69. South Africa: Johannesburg, Harrismith to San Lameer, Natal.

As we edit this post as blog, it is 16 July, 2015, 32 years to the day of the trip in our diary.  The end is nigh.

We were visiting, at short notice, South African friends that we had met camping Spain: Martin and Cecily.  Cecily and her sister were already planning to go to a time-share resort on the Indian Ocean, and it was on our way so we accompanied them in style for a few days. Martin had to work. 

They were a very progressive couple, but as you will see, even then there was great contrast with their lifestyle and what was permitted Blacks in the time of Apartheid.  See the previous post, No. 68, for a perspective from the other side of the divide.

Johannesburg - San Lameer, Natal State, South Africa,  Saturday, 16 July, 1983

(HELENA) When South Africans say they’re leaving early, they mean EARLY (say 4:00); Cecily had said “sort of early, say between 6:30 - 7:00, so Dan and I barely had time to get ready before Cecily, Seobhan, and Nigel were almost tapping their feet for us. We started out segregated -Dan in Nigel’s car and the three women in Cecily’s company car.

Cecily kindly offered to deviate a bit from the main route so Dan and I could see the Drakensberg Mountains (or “the Berg”) from a little closer. Both Volkswagen Golfs (equivalent to the Rabbit) stayed together until the very end of the trip. First rest was in Villiers, where Dan and I bought some of the guava smear we’d been told about. It’s very dry jam rolled into thin sheets, dried, and rolled up. Good, but I’ll take fresh or canned guavas any day. We passed through Harrismith (named after a governor of the Cape). Not much can be said about it except that both of us thought the surroundings beautiful. In fact it’s hard to understand why the people we’ve met refer to the Orange Free State so disparagingly. What we drove through was huge rolling farms with some flat-topped moun­tains running through. I guess no one considers going there on holiday, and since it’s an Afrikaaner stronghold, our English speaking friends don’t have much use for the people there.

Excellent highway - Orange Free State

"African" Township Harrismith

We stopped for lunch at Estcourt -very good steak pies. We had turned off the tarred road at Harrismith to get a better look at the Berg. It was beautiful, but the locals said it was so hazy that we weren’t seeing the mountains at even nearly their best. We felt especially disappointed to know that we wouldn’t be crossing the Berg into Lesotho the way we originally wanted to do because time is a-running out. They’d warned us that Natal is famous for its good roads, and sure enough, right at the border we hit tarmac again. Near the border (with Orange Free State, that is) we went by a dam that is unusual in that they pump water back up into it during hours when electricity is cheaper and let it back down to generate electricity at peak hours.

I found the Natal countryside refreshing in that the housing of the rural blacks in Kwazulu looks more or less like what we’ve seen in other parts of Africa. If I can forget that the people have no other place they can go, the round thatched huts with white-washed walls are quite picturesque. They’re very neat and, although there are a lot of them, they are not crowded together the way the houses were in “locations” near Pretoria.

We had wanted to arrive in San Lameer by 15:30, but what with a stop for avo pears (avocados) and pineapples, we drove through the elegant, copper signed gateway at 17:00. The last hour or so, from the time we hit the Indian Ocean coast at Kingsburgh, the shore was elbow to elbow holiday resorts of all types. San Lameer (just south of Margate) turned out to be the most exclusive looking of all those we saw. Mr. Gallagher apparently owns several weeks a year in this condominium owned by Sanlam Insurance. We installed ourselves in a very nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath flat that comes complete with linens, crockery, and the daily cleaning services of a black woman. There are all sorts of sports facilities, beach, “swimming bath,” a pond for canoeing, and restaurants. We felt quite the jet setters.

All of us took a walk down to the beach, but it is a bit too chilly to feel tempted to take a dip. Supper was good and simple and we all felt ready for bed after a small dose of television.

(DAN) A subject that crops up in every conversation with South Africans is the drought. It varies from the “worst in 60 years” to “the worst in 200 years”. But I don’t how much the drought has actuall altered the Orange Free State (OFS) winter landscape.  I have a feeling that it brown and treeless even in good winters, and now it is simply grazed to the ground.

Natal, on the other hand, is considered to be the worst hit area of SA. (In Durban, the main city, there is a ration of 80 liters per day per household and that can only last till December.) Apparently rainy season simply has not come for the last 3 years in places. Natal’s border is the escarpment itself, at least with OFS and Lesotho, so as we dropped over the escarpment (at 6500 feet) directly south of Harrismith, we had the Drakensberg cliffs parallel to us and about 30 Km away. The faraway view was magnificent with the black cliffs rising 3000 - 5000 feet up from the rolling hills in Natal. Close up, things were really bleak. Natal is normally well watered and though as far south as Mooi river is cattle country, would normally have fairly tall (2 m)  grass, it was as bare as Orange Free State. Around Mooi River and beyond is a unique area of commercial pine woods and dairy farming. This area is normally always green, but...

Orange Free State near Pete Retief trail

Drakensbergs and the Escarpment

 After Pietermaritzburg the land (still hilly) started coming under sugar cane. This was one of the biggest surprises for me. I knew that Natal was big on sugar, but naturally thought that they had some flat but well drained areas for it. No, it is produced in the hills on slopes of up to 25%. True, these lands are well drained; in fact, though they are only half grown, there is no green left in the fields.

