Vrystaat Confessions

Author: bewilderbeast

River Trip Swinburne – Walton

Down the Mighty Vulgar River (Wilge really) in a borrowed canoe ca 1970. An Accord double kayak borrowed from the ‘Voortrekkers’ – Afrikaner Propaganda Volks Brainwashing Outfit – thanks to Ou Lip’s kindness. He had a good heart, Ou Lip Snyman, and I’m sure he thought he looked dashing in his Voortrekkerleier uniform.

– Claudio figlio Bellato –

I’m with my mate Claudio Bellato. He’s not a Voortrekker, even though his Afrikaans is bedonderd goed. For an Italian. We embark in Swinburne.

The water’s high, it flows up in the willow branches making some sections very tricky. A branch whips off Claudio’s specs – down into the swirling muddy waters go his 5D cylinders (optometrists will know that’s no mean amount of astigmatism). His view of the world has changed from clear to, er, interesting. He wants to go after them, knowing that Dad Luigi will take a dim view of the loss. I say,“Are you mad!? You’ll drown!”

Later I lose my specs after an unscheduled swim and I go out on a precarious willow limb sticking out over the current looking ‘just in case.’ “Oh!” says Claudio, “I’m mad to think of looking for mine, but its OK for you to look for yours?!” Well, mine are only 4D spheres I didn’t mumble, illogically. I must have muttered something, though. Optometrists will know that even with all my foresight, my view of the world was now also not pin-sharp. Rocks in the river would now be navigated by sound.

We paddle on in the blur, the myopic leading the astigmatic. I’m wearing my PlusFours. We decide we should camp while there’s still daylight. That night we share one damp sleeping bag, as mine’s sopping wet. Little did I know that for decades ever after Claudio would introduce me: “Meet my mate Peter. I’ve slept with him.”

The next day we sally forth, peering ahead and paddling tentatively. Many years later, we learn this is not the way to negotiate a swift current. The river forks to go round an island, and we wrap the boat around a semi-submerged treetrunk. Many years later, we learn the word ‘treeblock.’ Our downriver expedition has ended and we’re marooned on an island. One day we’ll write about this escapade!

This is new to Claudio, but it’s the second time I’ve now wrapped a borrowed boat on a flooded Wilge River. Fording the rushing current, I only just make the right bank and I signal above the roaring water for Claudio ‘SIT! STAY! on the island. DON’T try and cross this stream, its DANGEROUS! I poep’d myself!’ This I semaphore in my best sign language. Then I turn and run off to the beautiful old sandstone house under the splendid oaks of Mrs Girlie and the Misses Marie and Bettie Jacobsz’ farm Walton to phone Charlie Ryder.

Not long after, says me, ‘A hundred years later,’ says Claudio – Charlie comes roaring out in his pale green Volvo 122S in a plume of dust with a long rope. We pull Claudio off the island, but the boat is pinned to the semi-submerged tree. We only rescue the Voortrekkers’ green and white boat two weeks later when the water has subsided.

– Jock shuns the Swanie / Bellato Vulgar River Expedition ex-Voortrekker canoe –

The Voortrekkers take a dim view of my treatment of their flatwater fibreglass Accord craft and rush me R50 so they can buy a replacement – keep the wreckage.

