White Stripes
Pack Dog
I was planning to go to a murderous thing in the Karoo, but something came up. That being the re-establishing of an old friendship. I made contact with an old friend on facebook and one thing led to the other. Not a particular fan of facebook, I must admit this was the only time it really did something for me.
I met John long before it was high fashion to be an ex-racist. We shared views over a bottle of Tas in the old days when it was still dangerous to be liberal. We got very drunk on more than one occasion, so it worked very well for both of us.
In the meantime we both got rich and poor again. Undeniably we enjoyed the better times and enjoyed it enough to have aspirations to try to repeat the feat. Personally, I think John got more rich and I got more poor, so we had a lot to share after so many years.
None of us lost our affinity for alcohol and in one of his sprees, John got drunk in Richmond. Being from Johannesburg, not Gauteng, it was dangerous. The belated effect was that he ended up with a few properties in Richmond. Bought for a wondrous amount of small change, he soon was a property owner of fame in the Karoo.
The rest is history. I summoned my dear cousin, -Wolf-, and off we went to explore the Karoo.
I am unemployed so I left Friday morning for our meeting place in Ceres. He took leave and joined in. Soon we were in the Karoo.
Wolf was in charge of the GPS. A mistake, but it worked out in the long run. We will have to go again. He missed some fabulous routes, but I’ll get him for that.
Our first sleepover was at Fraserburg. A long drive from Langebaan for me, but a good choice, as we found a nice campsite behind this restaurant/guesthouse.
My camera often failed me because I did not get good batteries. One crucial pic of the friendly owners, Ronel, Herman and son is lost. Their place is very nice and highly recommended. They are from Worcester and opened the place a few years ago. The campsite has all the necessities, including nice hot showers and facilities. We slept in the lapa, a very good idea, since we could make a good fire, free of charge and savour the day. Cheap red wine from the Fraserburg bottelstoor provided the finishing touches. We ate very a nice meal of Karoo delicatessen, consisting of lamb and other nourishing and healthy foods.
After we said our goodbyes, we left for Loxton.
This little piece of fun made up for a fairly boring ride.
We spent little time in Loxton and left for Victoria West. The church in Loxton managed to get past the unholy deities in my camera.
In Victoria West we ate brunch at the Karoo Deli, owned by a GS owner. No comment. OK, the food was good.
Later in the afternoon we arrived at out destination. Richmond. About 900 kilometers and a very sore butt, but a very enjoyable trip so far.
John’s head office.
John bought a few houses. These four are some of his scalps.
In the first he has a bookshop, the second boasts a sports memorabilia display, the third a bar/music facility and the last another bookshop. Since alcohol and animal fat destroyed a fair portion of my brain, I may be wrong about the exact facts, but I am pretty sure John will forgive me.
The main road.
John decided to make Richmond the first Booktown in Africa. Ambitious project, but what the hell. At the moment there are a couple of bookshops and the place is growing. His second venture is to host the first Groot Karoo Kunstefees, consisting of a book fest, music fest, a drama thing and something else. It slips my mind now. Somewhere in October. Check it out on facebook.
In his music house he only allows vinyl. No cd close to the place. He has an unhealthy amount of LP’s. My good friend Bob Dylan, the lot.
He is closely associated with that Jordaan guy that did the SWC, so he has some very interesting stories to tell. That is if you can get him to stay on one topic for more than a few minutes.
We did out part in educating Wolf, not that we needed a lot of convincing.
Some other trivial things that caught the eye while we were going.
This is where we slept.
For the fest in October John got a couple of friends and friends of friends to come and make the music. Piet Botha, Dagga Dirk, Gert Vlok Nel and a lot of others.
We had a very entertaining night, so much that we were only able to leave at about 12:30 the next morning: I left my camera in an unofficial pub and the owner went to church the next morning.
Here we are on our way. John and Wolf.
Our route for the day was supposed to end in Loxton or Fraserburg, via Beaufort West. The plan was to go to Three Sisters via tar and then along Trapvoet and Molteno passes to Beaufort and back to Loxton or Fraserburg.
We had some very nice roads with good scenery on the way.
We were confronted with a few of these, however.
I still don’t know what to do with these when they appear on a public road. We were able to walk away with integrity and satisfaction, however.
In my lust for the adventure I cut a few corners and it caught up with me. My chain started to come off and in the end it sabotaged our trip. At this point it was so bad that we had to push the bike up this steep spot.
There were some very nice roads on the way. Trapvoet.
Unfortunately my camera and our time schedule did not provide for pictures of the beautiful Molteno pass.
We were able to sort the chain out in BW, courtesy of a friendly after hours mechanic. Next day I hoped to go back to Loxton and beyond, but in a vicious attack of reason Wolf convinced me to go along tar to Ceres and home. By way of a compromise, we went along the N1 to somewhere and turned off to Merweville. Good choice.
We were not the only ones, motorcycle tracks were all over the surface of the road. TR and his clan of amorous knights. Read their reports. Watermeid and all.
A view from the top.
At Sutherland we were almost frozen and only the friendly help of a fire in a coffee shop could nurse us back to life. Wolf surrendered to his unhealthy appetite for burgers and we were on our way.
The rest is history. We drove on the known road to Ceres where we said our goodbyes and left for home.
