May 16: TIA madness!

Not too much to report today other than I had a real TIA (“This is Africa”) day today, and here’s why. After a wonderful stay at Golden Gate Highlands National Park, I hit the road to get halfway to my next destination – the famous Kruger National Park. What started out as an absolutely gorgeous day with an expected drive time of about 5-6 hours and arrival at my chosen iOverlander campsite on the shores of Lake Chrissiesmeer turned out to be an 11 hour drive with arrival to my campsite after dark – which I really hate!

With the start of the trip, all was going well. Leaving the Park, I drove through Maluti-Drakensberg mountains during an awesome sunrise on the rocks and outcrops, and then began a long haul northeasterly across the rolling hills of the northeastern part of the Free State province and the southwestern part of the Mpumalanga province. This part of the country can be summed up in two words: corn & cattle, with the former dominating the landscape. If it weren’t for the not-so-flat terrain I could easily have thought I was driving across Iowa. Then, just when I was about 2 hours from my destination there was an unannounced road block. Turns out the town up ahead was protesting something (don’t know what) and had blocked the road and were not letting anyone through. Note, this was a fairly significant highway and long-haul route for truckers, so there were dozens of them stopped on the roadway. My navigation system could not handle this at all and would not, could not, direct me to an alternate route. So, I did the next best thing and spoke to a police officer who directed me to take this dirt road for 10 km, and then turn right, and when you get to ?? turn left, and then at the ?? sign turn right, and follow that for xx km until you see ?? You get the point! To my good (turns out perhaps not so good) fortune, another native in a small transit truck was trying to get to the same place (or the nearby town) and he too spoke to the police officer and decided to go for it. He was super nice and asked if I wanted to follow, so I did.

After a few kilometes on this dirt road we ran into this, and I thought this might turn out to be an interesting little bypass adventure a way to see the “real Africa”:

After 10 km more of dirt road that turn out to be muddy (which messed up my beautiful car wash I just had done a few hours earlier) we hit a paved road and all was looking good, except that we were now headed in exactly the opposite direction of my destination. Have faith I told myself. Of course, to reinforce my doubts, my navigation systems (two of them no less!) were screaming at me to turn around, and they kept on screaming at me every couple of minutes until I could turn them off. However, it took me an hour or two to turn them off because I was fully occupied trying to keep up with my South African guide and I literally couldn’t take my hands off the wheel or my eyes off the road. Why, you might ask. Well, imagine what a road would look like after being cluster bombed. That’s what this “highway” was like. Potholes all over the place. And these were foot-deep potholes, not your average American pothole. Driving was essentially an obstacle course, and at speed too so as to keep up with my guide. This went on for perhaps 2 hours – but I continued to have faith in my native savior believe it or not. This was not the worst of it. When we finally did turn onto a new road and the tarmak appeared to be in good shape, we would pick up speed and be cruising along when suddenly, without warning, there would be a massive pothole. I can’t tell you how many times I swore during these random potholle episodes, but let’s just say I am glad Skylar wasn’t in the car.

Eventually, 11 hours later, I did make it to my destination, but after dark. Fortunately, there is a happy ending to this story. Remember, this campsite is not on any real map per se, but instead is listed on my iOverlander App. Have faith in the App I always tell myself, and it hasn’t disappointed yet. Driving down a dirt road several kilometers I turned into what looked like a driveway to a farm, but eventually I came to a gate with a house off a little in the distance. To my good fortune the owner came out and opened the electronic gate remotely. I drove through and got the green light to continue down this farmyard track towards the lake, which I did. I eventually got to a “keepers” house who welcomed me to, yes, an actual campsite. After paying about 3 USD for a night stay (yes, that’s 3 US dollars) she got on her ATV and led me across a field and down a track to an incredible lake-side camping spot with full ablution facilities (that’s restroom, kitchen sink, shower, etc.). And to top it off, I am the only one here – jackpot. So, there is reward at the end of the rainbow!

I’ll show you the campsite tomorrow when it is light. Goodnight!