A Ride to yesterday- Agter die Palala, Boere en Basters

[Armpie]

Now sometimes you have success the first time, sometimes like this story the 3rd time, and sometimes- like riding sand, you never get it right, you only get to do it beter.

So twice in  the last 4 years I tried to go back to the Bosveld roads near Marken.  But everytime rain cut the effort short.  The first time I went with the JRAD manne.  When we passed through Warmbad that Friday afternoon, and the caravan floated in front of the 4x4 I knew we were in for it.  We turned around at Marken in heavy rain and extreme mud.

A few weeks later my son and I tried it again.  Again  it rained the whole weekend.  Water crossings and mud was the order of the day.  In 8km in the mud  I was separated from the bike 4 times.  At Snotbult we pushed the bikes up the hill.  We never even reached Marken.
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[Armpie]

The previous muddy attempts- in writing:

With the JRAD manne

http://www.wilddog.za.net/forum/index.php?topic=146975.msg2802723#msg2802723

With my son

http://www.wilddog.za.net/forum/index.php?topic=148605.msg2831016#msg2831016

[Armpie]

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The trusty old workhorse, the lights are on but not working.  At the staging point at Sterkrivier.  My brothers weekend farmhouse.  Without electricity and occupants.

[Armpie]

Basterspad in the old Lebowa, between Potgietersrus and Marken
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Coenraad du Buys.  A man of close to 7 foot in height.  A dominating figure in the Northwest Transvaal 1820-1840.  He is said to have fathered more than 300 children with his black wives.  His people used this road to through the mountains to escape their black enemies.

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Heavy sand at places on the Basterspad.  The village and school is also known as Basterspad.

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[Armpie]

But this time I was determined.  So I left the Friday afternoon from Pretoria, but so wragtig 10km before Warmbad it was yes, raining heavily.  Just past Nylstroom I took the Groenfontein Road and travel until I road becomes tar.  I reached the t-junction towards Maken and after that I took the reached the Grootfontein Road.  It became late and I was alone.  The road were I fell 4 times on one afternoon.  This time the road was heavy sand and at other places deep pools.  At one stage my bike was knee deep in the water.  I spent the night alone at my brother’s farm at  Sterkrivier .
Early morning I check the trusty old KLR and everything was fine, except for the lights.  I struggled for an hour to get the front lights working but without success.  I  decided to push on and try to get on the road before the rain comes- and it would come.
So from Sterkrivier I moved west, past the Tinmyne road, on to the dirt and over the  bridge over the Sterkrivier.  At  the T-junction I turned right and crossed the R518 on to Bakenberg.  This was part of the old Lebowa homeland and donkeys and cows were all over.  The place is absolutely beautifull but do not expect to be greeted by the inhabitants.  The either do not like single white bikers or they hate them.  So I took a stop at Basterspad, one of the small villages. 
In the days before the Voortrekkers a white man, Coenraad du Buys, took his wife and moved to the north.  He had a liking for black women and in traditional African style married them.  It is said that he left 300 children, when he disappeared around 1850.  His descendants lived west of the Soutpansberge.  On one of their flights from their enemies they came across this beautiful place.  It was named after the route they have taken.

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Rural village

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[Candyman]

I know I trip is planed and that by hell over high one should do it . But . Guys look at this app it's free : Get There Dry
It really works well .



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[skydiver]

Ek ry saam Armpie.
Gooi nog fotos 

[Armpie]

Nou waar was ek laas?  As I was saying!

To the left of the road is the Moepel conservancy.  The most beautiful scenic  Moepel Mountains.  But the road off course ugly.  Sand, sand and potholes.
Then after about 40km there is a road turning west.  The road is running up a kloof.  A magnificent beautiful area.  Unfortunately Eskoms power lines coming from Ellisras is also using the same kloof.  Again sandy and at times rocky.  The road is not used much.  At a few places shallow water crossings is running over the road.  Eventually the road is again running past the village Skurwekloof before it again reaches the R518.  Again ideal adventure bike roads.  Challenging quite roads through a pretty landscape.

[Armpie]

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[Armpie]

Just past the Kunap river I get on the tar road for about 10km to Marken.  When I came to the Bushveld here 45 years ago all was rooi Afrikaner osse.  Gone are the Afrikaners. You mjight see a few Bonsmara’s.   Now it is big game.  And big business.  Big game fences and strange animals.  Goue wildebeeste, blackface rooibokke  and white Blesbok!  But there are also sable antelope- imported from Malawi and Zambia, and buffaloes. 

At Marken I stopped to fill up and have a Russian and chips for breakfis.  And tomatoe sauce, those cheap stuff that turns you hands pink.  But the chips were OK.  Then on to the kooperasie to see if they cannot help with the lights.  But without success.  I took the road west and after about 3km a road turns out towards Overyssel.  This was new ground.  The furthest I have gone in 4 years!.

