Afternoon ride to Hermon.

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tok-tokkie

Race Dog
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Location
Cape Town
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Yamaha TW200
I went for an afternoon ride yesterday.  Droffarc had gone to an interesting part of the Cederberg by starting on the Eenzaamheid road.  I found Eenzaamheid on the map & had a guess at the road which turned out to be correct as I saw the fallen tree Droffie had photod.

Here is a different part of that road.

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A nice road to ride.  Eenzaamheid is very close to the tar Fisantekraal/Agter Paarl road so I was pleased when I got to the farmstead as I had been wanting to have a look at it.  The road goes right through the middle of the farmstead so you can see most of the buildings.  The main house was built in 1783.

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This is the side gable.

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This is the most common gable style; it is called holbol â?? descriptive of the outline.  Note that the stairway now leads nowhere â?? the use of a building changes with time. The front gable is also holbol but the shape has been distorted and the front has pilasters (pillar shapes plastered onto the face) and urn & garlands above the date.  After 1790 gables in the Peninsula and Boland became more and more decorated and florid so this is a pioneer of that trend.  The reference book I am using is â??A Guide to The Old Buildings of the Capeâ? Hans Fransen 2004.  This is an update on the 1980 book with a similar title.  In it they state  â??the roof is now of iron, with an eves level that is slightly too highâ?? well that has since been rectified as the roof is now thatch; but the book has a photo by Andre Pretorius taken in 1986 showing thatch so Fransen missed this.  His book is primarily one in a bigger format than the original so the pictures can be bigger and updated. 

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This house has a simple fanlight above the front door to get light into the voorhuis.  Other houses have very ornate fanlights.  I have seen a photo exhibition which was just fanlights from the inside; lovely designs most of them.

What surprised me about the book is they donâ??t mention the Victorian homestead built just over the road and to the one side.

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This building has a date on the gable obscured by the tree in the photo but it is almost 100 years after the other building.  This building has been much modified.  The pillars would have been cast iron (most likely imported from Scotland) or wood originally.  There was a great shortage of timber in the Cape; note the masonary stairs on the older building.  By the Victorian era Oregon Pine timber was readily available in the Cape (from the west coast of the USA or Canada).  At that time â??Cape Dutchâ?? buildings were right out of fashion so it is common to see a replacement Victorian house on the successful farms.  In this case the original has survived and has now been restored with the wheel of fashion having come full circle (and more).

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There is also this old outbuilding that is being restored right now.  At some stage steel windows were fitted but some have now been removed.  The thatch roof is brand new & has fire sprinklers along the ridge.

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Here you can see that a pergola has been removed but note the steel window.  The original plaster would have been lime mortar.  If they have used modern cement plaster for the repairs and filling of the pergola holes they will have endless problems because the two have different expansion characteristics so they crack all along the joint.  Looking at the care that seems to be taken here I suspect they are aware of that danger.  The steel fence with the ugly cast iron spear points should definitely go in my opinion; even if they just cut the spear points off it would be a big improvement.

I went down the nearby Kuilenberg road then towards Wellington but took the Klipvlei road which runs up to Hermon.

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I rode around Hermon photographing some of the old buildings.
Shed at the station

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This one surprised me because this shape roof is American & I have not seen it locally.

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When I got close I noticed that it was originally 3 pitches of ordinary pitched roof (you can see this by the corrugated iron on the gable end) and that at some stage the roof was altered to do away with the two box gutters between the original roofs.  This shed is now used for packing table grapes.

On the other side of the tar road is a cluster of houses.  I had assumed that they were originally railway houses but, in fact, they were built for the local farm workers.

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I was there at the wrong time of the day to get decent photos.

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I went to the hotel for a beer.  Built 1894.  Hardly a light on in the bar & I was the only customer.  It is all in pretty original condition inside there.  The barman advised me to take the gravel road from Bo-Hermon to Wellington.

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I smiled when I got to this old bridge for I was now going down the same road as Droffarc went a few days earlier but in the reverse direction.  I had wondered where this was.

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XT660R is wanting to organize a mild ride for this weekend & Droffie has suggested this area.  It certainly is an area I want to ride around & explore.

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I ducked down this road leading to Malan siding and home on the tar as time was getting on.  There is a smallholding stuffed full of smashed Mercedes along this road.
 
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