colony of frogs who thought they were woodpeckers outside my hole in
Burgersfort. I was up early.
I love the early morning and not just in hot countries where it is a
refuge from the heat of the day. It was one of the things I really
used to love about rowing. The still cool air that carrying sound
unusually far, the flat water, the deserted streets and foxes doing
final checks making sure everything is set for the day ahead. Today of
course I would not be doing anything as relaxing as rowing. After a
two day prologue the polka dot jersey was being unpacked again for the
first time since the Bousua pass. Tonight my friends I would be
sleeping in Grasskop, high in the Drakensberg Mountains.
From what I'd been told I could expect a reasonable climb from
Burgersfort before dropping over into the next valley and travelling
north to a turn off to the east onto what South African calls 'The
Panorama Route'. Here the road climbs steeply up on to the cool
mountain escarpment before passing along the easterly edge of the
Blyde River Canyon (the third deepest in the world after the Grand and
the Fish River Canyons) before moving closer to the edge of the
escarpment proper and passing God's Window just before reaching
Graskop. God's window apparently affords stunning views to the east,
across the hot Lowveld and Kruger National Park and also theoretically
given perfect and almost unheard of atmospheric conditions the Indian
Ocean! Hmm, I've heard that one before.
I made slow progress out of Burgersfort due to seed collecting duties.
I'd seen plenty of new interesting plants with seeds yesterday but
sadly been forced to pass them by as a consequence of the time
pressure I'd been under. As I climbed higher the vegetation changed to
what is known as Afro-Montane. This was sometimes still quite arid,
but included more and more species of Aloe, some of which were really
quite massive and looked more like palms from a distance. There were
also quite a number of cacti, including the prickly pear which I'd
always thought was native to the Americas. Perhaps not, or maybe these
were feral cacti! my Mum's worst nightmare (she generally loves plants
but really hates cacti). Higher still there were tree ferns and beyond
these the landscape was dominated by grasses. Where there had been
recent water carpets of multi-coloured daisies sprang up, a little
like small tourism adverts touting the huge expanses of these plants
which i'm told you can find in the Fynbos of the Western Cape. If I
can get everything I collected this morning to grow into anything
resembling their parents my future home is gonna need a pretty
substantial conservatory!
Soon after cresting the first big climb I rolled past some old graves
of the Voortrekkers. The Voortrekkers is (as far as I'm aware) the
name given to the groups of Boers who migrated up from the tip of
Africa in wagon trains over a period of a few hundred years, some
penetrating as far north as Kenya. A similar process I guess to that
occuring at the same time across North America towards the Pacific.
These people were no longer agents of any imperial European power, but
were becoming as African as my Huguenot ancestors were English... which
was interesting, since as I walked around the grassy hillside reading
the names on the memorials to these old travellers, what did I find?
'Regina Elizabeth Dorey' Jacob de Villiers Dorey' 'Johanna Dorey' It
appeared I had Voortrekker relatives!
Perhaps this should not come as much of a surprise given the 'Doreys'
were Huguenots. The Huguenots were protestants who fled catholic
persecution in France (watch the film 'La Reine Margot' for a bit of
background on why) and ended up in protestant England and the
Netherlands, which I think is where, in turn the Boers came from
(Maria, I looked for 'Le Grand's, but couldn't find any, sorry). The
spelling these Doreys were using was also very interesting. They spelt
their names exactly the same way my family does. I'd always been told
Dorey is an anglicised version of Dore' (French for gold). If you look
in a telephone book there are a number of similar spellings such as
'Dory' 'Dorie' or 'Dorrie'. But the fact that here there were Boers,
which as far as I knew all came from the Netherlands, spelling their
names in the apparently anglicised fashion seemed to me to indicate
one of two things. Either my name was not actually anglicised, but had
already become Dorey before leaving France, or some of the English
Doreys had joined the Boers via the Netherlands or direct to Africa. A
genealogically intriguing morning.
I left the Voortrekkers on their grassy hillside and dropped down into
the quite hot valley below. This was obviously a very agricultural
region and I passed many fields with automatic sprinkler systems
irrigating the land. It was very much like rural France in the summer.
