CAPE 4
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CAPE 4
Stan L Sat 16 Jul 2022, 11:06 pm
The Bandit follows the little Hyundai through the peak-hour traffic of Cape Town. Behind the wheel, guided by her smart phone, the missus does the navigating while I follow.
If dilapidated Johannesburg is enough to make the most dedicated optimist give up South Africa, Cape Town is the tonic. The Western Cape, a province free of the dreadful African National Congress (ANC), is like a different country. This is Democratic Alliance (DA) country. Everything works.
Unfortunately, that includes the traffic cops. We keep to speed limits.
We spend the next couple of days touring wine estates and sites of interest.
Massive guns were emplaced during one of the world wars, I’m not sure which, to proof False Bay against marauding German U-Boats. Upon handover in 1994 these guns were in mint condition. As we note with disgust, it wasn’t long before the New Order’s capable hands rearranged matters. Today your Gran could invade South Africa with a canoe and a sharpened umbrella. The DA won the Western Cape from the ANC in about 2006, but by then the damage was done.
The guns that kept marauding U-Boats away from Cape Town were in mint condition until handover in 1994. Today they lie in rusted neglect, much of the machinery stolen for scrap metal.
Thick cloud tumbles over Table Mountain, Cape Town’s iconic landmark, known colloquially as The Mountain. The cloud is called the tablecloth, and there’s a story to be told about it.
Let's wind the clock back...
18th century Dutch pirate Jan van Hunks (“Yun fun Hunks”) has retired (a pirate retired!) in Cape Town.
Van Hunks is the terror of the city. His foul temper is as notorious as his noxious pipe-tobacco mix, the fumes whereof nauseate all within, erm, noseshot. Nobody, but nobody, stands up to Van Hunks.
There is, in turn, one person Van Hunks never stands up to, and that would be his diminutive wife.
One day, some daring soul tells Van Hunks he really is as bad as the Devil.
The tavern goes quiet.
Normally, within seconds the accuser would lie unconscious, if still alive, on the floor.
But something about his tone gets through to Van Hunks.
Exiting the tavern, Van Hunks repairs to the supposed safety of home, only to be kicked out by his wife. Still busy with the housework, she gives him a piece of her mind and warns him to stay out of her way.
A dejected Van Hunks skulks off in search of a place of solitude to lick his wounds.
Climbing the mountain, he perches on a rock and gazes down upon the bay as he begins tamping his pipe.
A stranger approaches.
Despite the summer heat the stranger is dressed in black from head to… hoof.
The stranger greets Van Hunks and dares him to try a new tobacco blend.
Van Hunks accepts the challenge, smokes, and demands the stranger now try his.
Rising to the challenge, the stranger lights up, gags, gasps for breath, and sets out to mix a stronger still blend with which to fell Van Hunks.
The two set about furiously blending and stoking their acrid mixes, each striving to overwhelm the other.
And to this day, Van Hunks and the Devil are at it, thus accounting for the clouds that roll in over Table Mountain.
The mountain adjacent to Table Mountain is indeed called Devil’s Peak.
No ailment a nice glass of anaesthetic won't cure.
I begin going green about the gills.
Following suit, the missus too begins going green about the gills.
I, in my weak state, have to get her, in her weak state, to the airport to catch her flight home. I must then get my rear tyre replaced for the trip home.
Some hours later, she calls. Croaking weakly, she informs me after landing she went to the quack and tested positive for Covid.
Her doctor (actually, doctorette, and a cute little doctorette indeed) says if Wife has Covid, I too must have Covid.
If I did, it passed quickly. I was indeed man down for a day or two, then surfaced, snotty and leaky but generally serviceable.
But one and a half thousand kilometres separate me from my wife. Like Van Hunks’ tobacco mix, any illusions of taking a scenic route home go up in smoke. I have to get home fast.
Early the next am I bid farewell to my host. He rambles directions on how to get out of the city. Pretending I understand, I climb aboard the Bandit, thumb the button, and roll. (The hardest part was saying goodbye to his big, golden-hearted dog.) Down the pass, a last look at beautiful Cape Town from above, and into the traffic tangle of the enviable city.
Unlike Johannesburg, Cape Town isn’t ringed by a freeway system; it takes a solid hour to work my way onto the N1. Every few minutes I have to stop and consult the navigation app. Must do something about a 2020s navigation device.
The Bandit weaves its way onto the open road and begins the climb up into the Karoo. Semi desert? Feels more like tundra. It’s only March, yet it’s wintry and cold.