I’m hooked on kayaking! I can do this, I think . . . just a bit more practice . . who’ll lend me a boat?

~~~oo0oo~~

bedonderd goed – eccellente

1 Jun 2014
River Trip Swinburne – Harrismith

Fluffy Crawley and I were dropped off in Swinburne on the banks of the Mighty Vulgar in the grounds of the Montrose Motel with our open red and blue fibreglass canoe by my Old Man. We were aiming to head off downstream, camp overnight and finish in Harrismith the next day. This was circa 1970.

But we bumped into the inimitable Ian Grant who persuaded us to spend the night at Montrose. His folks Jock & Brenda owned Montrose. They agreed to let us sleep in one of the rondawels.

– what was left of the motel in 2012 –

As evening fell Ian was up to mischief as always, and soon after dark one of the petrol attendants snuck up and slipped us a litre bottle of brandy. Ian organised a litre bottle of cream soda and we were set for nonsense. After a couple of quick shots I suggested we hang around and let the alcohol take effect and let the laughing begin, but as I was in the bathroom taking a leak I overheard Ian mutter “Fuck him, I’m drinking the lot!” so I came out and said “Pour!”

Well, Ian was first and I stuck a bucket under his chin as his technicolor yawn started. Just then I heard HURGH! from Fluffy so I grabbed the little wastepaper bin from the bathroom and stuck it under his chin. It was a lumpy laughter duet.

Early the next morning I woke Fluffy and said “Come!” and we carried the red-decked boat to the river and launched it onto the muddy waters. Well, actually “launched” it because it touched bottom.

– we launched – and ran aground – under the old sandstone toll road bridge –
– built in 1884, it was the second bridge to cross the Wilge –

Here’s the boat in picture, with younger sis Sheila paddling it. It was an awkward beast to carry, especially loaded. If you tipped it slightly things would come tumbling out and swearwords would also tumble out.

The river was so low we didn’t even get our shoelaces wet! A long spell of carrying the boat on our shoulders, stopping for a hurl, carrying a while till another stop for a chunder ensued till we found deeper water and a settled stomach and could paddle home.

Fluffy remembers: “The river was terribly low and we did a lot of foot work crossing or by-passing the rapids. We made it in one day, no overnight stop. Your Dad picked us up in town under the old ysterbrug.“

– we finished under the old ysterbrug – the Hamilton bridge in Harrismith – this looking upstream –

~~oo0oo~~

Dave Walker tells of a Tugela trip or race with Clive Curson when they broke and had to carry their boat for miles. They christened their trip Walkin’ an Cursin’.

Mine with Fluffy Crawley would then be Walkin’ an Crawlin’.

~~~oo0oo~~~

The picture of the very fibreglass craft we paddled had been kept all these years by sister Sheila, keeper of the archives. Red deck, powder blue hull, huge single cockpit, wooden slats on the floor.

– the Fluffy-Koos Swinburne Expedition craft –

~~oo0oo~~

29 May 2014
Ladies of Stone

Way back in high school we spent a night in an old sparsely furnished Drakensberg farmhouse with no ceilings and a tin roof.

We accompanied Klein Kerneels Retief to his Dad’s winter grazing farm Sungubala below Oliviershoek Pass and were left on our own overnight. Adventure! The skies were overcast and soon there were deep rumblings and flashes of lightning. A heavy rain started falling followed by hailstones. The Drakensberg storm built up until it was a roar and we couldn’t hear each other at all – not even shouting into your ear from an inch away was audible above the tinroof fandango. We jumped a foot high when a massive crack of thunder clapped half an inch above the roof. The loudest heavenly bang I’d ever heard in my larf!.

The next day we explored the soaked veld and ouhout thickets above the house and came across a well-endowed woman lying naked on a huge stone in the woods! Stunning! She sported huge shapely boobs and was a wonder for the eyes of lustful teenagers. She was gorgeous! OK, she was made of stone, but hey, what else did we have?

I have often thought of her over the years and started thinking I may have imagined her but then I read of the stone carvings of the Drakensberg and determined to go and find her.

I took the kids and we stayed at The Cavern, lovely old-style ‘Berg hotel. They loved it.

Beautiful things in the grounds – also flowers

Asking around, one of their guides said he knew where my statue was and he’d take me there. I packed a rucksack, he packed lunch and off we went for the day, leaving the kids behind. They could not WAIT for me to GO, DAD! as they had discovered an amazing secret: If you gave any hotel employee your room number he or she would give you anything you wanted under the sun. They had discovered the key to endless riches.

Tom’s signed slip for a ‘free’ movie

Kids with free drinks!

When my guide and I got to the little valley in the foothills where he said the statue was it didn’t look right. It didn’t feel like the place I remembered from – uh, 40yrs ago. But there she was: A maiden with luscious boobs carved in stone.

But this lady was standing up, not lying down on a rock in a seductive pose. There is another statue, I told him. This is not the statue I saw. Its beautiful, and thank you, but she is not the lady of my vivid mammaries and my dreams. Ah! He knew where the other one was. He had seen it once. But it was on private property and he couldn’t take me there. Back at the hotel I asked around and they showed me a picture.

