It did not seem to have rained during the night, but it was heavily overcast when we awoke. After breakfast and packing up we went to the office to sort out paying, very cheap with midweek pensioner rates and no entry fee thanks to our wild card. This was sadly going home day. But there were still things to do. Firstly we had to retrace our routes in the northern section of the park. As the Sundays River crossing was closed we had to go through town and then had to follow a rather slow tractor past the dam. It turned into the entrance gate in front of us and continued while we briefly stopped at the gate. In the park we followed the road to the Koedoeskloof 4x4 trails, but stopped behind the tractor again just as it got to where it was needed. A big game transport truck with a trailer was stuck in the mud. There was a helicopter flying around and there was obviously game capture on the go. Then we saw Dave Zimmerman, the National Parks vet and mountain club member, and he came over and told us that they were capturing blesbok, but the truck had got stuck. While we were watching, the tractor easily pulled it out and Dave had to get back to business. The track was quite muddy and we soon engaged 4x4. A parks Cruiser coming the other way stopped for us at a very slippery stream crossing and we then headed towards our waterhole on the new Koedoeskloof trail. There was quite a lot of game to be seen, including gemsbok, blesbok and zebra. We enjoyed coffee at the little dam, but it was too wet to venture up the quite rough track to the top. So we turned around and took the Blesbok loop to the old Koedoeskloof trail. This gave us a pleasant drive to the windpomp that is still in use and we had some lovely zebra sightings. The remains of the other windpomp had now been removed and there was a new water tank in place. After looking around it was time to leave and we headed for the gate. All the game capture activity was now over. In Graaff-Reinet we decided to fill the front tank only and went to the BKB to fill up. We now knew the ropes and it was much quicker than last time, but still had too much paperwork. I decided to continue driving on the back tank to see if we could get home on the fuel we had got in Vanrhynsdorp. That would prove we had a range in excess of 1200 km. We headed for Spar for shopping for home and then hit the road south. At the turnoff from the Aberdeen road there was an abnormal load truck with a wind turbine blade blocking the road – it hadn’t made the turnoff and the blade was stuck on the embankment and almost certainly damaged. But our road was fortunately open. The road to Jansenville was still being worked on, but it was mostly line painting and finishing off and was generally excellent. We were now looking for a place to stop for lunch and I turned onto the Pearston gravel road just past the top of the Ravelskloof pass. About 1.5 km along the road there was a turnoff to the left with and open gate (the gate looked as if it had been driven into and couldn't be closed) and we got to a really beautiful spot with views down a valley to the distant Camdeboo Mountains. There were a lot of very interesting plants to look at as well and this had to go down as one of the best lunch stops of the trip. Then it was through Jansenville where we saw that there was a new service station at the old biltong stop at the entrance to the town. We almost immediately had two stop/go's that took about twenty minutes to get through, but then it was plain sailing and we really felt back home when Cockscomb mountain came into view just before the Wolwefontein turnoff. We decided that there might just be enough hot water in the Thermos for afternoon coffee so I turned off into Paardepoort and took the gravel road through the poort to stop at a dry stream just beyond it. Our last coffee stop of the trip was fun and I decided to carry on along the gravel road to Glenconnor. This took us past my old friend Sam de Jager’s farm and it was good to see that the old house was still standing. Once back on the tar we were surprised how busy the road was, the most traffic we had seen since leaving PE eighteen days ago. It was now a short drive past Uitenhage, Despatch and Redhouse and we were back at about 17h30. We went straight to collect the kits and were home just after 18h00. It had been quite a trip, a blend of the past, but with many new experiences. And we made it back on the Vanrhynsdorp fuel with a ¼ of a tank left!

Geschreven door Leartravels