We woke up to find that the bad weather had passed and it was a lovely morning. But there would be no hiking as we were heading for home. Petra was feeling a bit better. We had a leisurely packing up and were careful to leave Dial’s Camp as we had found it, even demolishing the fireplace and scattering the stones. Then it was a slow drive back along the jeep track, using low range until we got to the farm. Going to high was a bit pointless when our fastest stretch was about 20 km/h. We stopped often to enjoy views and for Paul M to do some birding. At Hoeree we thanked Izaan and chatted to her about the history of the area and she mentioned a cave used by her husband’s grandfather in the distant past. It apparently had separate areas with room names like “kombuis” and “slaapkamer” painted on them. There was old “oomie” from that era who was still alive at an old age home in Uitenhage. We wondered if it might be possible for a couple of us to go and chat to him to try to find out about the history of the farms and jeep tracks. She also told us that the farms in the area produced fruit and the road was good enough for trucks to get to Joubertina, and the narrow-gauge train, in about thirty minutes. The same road would now take us almost an hour to drive. We stopped just past the Kouga low level bridge again for lunch and at the last gate said goodbye to Paul and Petra. We carried on slowly with Paul M, stopping to explore a pair of old stone cottages next to the road and then at a very, very long stone wall. We said goodbye to Paul at the last farm and drove to Joubertina where we stopped to look at the Troopy we had seen on the way out. It was at a bodyworks and looked as if it was being resprayed. Then we headed for home, going over the Kareedouw pass and stopping at the Oudebos farmstall for coffee. Just after getting onto the N2 we had the first of three stop and go’s which delayed us for at least 20 minutes. There was a lot of traffic on the N2 and we had a bit of a fright when we both thought we had a tyre problem. I pulled off onto the Humansdorp off ramp, but everything was fine. The vibration was the road surface, an indication of the recent deterioration of the road probably caused by overloaded trucks. From there on it was plain sailing and we collected the Kits at 18h15. They were fine. It had been a remarkable long weekend in one of the most isolated spots in the country!

Geschreven door Leartravels