You will not believe this! Serious, what can the weather and South African roads still throw at poor Bullet! Seeing as farmers sleep on Sundays in Nieuwoudtville, and I agreed to the 6 am meeting, outside the town, I am up with first chicken fart (hehehe, considering the welcoming committee chicken at the camp site the previous evening)! I get all my stuff into Bullet, and on trying to start it, I see some dew on the window and put the windscreen wipers on. Guess what, it is not dew, it is ice! And a heavy layer of ice! What more can Bullet face was my question. So it took half an hour to get the ice defrosted! Off to the farmer meeting I went. 13km outside town, and thanks to the lovely rain the previous day, the full 13km of dirt road (you guessed it) was muddy and full of holes. That took a while.
The meeting with the farmer started off with the big farmer’s dog of 6 months, coming out to meet me. Please picture this, a dog, belonging to a farmer. You are seeing a massive bull mastive, or like horse dog or some such ne? Hah, Miniature Doberman Pinscher! Seriously! This was the most ridiculous sight of all times! But, in this dogs head, he was a Bullmastiff. In his mind, he was Goliath. He promptly lifted his leg against Bullet’s tyre, and although it was only two drops that actually found target, and the other three drops that landed on the Pinschers back leg, he looked as if he just peed the whole of the water capacity of the Mississippi on the tyre! Proudest moment of his life. And his owner’s thoughts on the whole thing? Ya, sometimes he is what we call a sample.
But, true to the farmer’s word, he was up, dressed, and apparently went on the first run to find missing lambs already by the time I showed up. He just failed to locate the sugar pot. I know, not a problem to face at 6 am in morning. When I say farmer, it is actually farmer Jnr. Dad and Mom were somewhere in the house, so loud screaming ensues, about who saw the sugar pot last. Bathroom doors opened, and there is furious searching under furniture (I am thinking, what does this family do with sugar? As my search would have been contained to the kitchen area). No, says farmer Jnr, this pot can be anywhere. I offer to go get the sugar in my food box in the car, but as I get up, the sugar pot is located, in the kitchen zinc! I told you, contain kitchen item searches to the kitchen. I won’t find the garden hose in the bathroom, for instance, so why waste time, by looking there?
I really wish that one could translate Nieuwoudtville Afrikaans to the same intonation, and sentence construction in English. But, I can’t even translate it into Afrikaans. Needless to say, I laughed a lot on this hour long sojourn (see, now I am getting way too confident. English done, moving on to Mandarin. Sorry, French). I also actually learnt a lot too, about farming, and when lambs can take a ram without it being slightly sick and under aged, and about the biggest danger to sheep farmers. On this I got a very short, one sentence answer: Do not even think about bringing a match close to me. So, apparently fire. Then I made the mistake to ask if they then prepared for veld fires with a fire break: “Oe, noooo, I said, don’t even bring a match close to here”! But, even with English being a compulsory subject in schools, poor farmer Jnr’s biggest concern, these people we are going to bring for this tour, are they from overseas? Mostly yes, I said. Long silence. Then the next question, “So, they speak English?”, “Yes”, I say, “mostly”. Again, long silence. Then comes the clincher. “Well, then we have a problem. The last time I spoke English was the 9 months I spent in Australia. And I had to take my cousin with to help with the translation”. So it seems that we will be running the Kalaroo tour with at least one Afrikaans speaking guide to help translate for farmer Jnr!
His last question to me was, “ so, how much should I charge you for this per person”!
Absolutely priceless! I actually did learn a lot, and besides the 20 gates we had to open and close, found it a thoroughly enjoyable time spent! I would recommend though for clients to rather ask farmer Jnr questions. He is of course not a guide, but he is passionate about farming, so you ask him one question, he starts going like Old Faithful! Spouting all kinds of interesting farmer trivia and logistics, and points excitedly in the direction of his uncles farm, about 200km that way, who tried that new thing with the grass sustainability etc etc. Again, priceless. But remember, please ask him questions, otherwise the hour is going to be very quiet. In Afrikaans.
Now as I came into Nieuwoudtville late afternoon, and felt slightly attacked by silence, I decided to rather leave my explorations of the town for this morning. I did a drive through, in both directions, as well as photo shoot of most of the buildings, and that took about 5 minutes! No, really. Although the church was absolutely beautiful! On the side of the church is a marble headstone type thing and on it, in very High Dutch, the following message (not verbatim). O, hene, now I am throwing Latin! Message on marble slab: ”This is to remember the 11 000 pounds sterling debt that the congregation of this church paid back after a long struggle, of which the 11000 pound debt was incurred completely by accident, and was nobody’s fault” In Marble! Seriously!
It was finally time to take my leave of Nieuwoudtville and get back into the Western Cape province which happened somewhere on Van Ryns pass, that is not a pass. It is a nearly vertical downward spiraling road! Massive decline/incline. I really wanted to take photos, but I doubt if Bullets handbreak would have kept holding if parked on that for more than 5 minutes! I rather went down.
