Walking over a blanket of clouds, I am carried away by white horses to a castle in the sky. Tyres banging on the landing strip of Johannesburg shake us in our chairs, I suddenly wake up and take a deep breath. It has been 24 hours since we left Melbourne and it will be another hour before we reach Durban, the place where our car will arrive too. I lean back into my uncomfortable airplane chair and start looking for my horses on the clouds again.
February 7, 2016
We end up in a great place in Durban, a hospitable couple welcomes us in the only gay-friendly guesthouse in Durban. The guesthouse is surrounded by a large stone wall, an electric fence, 24 hour camera security and an electric sliding door. This could leave the impression that having a gay guesthouse requires this sort of security, but looking around in the neighbourhood you can see that all the houses have this extreme form of security. It’s almost as if they are competing against each other with the height of their walls and the amount of electric fencing. We’re staying in Berea, a part of Durban not too far from the city and the harbour. That evening we get the conformation that the ship which holds our container has arrived in the port of Durban.
February 8, 2016
On Monday we start with a positive attitude on the process to get our car cleared. We know that the ship is in the harbour, but locating one of the 1221 container on board is difficult. We chose a large agency in South Africa, hoping they would have the experience to get this process finished as quickly as possible. The choice for a large organisation appears not to be the wisest, we are constantly dealing with different people. Finally, after 4 days of waiting, which consisted of a lot of calling, we learn that our container has moved to the depot for collection. Helga and I spend another 2 days amongst heavy industry, dodging forklifts and eating dust while seeing a lot of containers being emptied and filled with boxes. In the end our waiting is rewarded: after 8 long days we drive our car out of the container and we say goodbye to the people of the depot who took good care of us.
In the meantime Helga used her time productively by getting a South Africa Sim card and making appointments to get our travel vaccinations.
It’s the Tuesday after we drove our car out of the container and we’re on our way to the Howling Moon factory. We drive through sluggish Durban traffic and ask ourselves:” Who drives their car in the middle of rush hour when they don’t have to?” that is the question I ask myself as I pull up behind a smoking Toyota Corolla and try to gain enough speed to shift from first to second gear. Let’s ask another question: “Durban, a South African city with the busiest port and over 3 million people, you’ve had your car for one day…Is it wise to drive it during rush hour”? answer: “No.” Question: “Is it fun?” answer: “Kind of!” We both lock our doors when we drive through one of the more shady neighbourhoods and we both wonder as to who locked the back door, something we’ll have to get used to. It’s Africa.
Howling Moon is a South African producer of camping equipment with its head office in Durban. I’ll try to describe one of the things they make that is so important to us.
You climb on the roof of the car, unzip a sturdy canvas cover and throw over the back of the car. You slide the ladder to its full length, climb off the roof and pull the ladder downwards while stepping backwards. Like a harmonica the rooftop tent unfolds made from a wood/aluminium floor, aluminium poles to make the frame and a thick canvas.
Helga and I walk into the factory where mainly women are working on tables set up into long rows and where they get kilometres of thick green cloth through their hands and their Singers (sewing machine). We get some curious looks when we walk through the factory and when walking the stairs to the office. I wonder about the steady noise the sewing machines keep making while they follow us with their eyes. I would probably have sewn my own shirt into some canvas when doing to same.
Camping, it’s not for everyone: it’s being creative with what you have, dealing with inconveniences and constantly looking for new and easier ways to do things. If you add a fit, energetic and colourful person to this mix you get Dave, the progenitor of Howling Moon. We come into his office and introduce ourselves, we tell him about our travel plans, experiences and adventures. One of the first questions we get back is: “how do you think we can improve the rooftop tent? After this we are summoned to get our tent out of the car as soon as possible so they can do a service of the tent and add some improvements that have been made over the years.
Dave has them to clear a space in the factory so we can start to unpack and re-pack the car, since nothing was where it should be after the shipping.
While we are working on this, every once in a while an employee will come and have a look as they are curious about who we are and what we do. They have no experience with camping like this, but they are interested in our stories. Dave will often invite overlanders to visit the factory so his employees get an idea of how their products are used and they can “travel along” through the stories they tell.