And there she was, exactly as I remembered her. I had not been hallucinating. Here was proof of my excellent memory, my sanity and my dodgy taste.

Well, almost exactly. Um, I must confess I did NOT notice that she had wings back then, nor that she had clothing. I was remembering naked bunnytail more than dressed wings. Hey, Teenage Testosterone! Vrystaat! 1970! No internet! Very few Playboy magazines! Cut me some slack here! It was a lekker and enhanced memory.

~~oo0oo~~

The Story of the Stone Ladies – a tale was told of a reclusive sculptor who fell in love with a trader’s daughter and sculpted these rocks in homage to her. She was a Coventry. We had Coventry twins Glenda & Glynis in Harrismith who came from a Drakensberg trading family. And I think I see a resemblance . . .

~~oo0oo~~

Later I found this in a book by Rowan Philp, Rediscovering South Africa: A Wayward Guide.
“There are two boulders hidden deep in a Drakensberg forest which tell a near-Shakespearean tale of obsession, genius, and revenge. Completely unsign-posted, they feature magnificent, life-size sculptures of the same nude, full-breasted woman, painstakingly carved by her lover fifty years ago. The story begins when Willie Chalmers, a wandering artist with a wildly unkempt beard, came to the area from the Kalahari in the 1930’s to learn more about Bushman paintings from a farmer’s daughter, Doreen Coventry. He fell in love with her and spent fourteen months carving her likeness into a flat sandstone rock on her farm, adding a halo and the face of a child alongside. He called it Spirit of the Woods.

But some of his younger in-laws saw him as a con man and a parasite at the family homestead, and at the height of the row, Coventry’s nephew hiked up to the sculpture in a rage and smashed off the nose. So, some say, Chalmers began a second Spirit of the Woods, this time in a secret location almost completely enclosed by other boulders, sometimes working for weeks without a break.”

~~~oo0oo~~~

ouhout – Leucosidea sericea; mountain shrub and tree

27 May 2014
My Life as a Shepherd

I’ve been farming all day so I’m an old hand already. We have to go count the sheep now, and when Hector Fyvie says “You know the difference between a ram and a ewe, right?” I almost scoff, but I’m polite. I say “Sure, Uncle Hec”.
So hundreds of sheep are herded past us in an orderly fashion, not too fast, not too slow. Obviously I have been given the easier job – counting the rams – as there are only a few sheep with horns compared to the many, many ewes.
“How many did you get?” asks Hec, deadpan. “Seventy nine”, I say confidently. I know my arithmetics. “Oh”, says Hec, looking a bit worried, “There shouldn’t be that many.” Tabs is having a much harder time concealing his mirth and I realise I’ve been had!!

You’re meant to look between their legs! Not on their heads.

– these are not ewes –

– sheep ram – don’t only check his head –

Oh, the shame! Exposed as a townie-poephol! Got to hand it to Uncle Hec, the master of quiet, understated humour. I still blush when I think of it, I’ll never be able to fall asleep counting sheep again. But of course Uncle Hec was very gentle on me and gave me a whisky that evening, as always. Just not as stiff a tot as the one he poured for Aunt Stell.

~~oo0oo~~

17 May 2014
A Farm in Eloff Street

Freezing on top of Platberg, wet and an icy wind. We huddle and chomp some snacks.

I brought matches, I’ll light a fire, I announce. But it ain’t easy, dry kindling is hard to come by, but I persevere. Pierre and Tuffy are skeptical: If you get that going I’ll buy you a farm in Eloff Street, says one.

But I do! Not a roaring blaze, but we warm our hands at least.

This must’ve been ca. 1969. Eloff Street was Johannesburg’s main street and priciest real estate at the time. No longer, as businesses fled the CBD and relocated to Sandton and other nodes outside ‘Old Joburg’.
If I had got my farm I wonder if I’d have sold it before the bust?

We were somewhere below that red flag:

Found this lovely pic on a Harrismith Mountain Race blog site – thanks!! See more and better pics here.