The Bandit is a comfortable mount; dangerously comfortable at times. In the sub-140 band she feels quite ordinary. As speed climbs north of 150, she gets into her sweet spot and just glides along, feeling like an airliner in a turbulence-free sky. I glance at the speedo. Its big-digit, suitable-for-sixtysomethings readout shows 174 km/h. Careful, oke, this isn’t the broken part of South Africa; this is the Cape! Here they’ll lock you up, tow the key out to sea, and sink it! Easing back to more-affordable-if-caught speeds, I let my eyes take in the Cape mountains all around me. After stopping to cough up a toll, which I don’t mind so much in the Cape but resist like Ukraine-vs-Russia in the rest of the country, I enter the 4 km long Huguenot Tunnel.
It’s warm and European-looking in the tunnel. After some time a pinprick of light appears and the end of the tunnel comes into sight. Emerging from the tunnel, the Bandit winds its way through the gently curving N1 running along the valley floor between the unmistakably Cape mountains. I am once again in the cold. Calculating time and distance, I’ve got a long ride ahead before I can claim my lamb-chops-and-vinho reward at Colesberg tonight. My lengthy exit route from Cape Town means I will arrive late. At least I know where I’m booking in. No five-bloody-kilometre dirt roads.
I’ll spare you the pronunciation tutorials, but the road takes me through the villages of Kleinstraat, Touws River, touristy Maaitjiesfontein, and onto Laingsburg, the butt of unkind jokes years ago when unexpected flash flooding had people referring to it by an Afrikaans name that means “seeking each other”.
Out on the open road I once again contemplate how amazingly reliable modern motorcycles (2007 is modern) are. With that wonderfully reliable fuel injection, that wonderful X-Ring chain and those wonderful tubeless tyres, I can confidently launch into the Karoo, comfortable the dependable Bandit will catapult me from the bottom left of the country to the top right without skipping a beat. As an ex-BMW convert I am neurotic about chain maintenance, but this modern stuff has won me over. Sans bevels or CV joints, X-Ring chains are arguably even more reliable than shafties.
As these thoughts drift through my head, the line of tarmac threading into the distance becomes blurred. Not from heat, nor from rain, but from another cause altogether. Across South Africa, an infestation of locusts has broken out. Quite appropriate in Exodus, perhaps, but bizarrely out of place on a road trip. The swarm sweeps across the road in a near-solid column. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! The little bastards smash into the helmet and visor like bullets. With a plasticky CLUCK-CLUCK-CLUCK they hammer the screen and fairing. Even through the jacket, gloves and boots I feel the locusts crashing against the leather. The impact is so hard I wonder if Bandit and rider will emerge free of damage.
A full kilometre later I emerge from the cloud of locusts and pick up the pace. The remote town of Leeuw-Gamka serves as a fuelling stop. Tank full, I get back onto the N1. Another half hour’s ride sees Beaufort West, sounding more glamorous than it looks, loom in the distance. Through Beaufort West and on to the village of Nelspoort, before the mountain profile of Three Sisters comes into sight, providing a lunch stop op. Three Sisters is a village at the foot of a trio of mountains.
Belly and tank attended to, I resume the journey, setting course for the lonely town of Richmond.
I have a fond memory of Richmond from a previous trip. On that trip I overnighted at Richmond and patronised its matchbox-size restaurant whose name translates to The Green Lantern. The menu, chalked on a blackboard on the wall, consisted of all of three items. I made my selection, accompanied by a bottle of red that was nearly frozen when delivered. Shrugging, I told them to leave it on the table until the food arrived. The food took a solid hour to reach the table. As it happens, I was in anything but a hurry; one corner of the restaurant had been turned into a quaint little library and, browsing through it, I chanced upon an American encyclopaedia from the 1880s. I got so engrossed in it, when they apologetically called me to the table I actually wished I could spend another hour immersed in the yellowed book. By now, however, the wine had come up to room temp, and my abdominally-headquartered eating department was more than receptive to traditional Malay stew I had ordered.
But today, Richmond will slip behind my left flank and recede in the mirrors. Colesberg lies up ahead. It has comfy accommodations and good restaurants, and will facilitate an early launch for tomorrow’s homecoming.
My choice of the Herb Garden Guest House is automatic. It’s now my regular, and gets better every time I stay there. I expect to be impressed, and impressed I am.
Tonight I will dine at Inni Kraal (In The Laager). Tomorrow I will do what should, but won’t, be an easy six hour run home.
