Boock's blog: Travelling as good as arriving

Life on Karoo. Picture / Richard Boock

It was with heavy heart and unforgettable memories that I left the oasis at Olive Grove and started on the four-and-a-half hour drive south through the Karoo to Cape Town.

The feeling of malaise didn't last for long, however, as it was impossible not to feel uplifted - intoxicated even - by the lunar landscape that stretched out to all horizons. It could have been the Sea of Tranquillity for all I knew; certainly I felt a bit like the man in the moon.

There were vast basins, enormous escarpments, the Gamka flowed, obscured, along on the left-handside of the road, and at different times there was a need to stand on the brakes as troops of baboons, including mothers with young on their backs, attempted to navigate the N1.

Later on, I spoke with Cape Town locals about these sightings and none were surprised. Apparently baboons still live in pockets within the city limits, and regularly raid rubbish bins and even homes when food is scarce.

A fire on Table Mountain, for example, could destroy a season of wild berries and send the troops into the local communities in the search for sustenance. Local advice is that most of them scram when confronted but that the larger males can be formidable. Slingshots are sometimes required.

But I digress. For a good couple of hours I felt surrounded by this immense expanse of nothingness, broken only by the tiny junction town of Leeu-Gamka and much farther down the track, the community of Laingsburg.

Almost completely destroyed by flood in 1981 when the Buffels River swept away two-thirds of the town, Laingsburg has been subsequently rebuilt and remains an interesting lay-by for travellers, with its Voortreckers monument and the old Block House - a remnant of the Anglo-Boer War.

But as stimulating as Laingsburg was, nothing could have prepared me for the historic little hamlet named Matjiesfontein, declared a national monument in 1970, and only about half an hour further down the line.

Stopping here should be mandatory.

Founded in 1884 by a Scot named James Douglas Logan, Matjiesfontein was first a staging post for travellers heading north - either by horse or train - and later became a fashionable spa for the upper-classes, on account of its dry, lung-repairing air.

Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston's father) apparently picked bluebells in the hills, thriller writer Edgar Wallace took time out there, General Douglas Haig hosted parties, Rudyard Kipling was inspired to write The Native Born, and Cecil John Rhodes was a frequent visitor.

It was at Matjiesfontein that Olive Schreiner, later to become one of South Africa's first voices of feminism, lived for five years and penned her best-selling novel, The Story of an African Farm - which earned her instant fame and fortune.

These days the station and the grand Victorian buildings have been lovingly restored and a little museum has been opened to record the fascinating history of the settlement.

Well-heeled Cape Town residents head there for holiday weekends.

It took the best part of an hour's drive further south before the landscape started changing and becoming more green and lush, indications that the Karoo was being left behind and that the fresh fields of the Breede River Valley were looming.

The descent into Worcester was a memorable part of the drive as the arid colours of the desert fell away to a valley floor that was a patchwork of green farms, an assortment of Cape Dutch type homesteads, and the start of the renown Cape Winelands.

Then it was a steep climb up what I took to be the Dutoitsburg Range, a slightly apprehensive trip through the Huguenot Tunnel, and there it was in full view, the gorgeous Paarl valley and its assortment of vineyards and farms.

Needless to say, it wasn't long until I missed the city turn-off which would take me to my lodgings at Newlands, and somehow ended up taking the N2 in the complete opposite direction, until I was lost in a little place named Bellville.

In consideration of all residents of Bellville, I'll refrain from trying to describe the place; suffice to say the petrol pump attendants were again well schooled on their directions and were able to supply the correct route back for only a modest amount of Rand.

This was definitely money well spent, as it wasn't long until I'd found the hotel at Newlands, and was relaxing in my room, the windows filled with the magnificent spectacle of Table Mountain and it's surrounding peaks.

It was a great feeling, finally reaching the destination - but this was one time when the journey had been just as special.