~~~oo0oo~~~

13 May 2014
Safety First, Old-Style

I was telling you earlier that the Road Safety slogan in the Vrystaat in days of yore was Friends Don’t Tell Friends They Can’t Drive Because They’re Drunk, Because Then Friends Will SHOW Friends How They Actually Drive Very Well When They’re Drunk, Thank You Very Much, and this was proven half true one night when I told Tabs, ‘Listen, I think you’ve had a few too many and the best thing to do is to let ME drive.’

It was all Bess Reitz’s fault. She was buggering off to America and insisted we drink beer at the Holiday Inn . .

. . and that we then repair to her garage opposite the Town Hall to drink beer. We were all sad to see her go, so we had drunk more than usual.

It was OK though, the cops wouldn’t catch us as a lookout was posted in the tree on the pavement outside Dr Reitz’s old surgery next door in the form of accomplished gymnast and ceiling beam swinger John Venning. Where a normal person would climb up a tree till the branches started thinning, John climbed up into the twigs, then the leaves, till his head, shoulders and belly button popped out from the very top. From this crow’s nest vantage point he kept a 360° lookout shouting, ‘Where are the coppers!?’ and ‘The coast is clear!’ and ‘Ahoy!’ and ‘The gendarmes are coming!’ and other helpful stuff.

Now it was true I had been with Tabs all night drinking and he could have said the same of me, but it was me talking, making my sensible suggestion. And anyway Pierre agreed with me, and volunteered to follow us and bring me home safely from Gailian after I’d delivered Tabbo safely home. We were all about safety, see.

– and Bessie would have vouched that I was in showroom condition –

Tabs was perfectly rational and amenable to my eminently sensible suggestion. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll drive to the top of forty two second hill and then you can drive. I want to show you what my SSS can do.’ I was perfectly rational and amenable to that suggestion, and so we set off down Warden Street.

At 190mph.

Tabbo had a green two-door Datsun SSS 1800 (Geoff Leslie had famously called his red Datsun 1600 his ‘Triple Ess Ess Ess’) and that thing ~~fucked off~~ went fast. We touched the tar twice on the way down Warden street and flew up 42nd Hill at a hell of a rate of knots. By slamming into 4th gear halfway up Tabs kept our speed up, slacking off only to about 189mph. I was highly relieved when Tabs pulled over as promised and I took over, proceeding at a much more sedate pace.

Soon after, I turned sedately into Gailian and the road took a sharp left and I didn’t. Changing down into second I let out the clutch but I hadn’t taken my foot off the gas, so we leapt forward into the only deep ditch in the flat vlakte veld for miles around. Tabbo irresponsibly bit a huge chunk out of the dashboard. I thoughtfully didn’t, as the steering wheel stopped me from doing the same. Seatbelts hadn’t been invented yet. Or more accurately, the wearing of seatbelts hadn’t been invented yet *. OK, the wearing of seatbelts hadn’t yet become popular. OKAY! We weren’t forced by law to wear seatbelts yet.

As it turned out, speed hadn’t been the problem after all – it was the sudden stop that dented Tabbo and made him bleed untidily in the SSS.

Fortunately for us, Pierre was right behind and ambulanced us to hospital where the local vet stitched up Tabbo’s lip and he ended up looking quite handsome after that. As the doc said Vasbyt Tebs, he said ‘Hit it Doc!’ but gripped my hand tightly as he said it. It was True Valour in the face of Adversity, and a movie or documentary could be / should be made.

But the sudden stop, the bleeding and the hospital afterwards were NOTHING. We now had to face the hard part: Telling Stella. They were in bed in the wee morning hours dark; we couldn’t see them, we could just hear Stella after Tabs’ confession that ‘we’ had crashed into the ditch. She asked if we were OK. Hector was silent.
~~oo0oo~~
* I looked it up: The first U.S. patent for automobile seat belts was issued to Edward J. Claghorn of New York not long before our escapade, in 1885. So we weren’t used to them yet.
~~oo0oo~~

11 May 2014
Donald’s Fearfully Great Lizard
My mate Donald Coleman found, excavated and reassembled, a complete fossil back in about 1962. He was about ten years old at the time. I can see it now, at the back doorstep of their house at the foot of Platberg: About 500mm long I’d guess, every little bone in place. A stout, lizard-gecko-looking creature, it now seems to me. He found it thanks to the excavations for the new N3 bypass around the town which went right near the mountain end of Hector Street, which was where the Colemans lived.
Wonder what happened to it?