Hilly sugar cane in Natal

 A further surprise was the appearance of Zululand or Kwazulu, as the “non-independent homeland” is called.  (It was considered self-governed, but not independent in contrast with Transkei and Bophuthaswana, which was considered “indedependent). It is even more fragmented than Bophuthatswana, and once in Natal, we kept going in and out of this homeland. In the cattle areas it is truly sad: the mi­nute you enter the homeland, white round huts are everywhere, no grass, skinny cattle and in various places, signs of severe erosion. In the regions of Kwazulu where they grow sugar cane things seemed to be much better. The sugar cane plots were extremely small, but there seemed to be plenty of adjacent vegetable gardens.

South African provinces and homelands, distinguishing between self-governing and "Independent" at the time.

Before we hit the hay, promises were solemnly given to get up early in the morning and go running.

San Lameer, Natal State, South Africa, Sunday, 17 July, 1983

We finally all congregated around the glass table at 0830, each with a favourite reason why running would not be advantageous. Instead we decided on a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, etc. By about 1030 we rounded up enough energy to take a walk around the premises. The place is very attractive, even if you’re not into timeshare resorts. The beach, with a pounding surf and white sand, is about 10 minutes’ walk from “home”. We are right across the street from the golf course, 5 minutes from the bowling green (divide all times by 5 if you take the free electric bus). We walked in a less developed direction that takes you through the “Trim Park” (with various stations for dif­ferent exercises -- climbing ropes, “pressing logs,” etc.). We walked past the tennis courts and indoor squash courts and onto trails mostly used by the horses. This took us past the water treatment, sewage - recycling plant, and we ended up at the dam that holds back fresh water and makes a lake that figures in the complex.

Helena, Seobhan, Cecily and Nigel at the San Lameer Time-Share

An enjoyable facet of the walk is that Cecily is quite conversant on the different bird species to be seen and on many flowers. She had her binoculars along, so we got some close-ups of the birds. We walked back through semi-wild woods above the golf course, and ended up with a stroll along the beach. We’ve neglected to mention that weather has been windy and chilly and no one felt a desire to challenge the waves of the Indian Ocean.

The afternoon, sadly enough (but comfortably), was spent in front of the tube watching videos provided on one channel by San Lameer. Appropriately enough, one movie was about surfing in Australia (though it starred Beau Bridges), so we got to see some surfing amidst the romance.

For supper, Nigel gave us a braai which consisted of barbecued lamb chops, steaks, and boerworst. Very enjoyable.  More of the day was spent in front of the tube. South African Life CAN be very nice, you all.

San Lameer, Natal State, South Africa Monday, 18 July, 1983

(HELENA) Originally we were going to hit the road again today, but the temptation was too great to spend one more day in luxury. This time Dan made it out to the trim park and Cecily got to the beach for a run. My excuse--I had washed my hair last night and I had a head full of, as Sheila (our companion from Morocco to Mali) would say, a “magnificent set of curlers”. Seobhan wanted to buy a “costume” (bathing suit) so we three women drove the twenty minutes into Hargate. Seobhan never found a suitable costume, but Cecily and I got groceries, and we all three managed to get down an ice cream cone before heading back to San Lameer.

It was far from hot and the wind was starting to pick up, but we all decided to go to the beach for a while. The access to that beach is limited to a great extent (you go through a gate and have to give your flat number) but one of South Africa’s big boasts is that no one owns any of its coast; anyone can go to any stretch of it. Of course, I do not know what white people would do if they saw a black person using the same beach they were using. The waves were nice and big, but none of us felt tempted to lie out in the wind for long.

We are quite close to one of the borders with Transkei, and Nigel was keen on our seeing the local version of Sun City, so we all got into Cecily’s company car and drove down to the Casino Holiday Inn.

Holiday Inn casino in the "Independent" country of Transkei.

 They tell us that it is nothing in comparison with Sun City (in another homeland near Jo´burg), but there were plenty of middle class burghers there throwing their money away at the different games. Not at all our cup of tea, but it was interesting to see. All of that gambling is against the law in the Republic, but the Holiday Inn is just across the bridge in Transkei, so it is okay. There is no border post or any sort of control, so it is a glorious farce. It seems strange to us to see whole families come, and the kids are then left to their own devices. The five of us took a “free” ride around the premises on a tractor-drawn open wagon. Accompanying us was a bunch of bratty little girls (Afrikaaners, it was plain to see) who had no adult with them. Nigel and Seobhan took their turn at the slot machine and won 40 Rand. Oh boy!

We were all tired when we got back home, but since Nigel had reserved a squash court, he and Dan went to play for an hour. After spaghetti Bolognaise we sat around watching more TV. Meanwhile the journal gets farther and farther behind. Woops!  We just discovered that Dan left five pages of it at the laundry where he did the wash this morning. We are getting spoiled by washing machines.

As we have mentioned several times, both Martin and Cecily have company cars. Quite a good deal I would say; in fact I gather that Cecily gave that as a condition when she applied for her job. Apparently it is quite common for a company to supply a (White) person with a car complete with maintenance, cleaning, and petrol. So Cecily filled up her tank at company expense in order to come on this trip. Meanwhile there is a shortage of buses for Blacks, and most of them have to pay their own transport, often meaning a good percentage of their pay. And they are told where to live, many times 30 to 50 kms from where they work.