacks and whites. Not only disappointed but embarrassed. Take the AIDS issue, for example. First, he proclaimed that AIDS wasn’t an issue at all, then that it may exist but wasn’t a problem in his country, and then his Health Minister got up in front of a world AIDS conference in Canada and told delegates that the disease can be cured with lemons, garlic and beetroot. As we travel through South Africa, it’s evident he’s becoming a joke and can’t control his party, the African National Congress, any more than he can break the ties that bind him to Mugabe.
As we head towards Knysna, the newspapers are full of the Zimbabwean police beating up Mugabe’s main opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe is unrepentant and somehow uses his tried and true argument of Britain not honouring its land reform obligations as an excuse for the beating. Similarly, Mbeki constantly plays the racist card whenever criticised, no matter that racism has nothing to do with the point at hand. It could be union corruption, government incompetence or a health issue, but you can be sure that white racism is the cause. When recently asked a question by a journalist regarding the culpability of one of his ministers, the response, wrapped around the statement that there are still whites who refer to blacks as kaffirs, left everyone scratching their heads.
Great news! Donald, one of the Troopy’s admirers has agreed in principle to buy. There has been much to-ing and fro-ing, the price has been reviewed, things excluded being included, convincing, cajoling, but now our friend in Namibia has come good. It’s not quite a done deal yet, as he’ll have to establish the legalities of buying an Australian-registered vehicle that is travelling on a carnet, while at the same time trying to minimise the high duties that will apply. But he wants it, and badly. Neil’s confident enough to abandon the plan of sending the Troopy home and cancels the shipping container, but still, in the back of his mind is that old salesman’s maxim of waiting until the money is in the bank before acknowledging that it’s in the bag.
Everyone who mentions Knysna speaks of it in glowing terms and confirms that it is a place where we must spend several days. Brochures show trendy shops, a beautiful wide blue lagoon and people canoeing through secret peaceful inlets. An image of a tranquil but upmarket holiday town has lodged in my head and I advocate staying a week, at least five days. We approach from the east and drive through a neat township with unruly shops, and a not-so-neat informal settlement. There are people all along the road hailing taxis, selling carvings, wanting lifts or handouts. A bustling place full of life and music. Up and over a hill and the first view of the main town shows a large lagoon with new, soulless estates on the shores and a low sand island jam-packed with uniform houses, and no greenery in sight. We can see a railway line running right across the water below, and up on the hills are massive, over-the top mansions that South Africa is so good at. These would easily house a dozen township families (let’s face it, they’d house two or three Australian families), but are most likely the home of one lone retired couple.
We’ve lost some enthusiasm for the place and head straight to Knysna Quays at the North Wharf. There we take a small apartment overlooking a canal and settle in. It’s quiet and the outlook is pretty but what sells us on the place, after weeks of hand-washing, is the presence of a washing machine and dryer. Downstairs in the complex there are boutiques, jewellery shops, an Internet café and restaurants, and an elegantly dressed transvestite is doing a roaring trade at a tarot table. Another time and we’d love it here, but we both seem to be unsettled, our mind on the immediate future and looking for something without being sure what it is. After just two days we pack up and move on.
The road westward out of town winds around the north shore of the main lagoon. It passes family bungalows with little dinghies in front and inlets with fishermen in tinnies floating in the reeds. This must be what people were talking about, a lazy fishing village before the developers and architects came to town.
The town of Wilderness sounds like it could offer what we’re seeking so we drive in with high hopes. Expecting a wilderness, we find a busy little hub squashed between the sea, the highway and the railway line. The beach foreshore is lined with those same grand houses that turned us off Knysna, but here they don’t dictate the heart of the town. We drive around for a couple of hours, looking for accommodation near the beach, but it’s school holidays and two days befor
e Easter, and we get turned away time and time again. As a last resort Neil phones a place that I’ve seen an ad for, not on the beach but off in the bush somewhere. Yes, they have a cottage and off we go into the hinterland, expecting a log cabin with a view of trees.
