Mon 12 Nov 2018, Day 344
Staying at
Distance 79 + 14165 = 14244
Average 12.9
Time 6 h 7 m
Total from Amsterdam 19644
Location S33.288991, E25.907225
The owner of Locomotive Lodge, Katie is one amazing lady. Her husband, a teacher, passed away four months ago. She told her four sons when they were growing up not to farm as which son would she leave her farm to. She doesn’t farm sheep, only cattle as stock theft is rife and sheep being smaller are easy to steal. The thieves herd a few sheep into a corner, pass them over the fence into a bakkie or if stealing one put it in the car boot, bastards. Farmers only get roughly R2000 for a sheep. Katie has planted pecan trees as they grow well in this area.
We finally left just after 7 and the 12 km to Cookhouse was easy. We stopped at the Caltex garage where a ‘Fresh Stop’ store (stocked by Foodlovers Market) had almost everything we needed, just no meat. 5 km further is a Padstal linked with a Total petrol station but also no meat. The road was smoother, the weather good and hills bearable. Stopped at 40 km for a sandwich and again 20 km further for another snack to up our energy levels. By now it was cooking hot and we pulled into a picnic spot with no tree for shade. There was a huge truck parked so we made our way towards the truck’s shade. Eric, the driver knew of a place about 10 km further. We carried on but Peter was battling with the heat so shared a sachet of Bioplus for a bit of vooma.
I crossed the road and flagged down a motorist, Russell Clark, to ask about accommodation. He couldn’t help but after riding a few km towards Olifantskop Pass (elephants head) he had turned around and came back to tell us that there was a place just before the start of the 6 km climb up Olifantskop Pass. Shortly thereafter we came to a place called Intloko Ye Ndlovu. Peter says elephant is featured in the name somewhere but I have no idea what it means in English.
Cynthia and husband, John look after the place as the owners live in Despatch. We phoned Wesley who gave the ok to camp but Cynthia showed us to a small cottage while John went and turned on the water. We have an oval bath and took turns bathing in tepid water, even washed some clothes. Supper was another bits and pieces meal … rice with a tin of onion and tomatoes and a tin of tuna. Not great but it filled the gaping hole in our tummies. The wind has dropped but our cottage inside is stinking hot. There are no mozzie nets on the windows so we’re going to cook inside tonight. Just wish the miggies would leave me alone and bugger off and go and annoy Peter… but he hasn’t got a single one bothering him? They’re getting under my T shirt, into my ears and irritating me to the level of swearing using bad words… Wish we had a mozzie net and could then sleep out on the veranda. Enough waffling for one day.
Cheers folks … not quite. I went into the room to hang washing on the curtaining to find a smallish roach on the the curtain and a few more little ones around the room, so we’ve pitched the tent outside where we won’t be bothered by the heat of a stuffy room or creepy crawlies finding their way into our bags of ????
– Our cottage at Locomotive Lodge
– I spend my life applying cream to my ‘nether’ region … read the red sign.
-This field of aloes must have been a beautiful sight in winter
– Our room at Intloko Ye Endlovu is where we are camping tonight
– Our map cycled to date, 19644 km from Amsterdam
