Getting Around in the 70’s

School holidays. We have to DO something or we’ll go crazy! We craved adventure.

Ma, we want to go and climb Mt aux Sources.
How are you going to get there?
We’ll hitch-hike.
Over my dead body! or words to that effect. NO, I think she might have meant, but we couldn’t be sure, as she said dead body, she didn’t say no.

So two days later we get home – me, Claudio Bellato and Carlos da Silva – drenched, muddy and weary, having reached Witsieshoek, but not the mountain, as the heavens had opened up, torrential rain turning the roads into quagmires. So the mountaineering goal of the expedition had been thwarted, but the main goal – having fun – had not!

Where have you been?!
To Mt aux Sources, like I said.
How did you get there?
We hitch-hiked, like I said.

One of our lifts back was with one of the Trading Greys, dunno who exactly.
The rain bucketed down and I learnt a lot about driving in slick mud by watching him continuously turn into the skid on the muddy Witsieshoek road, an experienced hand at negotiating muddy roads.

My companions on this adventure, Claudio and Carlos, loved it as much as I did.

The images show that same road in sunny weather years later. Then it was wet and gravel, not dry and tarred. Both taken where the road runs under the overhang of a sandstone cave.

As always, Mother Mary couldn’t stay cross with me for long.

~~oo0oo~~