We left enough for a next trip, so if I stay unemployed in October, we’ll see Booktown again. If not, we may consider buying the place.
I met John long before it was high fashion to be an ex-racist. We shared views over a bottle of Tas in the old days when it was still dangerous to be liberal. We got very drunk on more than one occasion, so it worked very well for both of us.
In the meantime we both got rich and poor again. Undeniably we enjoyed the better times and enjoyed it enough to have aspirations to try to repeat the feat. Personally, I think John got more rich and I got more poor, so we had a lot to share after so many years.
None of us lost our affinity for alcohol and in one of his sprees, John got drunk in Richmond. Being from Johannesburg, not Gauteng, it was dangerous. The belated effect was that he ended up with a few properties in Richmond. Bought for a wondrous amount of small change, he soon was a property owner of fame in the Karoo.
The rest is history. I summoned my dear cousin, -Wolf-, and off we went to explore the Karoo.
I am unemployed so I left Friday morning for our meeting place in Ceres. He took leave and joined in. Soon we were in the Karoo.
Wolf was in charge of the GPS. A mistake, but it worked out in the long run. We will have to go again. He missed some fabulous routes, but I’ll get him for that.
Our first sleepover was at Fraserburg. A long drive from Langebaan for me, but a good choice, as we found a nice campsite behind this restaurant/guesthouse.
My camera often failed me because I did not get good batteries. One crucial pic of the friendly owners, Ronel, Herman and son is lost. Their place is very nice and highly recommended. They are from Worcester and opened the place a few years ago. The campsite has all the necessities, including nice hot showers and facilities. We slept in the lapa, a very good idea, since we could make a good fire, free of charge and savour the day. Cheap red wine from the Fraserburg bottelstoor provided the finishing touches. We ate very a nice meal of Karoo delicatessen, consisting of lamb and other nourishing and healthy foods.
After we said our goodbyes, we left for Loxton.
This little piece of fun made up for a fairly boring ride.
We spent little time in Loxton and left for Victoria West. The church in Loxton managed to get past the unholy deities in my camera.
In Victoria West we ate brunch at the Karoo Deli, owned by a GS owner. No comment. OK, the food was good.
Later in the afternoon we arrived at out destination. Richmond. About 900 kilometers and a very sore butt, but a very enjoyable trip so far.
John’s head office.
John bought a few houses. These four are some of his scalps.
In the first he has a bookshop, the second boasts a sports memorabilia display, the third a bar/music facility and the last another bookshop. Since alcohol and animal fat destroyed a fair portion of my brain, I may be wrong about the exact facts, but I am pretty sure John will forgive me.
The main road.
John decided to make Richmond the first Booktown in Africa. Ambitious project, but what the hell. At the moment there are a couple of bookshops and the place is growing. His second venture is to host the first Groot Karoo Kunstefees, consisting of a book fest, music fest, a drama thing and something else. It slips my mind now. Somewhere in October. Check it out on facebook.
In his music house he only allows vinyl. No cd close to the place. He has an unhealthy amount of LP’s. My good friend Bob Dylan, the lot.
He is closely associated with that Jordaan guy that did the SWC, so he has some very interesting stories to tell. That is if you can get him to stay on one topic for more than a few minutes.
We did out part in educating Wolf, not that we needed a lot of convincing.
Some other trivial things that caught the eye while we were going.
This is where we slept.
For the fest in October John got a couple of friends and friends of friends to come and make the music. Piet Botha, Dagga Dirk, Gert Vlok Nel and a lot of others.
We had a very entertaining night, so much that we were only able to leave at about 12:30 the next morning: I left my camera in an unofficial pub and the owner went to church the next morning.
Here we are on our way. John and Wolf.
Our route for the day was supposed to end in Loxton or Fraserburg, via Beaufort West. The plan was to go to Three Sisters via tar and then along Trapvoet and Molteno passes to Beaufort and back to Loxton or Fraserburg.
We had some very nice roads with good scenery on the way.
We were confronted with a few of these, however.
I still don’t know what to do with these when they appear on a public road. We were able to walk away with integrity and satisfaction, however.
In my lust for the adventure I cut a few corners and it caught up with me. My chain started to come off and in the end it sabotaged our trip. At this point it was so bad that we had to push the bike up this steep spot.
There were some very nice roads on the way. Trapvoet.
Unfortunately my camera and our time schedule did not provide for pictures of the beautiful Molteno pass.
We were able to sort the chain out in BW, courtesy of a friendly after hours mechanic. Next day I hoped to go back to Loxton and beyond, but in a vicious attack of reason Wolf convinced me to go along tar to Ceres and home. By way of a compromise, we went along the N1 to somewhere and turned off to Merweville. Good choice.
We were not the only ones, motorcycle tracks were all over the surface of the road. TR and his clan of amorous knights. Read their reports. Watermeid and all.
A view from the top.
At Sutherland we were almost frozen and only the friendly help of a fire in a coffee shop could nurse us back to life. Wolf surrendered to his unhealthy appetite for burgers and we were on our way.
The rest is history. We drove on the known road to Ceres where we said our goodbyes and left for home.
We left enough for a next trip, so if I stay unemployed in October, we’ll see Booktown again. If not, we may consider buying the place.