A nice suprise was that many of the sprinkler systems seemed not to
have been set up properly and many were spraying onto the road. I was
able to take quite a few a nice cool showers (actually I'd say more of
a soaking) by choosing the right side of the road and timing my
passage to resonate with these complimentary fountains.
In spite of my frequent mobile douchings traveling down the valley was
pretty hot work and I eventually pulled off at a nice little place
called the old shoe. This was in the grounds of a lovely old house
with plenty of tall shady trees. The girl at the counter was very nice
and in addition to cooking me up a cheeseburger and a bowl of ice cream
(as the fireman ordered) was able to tell me lots about the local
Doreys. She wasn't sure of their Intra-European history, but said
there were plenty still about living today and that many of them used
my surname as a first name. One of her friends was called 'Dorey
Burger'. Tasty stuff eh?
Whilst I was there I also met a great guy who stopped by on a
motorbike. He was called Johan Schwanepol and was From Centurion (just
north of Johannesburg). He was touring Mpumalanga for a few days and
was also staying in Graskop so we planned to met up later. Sadly I
eventually had to leave. it was time to put my growing confidence in
my fitness to the test. We were now heading up into the Drakensbergs
proper. The stop at the Old Shoe had fully fuelled my furnaces and I
was ready to see what this baby could do.
The climb was long and in parts quite steep but there were no stupid
Bosua gradients. This was civilized stuff. An hour and some stunning
views later the road leveled out and I was cruising along the top. I
felt like a fully fledged machine, which could now take on anything
Africa could throw at me. It was much cooler up here, but I was fair
boiling from the climb and stooped for some cool drinks. Thus turned
out to be a great decision, since I met a great chap called Nick. He's
from the UK too, but was out here on business working for Birdlife
International who work to help link together national ornithological
organisations. He told me Kruger is one of the world's bird
biodiversity hot-spots and that I should try to visit it if possible.
Duely noted. After half an hour I had to press on, hopefully I'll see
Nick back in the UK
The road continued following the edge of the high escarpment. As I
rode I thought to myself how easy it seems to make friends when
traveling. Perhaps it's just you're more likely to meet people with
similar interests when engaged in an activity you enjoy. And I was
certainly enjoying myself now. Again, I think a lot of this is due to
fitness catching up with my demands plus my new hobby of eating
everything I laid eyes on (small children beware!). Certainly (if you
include the gradients) the daily exertions weren't exactly getting
much easier. On top of this today would be the eighth day in a row on
the bike. I'd ridden over a week without a break. I was looking
forward to the rest day tomorrow, but to be honest didn't feel like I
actually really needed it.
I won't bore you with long descriptions of the amazing views I saw
that afternoon suffice to say they were amazing, particularly the Drei
Rondavel. I have pictures I will post. Promise.
...unfortunately the afternoon wasn't just about great views and cool
grassy mountaintops. Once more zero was reset and Africa decided the
best place to put a mountain range was on top of a mountain range.
After spending the day sightseeing and chatting to new people
expecting to cruise along a flat escarpment I was now climbing again.
As followers of the blog will now know this meant slower speeds and
yup, night riding. This time I wasn't worried though. I had a place to
stay and Graskop was known as a nice place (too high for stabbists I
guess). As the sun began setting behind even higher peaks to the west
I began passing conifer plantations (I think someone once told me this
area has the largest artificially planted forest in the world). It was
quite strange. The landscape started looking more and more like
Northern England or Scotland (also scarred by similar plantations).
The unusually early blotting out of the sun's direct rays by the
mountains even simulated the protracted dusk i'm used to at higher
latitudes. As the light progressively failed even the odd startled
duiker beside the road could easily be confused with a roe deer. The
occasional aloes and tree ferns or troops of Baboons (who had by now
moved up into the trees for the night and threw sticks and screamed at
me as I passed) were the only reminders I was actually still in Africa
not Alba.
I reached Graskop after seven and found the place I was staying. The
guy running the place was a great guy (more about Dr Havenparper's
Afrikaner double tomorrow) and showed me where i would be staying. It
was an old railway equipment store which had been kitted out like a
little house but even better than that was shaped like an igloo! How
cool it that?! An African mountain igloo!
It felt great lying back to sleep in my igloo in this high grassy
citadel up in the cool mountains (it even had an electric blanket!)
looking forward to a relaxing day off tomorrow.
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