Tell you about it next week.
Regards
Stan L
South Africa
If dilapidated Johannesburg is enough to make the most dedicated optimist give up South Africa, Cape Town is the tonic. The Western Cape, a province free of the dreadful African National Congress (ANC), is like a different country. This is Democratic Alliance (DA) country. Everything works.
Unfortunately, that includes the traffic cops. We keep to speed limits.
We spend the next couple of days touring wine estates and sites of interest.
Massive guns were emplaced during one of the world wars, I’m not sure which, to proof False Bay against marauding German U-Boats. Upon handover in 1994 these guns were in mint condition. As we note with disgust, it wasn’t long before the New Order’s capable hands rearranged matters. Today your Gran could invade South Africa with a canoe and a sharpened umbrella. The DA won the Western Cape from the ANC in about 2006, but by then the damage was done.
The guns that kept marauding U-Boats away from Cape Town were in mint condition until handover in 1994. Today they lie in rusted neglect, much of the machinery stolen for scrap metal.
Thick cloud tumbles over Table Mountain, Cape Town’s iconic landmark, known colloquially as The Mountain. The cloud is called the tablecloth, and there’s a story to be told about it.
Let's wind the clock back...
18th century Dutch pirate Jan van Hunks (“Yun fun Hunks”) has retired (a pirate retired!) in Cape Town.
Van Hunks is the terror of the city. His foul temper is as notorious as his noxious pipe-tobacco mix, the fumes whereof nauseate all within, erm, noseshot. Nobody, but nobody, stands up to Van Hunks.
There is, in turn, one person Van Hunks never stands up to, and that would be his diminutive wife.
One day, some daring soul tells Van Hunks he really is as bad as the Devil.
The tavern goes quiet.
Normally, within seconds the accuser would lie unconscious, if still alive, on the floor.
But something about his tone gets through to Van Hunks.
Exiting the tavern, Van Hunks repairs to the supposed safety of home, only to be kicked out by his wife. Still busy with the housework, she gives him a piece of her mind and warns him to stay out of her way.
A dejected Van Hunks skulks off in search of a place of solitude to lick his wounds.
Climbing the mountain, he perches on a rock and gazes down upon the bay as he begins tamping his pipe.
A stranger approaches.
Despite the summer heat the stranger is dressed in black from head to… hoof.
The stranger greets Van Hunks and dares him to try a new tobacco blend.
Van Hunks accepts the challenge, smokes, and demands the stranger now try his.
Rising to the challenge, the stranger lights up, gags, gasps for breath, and sets out to mix a stronger still blend with which to fell Van Hunks.
The two set about furiously blending and stoking their acrid mixes, each striving to overwhelm the other.
And to this day, Van Hunks and the Devil are at it, thus accounting for the clouds that roll in over Table Mountain.
The mountain adjacent to Table Mountain is indeed called Devil’s Peak.
No ailment a nice glass of anaesthetic won't cure.
I begin going green about the gills.
Following suit, the missus too begins going green about the gills.
I, in my weak state, have to get her, in her weak state, to the airport to catch her flight home. I must then get my rear tyre replaced for the trip home.
Some hours later, she calls. Croaking weakly, she informs me after landing she went to the quack and tested positive for Covid.
Her doctor (actually, doctorette, and a cute little doctorette indeed) says if Wife has Covid, I too must have Covid.
If I did, it passed quickly. I was indeed man down for a day or two, then surfaced, snotty and leaky but generally serviceable.
But one and a half thousand kilometres separate me from my wife. Like Van Hunks’ tobacco mix, any illusions of taking a scenic route home go up in smoke. I have to get home fast.
Early the next am I bid farewell to my host. He rambles directions on how to get out of the city. Pretending I understand, I climb aboard the Bandit, thumb the button, and roll. (The hardest part was saying goodbye to his big, golden-hearted dog.) Down the pass, a last look at beautiful Cape Town from above, and into the traffic tangle of the enviable city.
Unlike Johannesburg, Cape Town isn’t ringed by a freeway system; it takes a solid hour to work my way onto the N1. Every few minutes I have to stop and consult the navigation app. Must do something about a 2020s navigation device.
The Bandit weaves its way onto the open road and begins the climb up into the Karoo. Semi desert? Feels more like tundra. It’s only March, yet it’s wintry and cold.