We are captivated by the friendliness and the enthralling smiles we get from behind the sewing machines. We feel as at home here as we do in our home for the past 11 months: our Howling Moon Tourer rooftop tent.
The rain falls down hard on the tin roof of the cottage. We’re on the couch, watching an empty fireplace in the corner. The cottage’s interior is stylish and spacious. Our shoes are muddy and placed on an old newspaper, full of political news. Not a bad place to put your muddy shoes.
The continuous drum of the rain on the roof seems to get louder until we realise someone is banging on the wooden door. I quickly open it and in the dusk I see someone, panting, wet, with rubber boots. He’s pointing towards some really dark clouds in the distance.
He turns around and points to the car, which is the only one still outside in front of the house. I understand and I follow the rubber boots up the slope towards the car. Hail is common in this area. With soggy shoes I climb behind the steering wheel and see the large wooden doors of the hay shed being opened. I start the car and drive inside. The wind is so loud around the shed that it drowns out all other noise. We both wait for a second at the door, before we both start running back, he to his family at the farm, me back to the cottage.
February 19, 2016
It’s early morning when we drive down the muddy path that leads us back to the main road, it’s covered with leaves and broken branches from last night’s storm. We turn onto the highway and mix ourselves with the few cars heading towards Harding. We are on our way to a workshop to have one of our batteries tested. Since our arrival in Durban, our starter battery seems to not have enough power to start the car. A test at the workshop proves this and we decide to leave the battery to see if slow-longterm charging helps.
We look around the village, do an extensive puzzle journey through the supermarket in search for familiar products and enjoy ourselves on the farm.
Our footprints show on the dew of the wet grass. We take over the last things to the car before we begin on the first real travel day in Africa. A wave of emotion overwhelms me when we leave the familiar entrance path. The main road takes us through Harding again and bends afterwards onto a gravel road. We have felt welcome here. People walk in long rows on the side of the road and welcome us with their broad smiles of white teeth, contrasting against their dark skin. We are not driving fast and we see the children run towards the fences to see us and the car a bit better. We’re driving with our windows open to be closer to these beautiful people.
“I realise that in 2011 I bought an old Landrover, with the dream to make this trip we are doing right now. It took me years to get the car ready and equipped to take us safely through Africa. Every spare hour was spent by driving down to the car, sitting and waiting in a dusty shed, and turning the ignition to hear it start, just to keep this dream-journey alive while I was preparing. Just the sound of a car who had seen so much more than I, who was waiting faithfully for adventure in a dusty shed, like a tiger on a leash.“
The white palms, full of lines and raw of working on the fields, wave at us from a distance. I don’t know if it’s fair, our background and education gives us such an advantage. It feels good to be welcomed by such a beautiful country like South Africa, but I don’t think I deserve being cheered at.
We get in line behind a long row of cars waiting in front of a women in full workman’s wear and a flag. We got the recommendation to leave enough room between cars so there is always the opportunity to get out. The inhabitants of the village nearby make the most of these stops by selling drinks and fruit. Helga and I are captivated by the smile of a short, heavy, black lady who carries a bowl with ice and cans on top of her head. We did not think that smile could get even bigger, but it certainly did after we bought two Cokes.
After this interruption we notice that the villages become less fortunate and the road gets worse. We have a hard time navigating and the heavy rain from the last few days shows in the broad muddy tracks and water filled potholes. I can see Helga’s white knuckles from holding on to the rail in front of her which is attached to the dashboard. The last time we drove through mud we got stuck big time and it took us a few hours to dig ourselves out.
People have stopped waving and children hurry towards the road, not to say hello, but to fold their hands into little bowls and shout: “ Ssssweets! Sweets!”.
F*ck the tourist who ever thought of doing this! I am shocked when I look in my side mirror and see the previously folded up hands picking up stones from the ground and throwing them towards the car. I feel angry and powerless. Absorbed in our own thoughts we drive on, and on some level I understand them, as a child I was also not the best in dealing with disappointments. And yet, I believe that giving out candy is not the solution. There is a challenge to find something that works for us, but is also beneficial to the children.
