It was wonderful to wake up in the isolation of our dry Bak Riverbed. We got going as soon as possible as we had to get back to Sun Valley to try to find Paul’s tools. It was again fun driving to the last wind pump where the graded road started. And there were still lots of flowers of course. Our previous days lunch stop produced no tools. So we had to turn left onto the very rough track that had taken all morning the day before. A bit of urgency speeded our progress, although we checked all of our stops without luck. Just before Fluorspar camp there were a couple of tricky little passes, that I had forgotten, which had to be driven very carefully. We stopped at the old mining camp for morning coffee while Paul and Petra carried on to Sun Valley. We had a good look around the place and I salvaged some screws and bolts from the old Holden. Marianne went to investigate up the Van Zyl’s riverbed and discovered that there would be a very good campsite around the bend of the river in the riverbed for a future visit. We also collected a few more pieces of fluorspar. Paul and Petra were back after about 40 minutes, happy after finding the tool roll in the middle of the track just before our campsite. Not a good idea to leave things on bumpers! Then it was back to Eksteenfontein. We passed the local farmer we had seen driving around on the way in. He thought the road was decent up to the windpump, but beyond that it “was maar moeilik” (a bit difficult). Interestingly he had 10 20 litre drums of diesel on the back of his bakkie. It was almost a 100 km drive to Steinkopf for fuel! We bought some groceries from Saad’s garage shop (the other two were closed) and decided to miss the very crowded tourist centre that looked as if it was paying out Sassa grants. The road out was quite corrugated before we took the turn onto the Helskloof Pass road. This was slightly better, but very flat and desolate. We stopped for at a slight ridge, the only feature we could find, for lunch. It was a lucky stop as Paul discovered his back awning had worked loose. He battled to rebolt it as it had been mounted before the shower was put on the roof rack and he had to gyppo it a bit and backed it up with cable ties. The flowers were very good on the ridge though and we had a great time while Paul did his temporary repair. It had been a lucky stop although it was very hot. Then it was on to the Helskloof Pass. This pass was quite steep and chewed up by ascending vehicles spinning wheels. At the bottom we were again quite close to the Orange River and after a few kilometers we came across “cairn valley”, where tourists over the years had “altered” the landscape by building hundreds of stone cairns. I gave all the insects and especially the scorpions a thought, because they must have been robbed of their rock homes. Now they had high rise apartments! We passed only two vehicles coming up and the bottom of the pass continued over nasty corrugations that alternated with rocky and sandy sections. A Government double cab bakkie was driving backwards and forwards along the road at high speed. An example of taxpayers money being written off. We stopped at the Petroglyph rocks. Sadly many of the ancient rock engravings are now covered with graffiti scratches. We did thankfully find some unscathed ones too. We had googled the Growcery campsite and soon we turned into what looked like a green oasis. We chose a lovely site just across from the bar/restaurant with a great view of the river. We saw some orange kayaks lying there and in no time it was decided. We would hire kayaks for the next day and do some kayaking on the Orange River (R375p/d for the kayak hire). We dived into the hot showers and discovered that we would have to wait till the power came on. ESKOM was doing maintenance work but it did come on promptly at 18h00. The weather was perfect so we braaied and then enjoyed a lovely evening around the campfire. We were once more on the banks of the Orange River in an idyllic site. It was a balmy evening and life was good.

Geschreven door Leartravels