The Bandit is a comfortable mount; dangerously comfortable at times. In the sub-140 band she feels quite ordinary. As speed climbs north of 150, she gets into her sweet spot and just glides along, feeling like an airliner in a turbulence-free sky. I glance at the speedo. Its big-digit, suitable-for-sixtysomethings readout shows 174 km/h. Careful, oke, this isn’t the broken part of South Africa; this is the Cape! Here they’ll lock you up, tow the key out to sea, and sink it! Easing back to more-affordable-if-caught speeds, I let my eyes take in the Cape mountains all around me. After stopping to cough up a toll, which I don’t mind so much in the Cape but resist like Ukraine-vs-Russia in the rest of the country, I enter the 4 km long Huguenot Tunnel.
It’s warm and European-looking in the tunnel. After some time a pinprick of light appears and the end of the tunnel comes into sight. Emerging from the tunnel, the Bandit winds its way through the gently curving N1 running along the valley floor between the unmistakably Cape mountains. I am once again in the cold. Calculating time and distance, I’ve got a long ride ahead before I can claim my lamb-chops-and-vinho reward at Colesberg tonight. My lengthy exit route from Cape Town means I will arrive late. At least I know where I’m booking in. No five-bloody-kilometre dirt roads.
I’ll spare you the pronunciation tutorials, but the road takes me through the villages of Kleinstraat, Touws River, touristy Maaitjiesfontein, and onto Laingsburg, the butt of unkind jokes years ago when unexpected flash flooding had people referring to it by an Afrikaans name that means “seeking each other”.
Out on the open road I once again contemplate how amazingly reliable modern motorcycles (2007 is modern) are. With that wonderfully reliable fuel injection, that wonderful X-Ring chain and those wonderful tubeless tyres, I can confidently launch into the Karoo, comfortable the dependable Bandit will catapult me from the bottom left of the country to the top right without skipping a beat. As an ex-BMW convert I am neurotic about chain maintenance, but this modern stuff has won me over. Sans bevels or CV joints, X-Ring chains are arguably even more reliable than shafties.
As these thoughts drift through my head, the line of tarmac threading into the distance becomes blurred. Not from heat, nor from rain, but from another cause altogether. Across South Africa, an infestation of locusts has broken out. Quite appropriate in Exodus, perhaps, but bizarrely out of place on a road trip. The swarm sweeps across the road in a near-solid column. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! The little bastards smash into the helmet and visor like bullets. With a plasticky CLUCK-CLUCK-CLUCK they hammer the screen and fairing. Even through the jacket, gloves and boots I feel the locusts crashing against the leather. The impact is so hard I wonder if Bandit and rider will emerge free of damage.
A full kilometre later I emerge from the cloud of locusts and pick up the pace. The remote town of Leeuw-Gamka serves as a fuelling stop. Tank full, I get back onto the N1. Another half hour’s ride sees Beaufort West, sounding more glamorous than it looks, loom in the distance. Through Beaufort West and on to the village of Nelspoort, before the mountain profile of Three Sisters comes into sight, providing a lunch stop op. Three Sisters is a village at the foot of a trio of mountains.
Belly and tank attended to, I resume the journey, setting course for the lonely town of Richmond.
I have a fond memory of Richmond from a previous trip. On that trip I overnighted at Richmond and patronised its matchbox-size restaurant whose name translates to The Green Lantern. The menu, chalked on a blackboard on the wall, consisted of all of three items. I made my selection, accompanied by a bottle of red that was nearly frozen when delivered. Shrugging, I told them to leave it on the table until the food arrived. The food took a solid hour to reach the table. As it happens, I was in anything but a hurry; one corner of the restaurant had been turned into a quaint little library and, browsing through it, I chanced upon an American encyclopaedia from the 1880s. I got so engrossed in it, when they apologetically called me to the table I actually wished I could spend another hour immersed in the yellowed book. By now, however, the wine had come up to room temp, and my abdominally-headquartered eating department was more than receptive to traditional Malay stew I had ordered.
But today, Richmond will slip behind my left flank and recede in the mirrors. Colesberg lies up ahead. It has comfy accommodations and good restaurants, and will facilitate an early launch for tomorrow’s homecoming.
My choice of the Herb Garden Guest House is automatic. It’s now my regular, and gets better every time I stay there. I expect to be impressed, and impressed I am.
Tonight I will dine at Inni Kraal (In The Laager). Tomorrow I will do what should, but won’t, be an easy six hour run home.
Tell you about it next week.
Regards
Stan L
South Africa
Last edited by Stan L on Sat 16 Jul 2022, 11:18 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Typos)
Stan L- Posts : 107
Join date : 2020-01-06
Age : 66
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