To me, searching in hindsight, it looked like a Lystrosaurus. It could be Thrinaxodon, common in the Karoo 235 million years ago – and has been found in Harrismith. Or maybe Cisticephalus. Both lived in the Triassic-age age. I think.

It looked something like the top picture, but completely whole, not embedded in rock. Paleontologists surmise one of the smaller species looked like this:

– lystrosaurus –

– the location looks right – see the tip of Africa in Gondwanaland –

– the size looks right –

Dinosaur: “fearfully-great lizard” – as used by Homer in THE ILIAD, written around 760–710 BC. I looked it up: While everything said about Homer is subject to debate, the popular opinion is that he was a blind bard who composed and recited The Iliad and The Odyssey a few hundred years after the events described.

– lystrosaurus – another artist’s rendition –

Tragically, Donald died around 1972 in a car accident, or he would have told us exactly what his fossil was and where it is. I want to find it and have it assessed. If it’s a new species I’ll ask them to call it Harrysaurus donaldii !
1. Our Swanepoel house
2. Pierre du Plessis’ house
3. Donald Coleman’s house
4. Area fossil was found
I got some feedback – via Sheila to Eddie to Anne:

Donald’s lil boet Eddie: Hi Koos – I got this e-mail from Anne today and it’s in reply to a request from Sheila about Harrismith days – I think the fossil mystery may have been solved! I did like my theory about the farm burial though! Eddie had said earlier: I have an idea Donald buried it on a farm we lived on near Winterton – just to confuse future geologists!

Donald’s sister Anne: Hi Sheila – my memories are very hazy. We left Harrismith when I was nine years old. The vivid things I remember don’t really involve school. I remember going up Platberg frequently for picnics at the Gibson Dam; the new highway under construction close to Hector Street – so it became our playground and Donald found a fossilized small animal all intact – that is now at a museum somewhere – I thought Bergville. I also remember early morning Sunday swims at the public pool – Ken (my dad) had some arrangement with the caretaker and we used to pick up children in the neighborhood – definitely you guys.

I remember Miss Nicoll – Donald and I used to go to her everyday as a kind of pre-school – she was a formidable old lady with wild grey hair – she seemed to be about 6 feet tall – but that was probably because we were so small. She taught us to knit – even the boys – and to weave cushions and do cross stitch. And every year we had our items exhibited at the Harrismith Show – with great excitement. As far as school goes – I do remember that Donald was left handed but was forced to write with his right hand – his left hand was actually strapped behind his back !!!! And he came home from school and announced that his left hand was his “home hand” and his right was his “school hand”. Poor thing ! The mind boggles at how primitive some teaching methods were in those days. I also remember a teacher that had a leather strap on a stick and she would creep up behind you and give you a resounding smack if you were being idle! Did I make that up? Sounds like something out of Matilda! I wonder if anyone else remembers such a thing. (Me: Yep. Miss Jordan).

I do remember what fun it was to melt snow on the little stove in the classroom. I remember swimming in the gala at the public pool and it was night time. As far as the children I knew – there was Lesley Wessels whom I idolised and thought she was so beautiful. Then little Heather Mackenzie who was so sweet with amazing hair and blue eyes and freckles! I also really enjoyed the Wood family – I remember Anne and Lynette and that their mother was a kind lady and I loved going to spend the night there . Then there was Marian Searle – a bit older than me – I used to play there .

I remember Joan du Plessis teaching us to swim and Ken impressing on us that she was a springbok swimmer and the best teacher we could have. She did a really great job and when we left to go to Bergville we swam in the Christmas gala and cleaned up! Of course I remember your farm too Sheila – and I was riding a huge tricycle at great speed down a very long driveway and the front wheel came off and I fell off and skidded on my face.