What we find is Clairewood, a wonderful, peaceful haven with a stylish cottage looking out over valleys of mist and blue tall mountain ranges. We’ve just walked in and we know we want to stay longer. It has everything; besides the view there are friendly dogs, a visiting old horse, well-thought-out interiors with the best bed we’ve slept in so far, a considerate host who very soon becomes a friend, a pack of marauding black baboons, and neighbours so far away that they might not be there. It’s so quiet that noise carries kilometres across the valley and the sound of someone calling in their dogs at a farm two hills away drifts across and weaves into our sitting room as if the dogs are here at our feet. Each day we ask to stay a day longer and each day we hang around the cottage, forgetting the walks and canoeing we’d talked about doing the night before.
Sweetness comes each day to clean and she embarks on a project to teach us Xhosa. Basic grammar and common nouns are interspersed with stories of her family and we gradually learn a little of her life. She left her husband when she discovered he was playing around, and she is training to be a natural healer because it’s a way of helping her people. She’s very religious. Easter Friday she spends six hours at the Zionist church, praying and singing to the beating of drums. When asked how far she must travel to the church she answers that it’s about an hour’s walk but if it’s raining she runs. No one could have been better named. Her gentle nature warms the days and generosity flows around her like a sea mist in a secret bay.
One morning there’s a hue and cry in the garden and we go out to find our host, garden boys and dogs trying to catch a runaway piglet. With the little pink porker in front they all hurtle about in diversionary directions, down a grassy slope one minute then into the undergrowth, followed by shouts and the sound of branches snapping and dead leaves cracking. But the funniest participant in the chase is the old horse who, tail out and neck arched, canters around behind the little pig, not letting anyone or anything else get close to it. No one’s seen him move like this in years, and afterwards he’s very pleased with himself and prances and dances about like a three-year-old.
The southernmost tip of the African continent lies in the Agulhas National Park, 170 kilometres south-east of Cape Town. It lies on the meridian of 20 degrees east and this meridian also marks the official division between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. Neil and I decide that we’d like to see this point, if for no other reason than to photograph each other with one foot on either side of the divide. When we arrive in the settlement of Cape Agulhas it’s sunny but blowing a gale. The town is treeless, under siege from the elements, only a place that fishermen would love. And fishermen there are, dozens of them lined up on the rocks, leaning into the wind with the spray whipping into their determined leathery faces. We head straight for the most solidlooking accommodation in town, the Agulhas Country Lodge, nestled into the fynbos in defiance. The wind is so strong that each time we venture outside we find another piece of hardware lying in the car park, blown off the exterior of the building. We take a drive to nearby Struisbaai to visit the National Heritage–listed thatched fishermen’s cottages, but it’s blustering too much to get out of the car. Instead we go to the harbour where we struggle against the force of the wind into a bar full of locals watching a Springbok–Wallabies match. No English spoken here. Neil goes to the bar and orders a beer in a low voice, trying to cover his Australian accent in a room full of Springbok supporters. I’m offered a stool by a gentlemanly young Afrikaner and I can’t figure out if it’s because I’m female, older then him, or if he’s picked up on my nationality and feels sorry for me.
Around the corner and beyond a lighthouse lies the national park, a broad coastal plain that looks stark and windswept under these conditions, and down on the nearby shoreline are ancient fish traps where some smart Khoisan generations ago worked out a method of stranding fish in a series of stone corrals after they’d been borne in on incoming high tides. We like this battered, historic corner of the country and despite the wind and the Wallabies’ loss we leave town the next day with a positive feeling, a sense that here is a place still connected to its past and a people who have learnt to live with the elements and thrive.
Our last port of call before Cape Town is Hermanus, one-and-a-half hours’ drive away. It’s a favourite seaside destination for Capetonians in search of a weekend away, but is more famously known as offering the best land-based whale-watching opportunity there is. Tourists from all over the world flock to these shores around the month of August to view the southern right whale at very close quarters. The town’s bays and inlets become one giant maternity ward as they harbour cows calving and mothers with their young, and cliff paths and vantage points overflow with expectant observers watching life played out in the waters just metres below their feet. One local puts a slight dampener on it though when she confides in us that, yes, it is wonderful and the whales are truly awesome, but ag, the noise, the crying and moaning as they give birth is heart-wrenching. She also tells us that the first of the northward-bound whales have been recently seen, four months out from the peak of the season. Just two on two separate days, but that’s enough to give us the whale-watching bug. From the verandah of our flat we gaze out to sea, hopeful of a splash and a flash of white, and we walk the cliffs daily peering down into the lonely inlets. But for the duration of our stay, the whales aren’t cooperating.