Lamberts Baai! Yayaya! The last time I saw Lamberts Bay, I was still in diapers. So, about 16 or so? Lamberts Bay was named after a guy called Lambert. That is about what I do know, and even that might be incorrect, but this is one weird ass town. The information centre also serves as entry to the graveyard! The Nature Reserve is also a putting range, and the restaurants are mostly all closed until December, when they make their years profit, and leave it at that! And the Lamberts Bay Hotel faces out onto the fish factory that totally covers the beautiful view of the harbour with its colourful fishing boats. So, I had some trepidations (Oh hell, it is now becoming out of hand, this English thing!), but what an absolute breath of fresh air. As I walk in, they know who I am, without me opening my mouth. Out comes the owner of the Hotel and takes me on a walk through. She has owned the hotel for more than 10 years, and is slowly busy with upgrades. Most of the rooms were looking beautiful, tastefully decorated, bathrooms comparing favourably with a boutique hotel, and not a snobby tone to be found anywhere. All the staff greeted me, every time I walked past, even the two parrots in the lobby greeted me! The hotel cat was a bit old, and just opened one eye slightly. See, I am a sucker for service. Even if the place looks like the return of Mad Max, with friendly staff, a lot of battles can be won.
Now listen, this is Lamberts Bay. One can’t expect the Lord Nelson, and frankly, I prefer this type of setting and place to the big fancy ones, where you feel you are definitely using the wrong fork and where you are not sure if you should tip the eyebrow plucker or not, or if that was included in the R900, 10 minute job.
Nice food, comfy bed, normal people working there, wearing normal uniforms, not starched spaceship shirts, and this is the place for us normal people to go.
Oi, now I waxed lyrical. Not that they can’t be fancy, I got a full cheese/olive/snack platter in my room, with garnish, and the correct knife and, two point plugs was not like a non spending American President. It was actually readily available! That is unusual.
Enough, Enough, Enough! Bloody nice place.
The rest of Lamberts scared me a little, also scarred me a little! I went to check out the camp site, the bathrooms can use some work, and, with sea sand, not a lot of grass. But there were a lot of workers about, on ladders, and with paint cans, so I am assuming they are sprucing it up. But, just in case, I went on a search for some alternatives (one never knows if space might become a problem). I was zipping through town like a soccer mom, campsite to campsite. In this zip through, I actually drove into somebody’s yard, just outside town. Seeing that I was there, I decided to take some photos in any case. I think the family was hiding behind the living room furniture. I discovered a great outdoor restaurant with a Prickly Pear plant with flowers! Pretty!
Off I went again, calling ahead to warn the hotel of my imminent arrival, and unfortunately, Muisbosskerm was not open for this evening, but they did have a couple of hours open over lunch time, so off I went there as well!
Very rustic, all outside restaurant. But I have to say, one of the owners made me slightly upset. He sprouted all kinds of facts and figures (rated one of the worlds best seafood restaurants in National Geographic was one of them), but then he kept on mentioning one of our competitors, and how they always come in there, and how they get a special rate, and did he mention when that Other-Company-Who-We-will-Not-Mention comes here, blah blah blah! Listen, buddy, we are not that Other-Company-Who-We-Will-Not-Mention. We are Nomad Africa Adventure Tours, and we’re going to rock this route! Demmit! But, I kept my conversations in my head and just smiled at him. That’s fine, he will see! But the food did look amazing, although primarily seafood, which is not my first, or even tenth love. But they also do have meat, and vegetarian meals, and fresh bread, and dessert and all. Great! Clock in at 6pm, and food stops at 9pm, an orgy of eating!
With all the work parts done, I went for a walk about to Bird Island, behind the town harbour. Crossing the harbour wall, where, as the gate keeper said, the ocean is a bit upset, but I should be fine walking over it. Hmmmm, but true, on the first section of Bird island, is a sign board warning tourists about Kelp Gulls, who can get a little upset if one walks too close to their nests, and will then attack. Yes, I say in my head, bloody tourists. One has to put up boards to warn them to not go traipsing through the short grass and then I forget all about this little, very apt and valid warning and see gazillions of Malgas birds (Cape Gannet)! The smell! The Noise! OMG, chaos in a very small space, with some seals trying to stay cool a little further away on the rocks. With that amount of things to aim at, I took a constant barrage of photos, and had to physically stop myself! Ridiculously pretty, crazy chaos!
Off I go on the walking trail again, I have been going a bit artsy on my photos the last couple of days, I spot a perfect opportunity for a contrasting photo of the water breaking bollards and waves. So I am pulling my body this way and that, and go down on one knee, and one elbow, to get the low to high angle, with camera bag abandoned on the side, when the next thing, a male Kelp Gull attacks from above! They warned me! I abandon ship, fall flat down, in gull poop, scream like a girl, and this monster attack gull plays the role of all 3 000 birds in Hitchcock’s movie. Hitchcock should have cast this guy! He was relentless! He was vicious, he was a Spartan Kelp Gull, he would fight to the end! All this while wifey calmly stays on her nest, about one hand span away from me.
I leopard crawled away, a bald spot on my head from attack one, dragging my camera bag behind me. Bloody tourist!
Lamberts Bay is charming, funny, and a little odd.
Have you booked your spot on this tour yet? Don’t miss your opportunity to experience these wonderful places with Nomad Africa Adventure Tours. Ask us for details about our 9 Day Karoo, Kalahari and West Coast Tour.