We stop when the land makes way for the sea and we find a good campsite. All the facilities are built in small wooden huts which are all connected by a boardwalk suspended a metre above the ground.
When we wake up we are immediately followed by 4 kids from the surrounding villages. In the beginning this is a bit threatening, but when I return later to talk to them it turns out that they are bored and are looking for something to do. It is Saturday and there is nothing else for them to do. When I talk to them I call them boys, but soon I am being corrected by one of them. He points at the others and says: “ They are boys, I am a man”.
A brochure about local culture tells me that boys need to do a ceremony of a certain period in which they do assignments and rituals after which they become a man. Apparently the kid I called boy previously already completed the ceremony while the others had not.
The sun slowly crawls its way up in the sky and we know our morning hours are over when it begins to burn in our faces. We quickly pack up a day backpack with lunch and the camera and start on our hike towards a waterfall that ends in the sea. A narrow track leads us through the hills and down to the banks of the river. This river turns out to be famous, because this is the only river where the Kingfish, who normally only lives in deeper waters swims up. They swim against the stream until they reach a small island, they circle this and swim with hundreds of them back to the sea. Numerous scientists have done research on this phenomenon, but so far it is unknown why they do this.
We have to cross this river and I let my eyes skim over it with the story of the Kingfish in the back of my head. Nothing to see. The path continues on the other side of the river. We put our clothes in a dry-bag together with the camera, the daypack and our shoes. We quickly wade into the water and push the dry-bag in front of us to the other side of the river. We can feel the cold water pass by us, but we manage to reach the other side and we quickly get dressed again to continue the small steep track up the cliff.
By the clattering of water on the rocks we can hear we’re getting closer. We’ve been walking for two hours now. We wade through some thick bushes and the waterfall appears in front of us. Litres of chrystel clear water crash down on the solid stones and from there into the sea. Via slippery rocks we find our way down and fill up our water bottles. It’s late in the afternoon when we start our journey back. The wind is softly blowing, caressing our shirts and pushing us gently in the right direction. Our footprints from before lead us back to where we came from.
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The car shakes when I start it up. We just packed up our tent and pushed everything in its original place before we head off to Port St. Johns. It rained the night before and kept us out of our sleep while litres of water found their way over our tent towards the ground.
The potholes on the sandy track are filled with water and there are spots with thick mud. We have faith and navigate ourselves out of this and back to the main road.
It feels like we’re driving into an ant farm. Streets are filled up with people, school kids, trucks and men trying to push heavy wheel barrows. We drive into Lusikisiki, mix with the local traffic and end up parking in between a rusty truck and a market stall selling bananas. Helga stays in the car while I bump my way into the supermarket. While I push my cart I try to find the right products. I seem to be the only white guy in the supermarket. Not something I feel uncomfortable with while I think back to the time I taught PE at a juvenile hall in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles.
I look up when somebody starts talking to me in really good English: “ sir, that car outside, that must be yours? It’s from Australia, how did it come here?” I smile, he is the first one to notice since the colours of our Australia number plate are the same as the area in South Africa we’re driving in right now. While I explain how the car got here I see his expression change, his eyebrows are now raised and he says: “really?”. I try to nod as convincingly as possible and say: “really.”. Deep in his own thoughts I see him push his cart to the cash register.
I quickly find the last items on my grocery list and follow his example. When I leave the store a security guard picks me out of the stream of people also leaving. I have to hand in my receipt and all my groceries are checked against my receipt. Behind my I see all the locals leaving the supermarket without raising their heads. In the reflection of the window I can see myself and I wonder if I am giving out the wrong impression by the way I look? After carefully checking every single item they let me go. I quickly leave the store, put everything in the back of the car and get behind the wheel. Away!
A large grassy site almost like a golf course is our camping spot for the night. From our tent we have a view of the chocolate colour river and the large cliffs, or “the gates” that are the entry to Port St. Johns.
By the clattering of water on the rocks we can hear we’re getting closer. We’ve been walking for two hours now. We wade through some thick bushes and the waterfall appears in front of us. Litres of chrystel clear water crash down on the solid stones and from there into the sea. Via slippery rocks we find our way down and fill up our water bottles. 