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[Armpie]

The road took me back many years.  One of the leading families in the wild lion invested  Palala Valley was the Lewis  family (pronounced Le-wies) sometimes also spelled as Lewies.  Although a surname of English origins that is where the English connection stopped.  They were Transvaal Boere.  They were pioneers of this area. 
But one man made the Lewis family of the Bushveld  famous.  During the 1912 Olympic games the South African Olympic  team selected a young man by the name of Rudolph Lewis.  He was here from the Waterberg.  He took the train from Nylstroom and arrived in Johannesburg with a small suitcase with a single set of shirt and trousers.  When the team management asked if he knew where they are going he answered “Yes, Stockholm!  It is not very far beyond Springs!  So the team clubbed in and bought him clothes to take to Sweden.
In Sweden the form of race was where every rider started 5minutes after the last rider.  So everybody should be riding alone.  If you are bad luck you draw the first places.  So did Oukie, as Rudolph was now known, drew position number 2.  It was the ride of Olympic proportions.  In stead of other rides catching him over the 180km he rode away from the rest!  He won gold in one of the most decisive rides every on any Olympic Games.  After the war he went to Germany to make his living  from professional cycling.  When WW1 broke out he joined the German Army.  He returned to South Africa in 1920 and died as a young man.  I think 1932.  The war left its mark on this incredible talented young man.

Rudolph "Oukie" Lewis (Lewies) Olympic Gold Medal Winner , Cycling, Stockholm, 1912

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[Offshore]

Lekker RR Armpie and interesting, gooi nog and thanks for sharing, it is such a beautiful Area.

[Armpie]

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I frequently visited the Bosveld here around the northern edge of the Waterberg,  from about 1974 to around 1990.  I had family farming  here. 
So the dirt road was running west towards the crossing of the Palala.  Narrow with Sekelbos overhanging in the road.  On vehicle at a time.  With deep sand and at places washed away.  In other places the road was dark red from the mud clay.  It must be 40 kilometers before the turn.
There I was minding my own business on me bike,  when suddenly from nowhere in the grass popped up this vlakvark and piglet.  Narrowly I missed her and the small one swerved back into the grass.  I immediately slammed the brakes and let her come back to the small one.  It was close.

[Armpie]

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[Armpie]

I crossed the bridge over the Palala and passed an old white building with tall grass around.  Fenced in behind  diamond mesh.  I rode passed it just to realize that is the old store at Overyssel!  Gone are the donkey karts and the black farm workers spending their money inside.  And the white children spending their pocket money on cheap sucker icereams.  Times have changed.  The hub of my childhood Bosveld memories gone.
I continued down the road.  Everything along the southern bank of the river here now belongs to van der Walt Boerdery.  Then I reached the Eskom lines I had to stop.  When I came here the first time there was no electricity here in the Northwestern Bosveld.  The roads were broad.  By 1990 50 tonne cool trucks were transporting 1000’s of cases of tomatoes to the markets of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. 
When Eskom built these lines they cut across the bush without “favor or fear”.  The days before environmental impact studies.  Here below the line on the banks of the Palala the cut down the 100’s year old Hardkool trees were the buffalo hunters used to camp in the winter.  But that was now long gone. 

[Armpie]

At the next turn the road board read “Marken”.  I turned left and on both sides of me was the farm  “George Town”.  The farm I came to first as a child.  The farm of oom Stoffel Lewies and his son Rudolf, who later married my niece Hannelie.  All was  now fenced off with 2.4m high games fences.  On the old land a huge excavator was pushing down tries.  The gate was not locked so I decided to enter to go see if I can find the graves of one of the first white people to settle in this beautiful but tough part of the world.  Josef Stephanus Lewies.  I remember the graves as always neatly camped off here in the veld next to the land.  I found them.  Josef’s grave with a sekelbos growing over it.  His wife, a maiden Horn ( from Horn’s Nek, west of Pretoria) was damaged.  The excavator did not go over the graves but within 500mm.  II doubt it that the graves will still be found in 5 years  time.  I was sad.

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[Armpie]

Here was one of the pioneers of the Bosveld forgotten.  In the Anglo Boer War Josef Lewies went onto Commando with the Watrerberg Commando.  With him was Hans “Purekrans” van Rooyen, the later friend of Eugene Marais.  Both were captured and sent to Bermuda.  On a family photograph, Hans Purekrans and Josef Lewies stands as POW’s next to each over in Bermuda.  Josef’s son Stoffel later took over the farm and Stoffel shot his last lion in the same here he bought his first car.  1939.  The car was later wrecked and layed for many years next to the shop at Overyssel.  The grandson Rudolph sold the farm in the mid 1990’s.  Farming with cattle was not like 100 years earlier.  Times have changed.

Hans Purekrans van Rooyen en Josef Lewies saam in die Waterberg Kommando. Pre- ABO
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[Armpie]

Any readers?  Or am I the only one with a degree of fun?

[Beebop]

enjoying the history immensely.

[Armpie]

Between fighting a war as a soldier  in Southwest Africa, and the constant droughts of the 1980’s things were not exactly moonshine and roses
So I went off the farm towards the Goudrivier.  The pipes under the lowwater drift were blocked and the water was running over the bridge.  I have never seen it.  I stopped and washed myself in the crystal clear water.

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