FULL CiRCLE
We’re back in Cape Town, this time staying in the suburb of Hout Bay on the Atlantic seabord while we wait to hear from Donald with confirmation that all is in place for his purchase of the Troopy. The little flat we’ve taken is away from the bustle of Hout Bay’s busy streets but close enough to pop down to the activity on the seafront. One of Cape Town’s major fishing fleets is based at the harbour here, and the red and blue boats of the Cape Coloureds, who have dominated the industry in the past, dot the water in this sweeping broad bay of great natural beauty.
On the way to most places we drive past Imizamo Yethu, a controversial informal settlement that has grown rapidly over the past few years to cover 18 hectares slap in the middle of luxury retirement homes and million-dollar mansions. As many as 20 000 people are said to be living here in makeshift shanties with little or no infrastructure such as plumbing or roads. A more striking example of the haves and have-nots living in precarious harmony would be hard to find.
In emails from home we’re often asked about the safety issue in South Africa, whether we’ve ever felt threatened or been in danger. I would have to say never, disregarding the credit card theft in those first days in Cape Town — and Neil has always put that down to a lapse in concentration on his part: he’d disregarded the first rule of drawing money from an ATM anywhere. The need for security is hard to ignore, with armed security guards, high fences and razor wire protecting everything from shops and car parks to public buildings and private homes, but you soon learn to look beyond that. On the surface, day-to-day life in South Africa is so like Sydney that it’s easy to miss the undercurrents. Passing through the country as visitors, we’ve been impressed by the infrastructure. The roads are excellent and we’ve found the post reliable. But when we read the papers and speak to people on the street we can’t ignore the fact that things are falling apart. The country has the second-highest murder rate in the world; hospitals are closing because they’re a danger to the public when they treat patients; and billions of rand are lost or stolen from government at all levels due to incompetence and corruption. Every day we read about another huge loss of public funds — recently one local government body made 1000 employees redundant, but their remuneration bill went up by over a billion rand because the council officials rewarded themselves for achieving such wonderful savings. The ANC government is trying t
o take control of the judiciary, and the country experiences blackouts because the staterun electricity network receives very little maintenance and has no forward planning. With so many other pressing issues facing the government, security seems to have been left in the hands of the individual.
We’re happy to be here in Cape Town, in what is arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but it’s a far cry from watching the sun go down over an endless yellow plain and waking to the warm embrace of the bush. We’re both feeling slightly odd; we’re in a neverland of neither coming nor going. Neil begins to talk of farewell lunches with relatives and friends and he starts thinking about the practicalities of going home. The floor of the flat is strewn with dog-eared airline print-outs and paperwork we’ve not looked at for almost a year. We have to remind each other that, although we’ve come full circle, the journey hasn’t come to an end.
To convince ourselves of this we plan a little trip, visiting the sights that we were too preoccupied to see when we were here the first time. The thought of this perks us up considerably and we set off for a few days down the Cape Peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope in a good mood but grey, drizzly weather.
The first stop is Simon’s Town. Although a naval base, it’s nevertheless a very pretty town in an old Victorian English seaside sort of way. The architecture is all sandstone, weatherboard and wrought-iron verandahs, and the original naval buildings look more manor house than institutional. Nearby is an African, or jackass, penguin colony on the shoreline at Boulders Beach, and the breeding season is in full swing. The surrounding fynbos is a hive of activity, with mating, nesting and home-building going on, and the sand is covered with happy families socialising and sunbaking with heads back, flippers open to the rays. Every now and then there’s a commotion in the undergrowth. The bushes quiver and shake and jackass brays start up, rise to a crescendo then die down as peace is restored. There are around 3000 little waiters here now, a far cry from the original two mating pairs of the early 1980s.
