MEMEL 1

Clive: “Time for a beer.” Us: “Where?” “Clive: “Memel.” A ride is born.

Memel (“MERE-mill”) is a Flemish name for a village in the Natal interior, Natal being a province of South Africa. Memel is near the town of Newcastle. Memel, Newcastle, Hanover, Amsterdam, Adelaide, East London – isn’t it scandalous how the Poms and Euros nicked our South African place names?

I resolve not to get caught in that trap where, the day before departure, a score of urgent last-minute will come up. This time I pack early. Surely enough, up come all the urgent tasks. I work them through, and pat myself on the back. Aren’t I clever? Almost. That last motion of strapping the luggage down comes easily, when you’re practised. Get out of practice and you always have to do it twice. So once again, as departure time nears, I’m watching the clock and hoping I get to the RV in time.

I do indeed. And there they wait. “They” are:

• ·         CLIVE – Triumph Scrambler.
  
• ·         BRUCE – KTM 790.
  
• ·         STEFAN – Indian 1800
  
• ·         MICHAEL – Tiger 800.
  
• ·         CHRIS – Bonneville 1200.
  
• ·         Yours truly – Bandit.  
  

Off we eff, through Johannesburg’s traffic, onto the N3 highway, and head towards the town of Heidelberg, once the capital of the Transvaal Republic. The Transvaal Republic became a province of South Africa, and then got chopped into half a dozen small provinces for gerrymandering purposes when the old apartheid days ended and the new apartheid days began.

Departing the highway at Heidelberg and riding east takes one along the delightful road running past the towns of Balfour and Greylingstad.
The veld (“felt,” field; bush) is nice and green.  There hasn’t been much rain this summer. El Nino and El Nina, Spanish for “The Child” in masculine & feminine forms respectively, are the names of low and high pressure systems over the Atlantic. El Nina, the high pressure system, is a honey. She brings us the warm, wet summers we’ve enjoyed for the last few years. Unfortunately, her delinquent brother, El Nino, the low pressure system, is in business from this year on. The warm, wet summers are over. Hot, dry summers are our lot. Add the cANCerous South African “government’s” (African National Congress, or cANCer)  inability to maintain infrastructure, and even in wet weather they can’t supply enough water for the city and its environs.

Even without much rain, it’s pleasantly green. The road winds gently through peaceful countryside. To our left, a landmark farm dam that used to be my routine roadside stop in the good old bad old days. I’d pull my BMW Boxer, a museum piece even then, to the side of the road, light a smoke, and gaze at the scenery. I quit smoking donkey’s years ago, but I still gaze at the scenery. If you want to quit smoking visit www.whyquit.com. It’s free.
The road is superlative. Glass smooth, freshly marked, gently sweeping, and offering visibility deep into the bends. It invites South African speeds, and we take up the invitation. In the demolition derby that is South Africa, we get away with speeds that would land you with a criminal record in a first world country.

Standerton. In anno 1958, a weary commercial traveller pulled up to the Standerton Hotel to book in for the night. The desk clerk had been expecting him. You’ve just become a father, the desk clerk advised. The traveller leapt into his two-tone cream-&-red Chev and raced back to Johannesburg’s Florence Nightingale Clinic. “Where is he?” he demanded breathlessly. “Third from the left,” replied the nurse. Horrified, the traveller begged, “oh, NOI! Not that one? Little horror, just look at it! Can’t we arrange something? I give you a couple of bob and you swap it for the one next to it?”   “Not happening,” said the maternity ward nurse, “all the other parents already paid me to make sure you don’t try it.”

The little horror was me.

Completing the circle, in my 60s I briefly return to the town where my late father first learnt of my arrival.

Volksrust means “Folk’s Rest,” referring to a nation, not a parent. Up to here the road is great. As we swing towards Newcastle it begins to deteriorate. And from Newcastle to Memel, we are reminded this is ANC country. There are sections where there is literally more pothole than road; where you actually track the bits of tar between the potholes.

The village of Memel comes into view. We park at a quaint (to me; the lads weren’t impressed) hotel, unpack, park off for a drink at the saloon, yes, saloon, and set off for a walk around the town.


Who's a pretty boy, then?

In the good old bad old days, the Afrikaner volk were religious, to the point of superstitious. Every town centre is dominated by an imposing looking church. Memel’s church is beautifully kept. What attracts our attention is the plaque in front, commemorating some of the village’s young men who fell in 1914.

But they didn’t fall in the fields of Flanders.

The Afrikaners are descendants of Dutch settlers who first dipped their toes in the surf off Africa’s southernmost Cape in 1652. The Afrikaans language itself is a heavily accented daughter of Dutch. The Afrikaner nation was badly mauled after its loss to the British in the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War. The collective Afrikaner psyche was ingrained with a loathing of the British. When, in 1914, the government announced South Africa would be siding with Britain in what was to become the Great War, there was insurrection in parts of South Africa. The citizens the church’s plaque commemorates were not soldiers sent to fight the Axis, but Afrikaners rebelling against taking sides with the hated British. A generation later, Afrikaners were still divided when the Union of South Africa again sided with Britain. To this day the British sneer at the South Africans who were locked up for sympathising with Germany, but Britain’s role in fomenting that sentiment gets swept under the carpet. The Afrikaner wasn’t so much pro-German as anti-British. He’d have sided with the Martians if Mars had gone to war against the British.

There’s not much signal in Memel. There’s not much of a menu at Memel. There’s not much electricity at Memel (or in the whole of cANCerous South Africa,) as the Memel Hotel can’t afford solar.

What there’s plenty of in Memel, though, is brandy & Coke, the favourite local libation. I bag their last couple of bottles of red wine, and tell the barman to bring glasses; everyone is sure to wind up having some. I called it right. By the time the evening is over, so is the wine supply. The delighted chief cook & bottle washer will race off to his supplier at nearby Newcastle the next morning to restock. The food arrives, and while it’s not especially impressive, you take what you can get.

Tomorrow’s routes are already mapped out. Something I love about riding with these okes is that they all have GPS and helmet comms. All I have to do is follow the tyre in front of me. It magically does all the work.

Night falls. Land Cruisers, de rigueur among the local farmers, draw up outside and disgorge khaki-clad young men looking like the cast of a Texas ranch movie. Banter fills the hotel’s pub as pool and darts get the weekend off to a rolling start.  

The evening wears on. We wobble off to our rooms to recharge for tomorrow’s riding. Memel’s well-maintained dirt roads are a favourite for the adventure boys, while there are winding passes on the rim of the Drakensberg, the Dragon’s Back Mountains, for us road jockeys.

Nestled in the gently rolling hills where Natal and the Free State meet, the peaceful village of Memel closes its eyes for the night.
 
Regards
Stan L
South Africa

Hi Stan, I've been away, but will catch up on your adventures soon. I too have no coms or music in the helmet. The voices in my head & the sound of the Yoshi is enough.