I remember the carnation milk factory Christmas tree and that Jean made me a dress every year for the occasion . I remember the blossoms in the middle of the road above your house – and each year Ken took photos of us so that we could see how we had grown.

Gosh it takes me back! Will email should I remember further ! Lots of love Anne

– Me, Anne, Donald & Sheila –

Just left of this pic (off-screen) was the Coleman back door where Donald placed his fossil; and not far past the house in the background was where he found it. Platberg mountain in the far background.

~~oo0oo~~

Pics from wikipedia by Ghedoghedo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
10 May 2014
On Jumping Over a Rinkhals

This is actually older sister Barbara’s story. It’s her story because she was the brave one, and because she was about 50% older than me at the time, seeing I was four. She threatens to write it one day. In fact, she says she has written it down somewhere.

Here’s the way I remember it – probably modified by being told it over the years:

We lived on ‘the plot’ Birdhaven east of town on the forestry or sawmill road in Platberg’s morning shadow. One evening towards sunset we were playing in the back yard outside the kitchen door when Barbara needed to go inside to fetch something. Water to mix up some mud most probably? Near the door she came across a snake and took a flying leap over it (she would probably add ‘athletically’ or ‘gracefully’, but I bet there was a shriek involved about then).

I jumped up and ran closer to see a snake reared up and looking concerned. This caused me to show even more concern. Obviously it now posed a much greater threat, right? so I sensibly ran away, around the house and in at the front door. You know: Discretion? Valour?

After that I vaguely remember the black bakelite phone attached to the wall, the one you wound the handle energetically before picking up the modern one-piece ear-and-mouthpiece to give the live person on the other end the number you were looking for. I dunno who was phoning, wasn’t me.

Here’s one of those phones in a museum

Then I remember the old man in the kitchen moving the stove with a stick in his hand and a box to guide the snake into.

I remember being told the rinkhals – for it was identified as such: Hemachatus haemachatus if you’re looking it up – had “crawled into the back of the stove”.

And I remember being told that it was given to Tommy vd Bosch who would take it to the Durban Snake Park, poor thing – although I only thought “poor thing” years later now that I know it would have been better to release it where it belonged.

That kitchen door

That poor thing

=======ooo000ooo=======

The Rinkhals is endemic to Southern Africa. Though it resembles a cobra, spreads a hood and spits venom, it is not a true cobra and gives birth to live young. A grassland and wetland inhabitant, it feeds on frogs mainly, but also takes mammals and reptiles. When threatened it is very quick to disappear down a hole, but if cornered it will stand its ground, form a hood and spit, throwing the head forward when doing so, as it has a primitive spitting mechanism. The Rinkhals will also sham death very realistically, with its body turned upside down and mouth hanging open. Its venom is largely cytotoxic causing pain, swelling and potentially tissue damage. Bites are extremely rare and fatalities unheard of.

8 May 2014
Woken by the Tamboekie

Harrismith was not richly endowed with pubs. It had kroegs, but pubs, not so much. So before the Holiday Inn brought mid-West America to the Vrystaat vlaktes, we were forced to drink and drive.

In those days the Road Safety slogan was Friends Don’t Tell Friends They Can’t Drive Because They’re Drunk Because Then Friends Will SHOW Friends How They Actually Drive Very Well When They’re Drunk.

Not as snappy as Speed Kills but nevertheless a very valid slogan.

Favoured watering holes were Little Switzerland on the Oliviershoek Pass and, because after a skinful you want to actually negotiate a whole mountain pass, the Royal Natal National Park Hotel.

One legend of Harrismith District Mobile Imbibing was Rob, whose surname will remain a secret because he might have become sensitive to this well-deserved reputation earned during his lengthy youth later when he was probably telling his own kids to BEHAVE themselves. And Speed Kills, and Wipe Your Feet, and Two Drinks is Enough, and Abstain until you’re Married, you young ‘uns, and other things that would have raised a knowing grin on the faces of his old friends if they had overheard this theoretical speech.

I mean, his rollovers (how many?) culminated in his lying on his neck on the roof of Steph’s white VW Beetle and when Steph said “Rob! Are you OK?!” he murmured “Shh! My favourite tune is playing” as he adjusted the radio tuner which had gone off a touch as the vehicle bollamakissied.

Speaking of pubs, booze, cars and road safety:

The Catholics have it all wrong when they appoint Saints.

I mean NOT ONE of the barmen who put up with our shit has been nominated as far as I know – and they should be. They really deserve sainthood. Like the Little Switzerland barkeep who watched as we emptied the fine display of pampas grass in the foyer, stuck the stalks up our naked rears, set fire to the fronds and ran around the hotel corridors where innocent paying guests were slumbering, yelling “Flaming A’s! Call the Fire Brigade!” A pram was commandeered in the mock fire-fighting response – enough said, a grown man in a pram going Whee! Whaa! Whee! Whaa! – A fiasco.

Also a sainthood for Mother Mary, who loaned me her grey 1970 Ford Cortina to take an Aussie Exchange student there one night.

like this one

On the way back I thought I heard faint snoring and a swish-swish-swish sound from far away. I woke up to find I was going along at a fair rate with tamboekie grass hitting the windscreen, Yabsley the Oz asleep on the seat next to me. I slammed on the anchors and got out to look. I didn’t have a clue if I’d gone off on the right or the left of the road, but following our track back through the long grass we found the road above the pass, reversed and wound our way home much soberer. Had I killed Michael Yabsley I’d have changed the course of Aussie politics, as he went on to become an MP and the Aussie Liberal Party’s federal treasurer.

There should have been a law against drinking and driving.

I do tell my kids to BEHAVE themselves, but I have a hard time keeping a straight face.

——-ooo000ooo——-

I found a 1963 video of Royal Natal National Park.

——-ooo000ooo——-

kroeg – males-only bars

bollamakissied – somersaulted; rolled

8 May 2014
Generaal Koos de la Rey, Lion of the West, and me
Koos de la Rey was the son of Adrianus Johannes Gijsbertus, so like me, he was lucky he wasn’t given his father’s names. I could have been Gerhardus.

He was Brave
He is generally* regarded as the bravest of the Boer generals during the Boere Oorlog and as one of the leading figures of Boer independence. As a guerilla his tactics proved extremely successful. He ran the Brits ragged in the Western Transvaal.

*well, by us, his descendants anyway . . .

He was Pragmatic
Before hostilities, De la Rey opposed the war until the last, but once he started fighting he fought to the Bitter Einde. Once he was accused of cowardice during a Volksraad session by President Paul Kruger. He replied that he hoped to avoid war, but if the time for war came, he would be fighting long after Paul Kruger had given up and fled for safety. This prediction proved to be exactly accurate. Once the war was lost, he spent a lot of energy getting his people to accept the Treaty of Vereeniging, even traveling to Ceylon to encourage Boer prisoners of war* to come home.

arse kicked, life saved

He was Chivalrous
De la Rey was noted for chivalrous behaviour towards his enemies. Note: If people call themselves chivalrous (I’m looking at Poms), doubt it. Wait till others call you chivalrous. At Tweebosch on 7 March 1902 he captured Lieutenant General Lord Methuen (whose arse he had kicked earlier at Magersfontein) along with several hundred of his troops. The troops were sent back to their lines because de la Rey had no means to support them, and Methuen was also released since he had broken his leg when his own horse had fallen on him. De la Rey provided his personal cart to take Methuen to hospital in Klerksdorp.

His Earlier Life
As a child De la Rey received very little formal education, and as a young man he worked as a transport rider on the routes serving the diamond diggings at Kimberley (so he probably visited Harrismith?). He and wife Nonnie had twelve children and they looked after another six children who lost their parents.

Me
Oh, and Generaal Koos de la Rey had a sister; She had a great great grandson also called Koos.
That’s me.

~~oo0oo~~
- * Most of my rooinek forebears were verraaiers – they lived in and made their money in Harrismith in the the sovereign Oranje Vrijstaat, yet sided with the invading Brits. One redeemed us: A Bland refused to support Britain and was sent as a POW to Ceylon: Daniel du Plessis Bland.
.~~oo0oo~~
- thanks, wikipedia for the war history, and sister Sheila for the family history
Someone sent me this recently:
8 May 2014