Chris Meistre

One of the members of our club, Algoa Toyota 4×4 Club, asked us to join him for a unique experience.  Members of the Mountain Rescue Club, SA Airforce, HAMs, as well as a few others were setting up an exercise over the weekend to test their spotting and rescuing abilities.  This is aimed at rescuing planes that have crashed and that are missing.  Of course I didn’t have to think twice before saying we’ll be there.  We were given a brief description of what is expected of us at the 4×4 support teams, which made it sound even more like an adventure.  The 4x4s would go out into the mountains and setup crash sites and then get rescued.  Easier said than done

So on Friday, 14 August 2009, Bernadette and I left towards the Graaff Reinet area where the weekend would take place.  Barto was going to join us, but unfortunately he had to bail on account of work.  We would meet the 2 other teams at the camp site the evening.  I could finally go away in the Colt again, after a few occasions where the vehicle would be in the workshop on the weekend we would be away.  The first thing I did when we left home was head through Motherwell and onto a 14km piece of dirt road that links up to the road we would take to get to Graaff Reinet.  There are normally not a lot of vehicles on this dirt road, and you can clearly see vehicles approaching because of all the dust.  This was the perfect place to drive the Colt on a dirt road at speed to see how it handles after not driving it for so long.  We immediately noticed how much smoother the ride feels.  This is compared to driving in the Pajero for quite some time now which is a short wheel base.  In the SWB you feel the bumps a lot more than in a longer vehicle.  At speed I started getting used to the vehicle again and soon we were taking the corners like pros.  In my eyes anyways

We got back onto the tar road and headed towards Kirkwood area.  About 40km outside Uitenhage I remembered about the Cheetah breeding farm we would be passing.  I mentioned it to Bernadette and we decided to check up on them, as we hadn’t been there in years.  Once there Bernadette had her camera ready as we met the lady that would take us on the tour.  It had been such a long time since we’d been there, that I forgot that you actually have a guide that takes you on the little tour.  The first pen we stopped as was Frederik, the meercat.  He has been brought there from someone that had him as a house pet and couldn’t handle him anymore.  He looked so cute and so alone, while making these funny little noises.  When he was close enough to the side of the pen, the guide told me I could reach over and pick him up.  I picked him up, and was amazed at how soft his fur felt.  He just had one thing in his mind though, to get back to digging holes!  As soon as I put him down he zoomed in on a hole he was digging and carried on.

Frederik

From here we were led through a gate, and the next thing I saw we were in the same camp as a cheetah.  She was laying in the distance and as we approached her I tried to rack my brain to remember if we were given the opportunity to do this the previous time we were there.  I am sure I would remember   Initially as we got right to the cheetah, I was quite sure if we’re allowed to touch her or how we should approach her.  The guide then said I can sit next to her and play with her.  So here I as sitting and playing with a huge cheetah, and she started purring like a little kitten.  This is one of the most amazing and special experiences I’ve ever had.  We sat there for quite some time just playing with her while the guide told us more about the breeding farm.

Cheetah

Bernadette with Cheetah

Cheetah

Reluctantly we left the cheetah and carried onto the next pen that held a young Serval cat.  As we got into the pen I noticed all the toys lying around, he even had a little tiger doll!  He was hiding in the long grass, but soon came out to play.  I played with him a bit with the toys as if he was just a normal cat or dog.  It looked so funny when you gave him the tiger teddy bear and he looks like he hugs it.

Serval

We then went onto another pen that had 2 cheetahs in.  This is a brother and sister and they were lying in the shade of a tree relaxing.  The guide said we wouldn’t go in there, because she wants to go show us another surprise.  So off we went following her into another pen.  She told us to sit down while we disappeared into a little hut.  She came out holding 2 little lion cubs.  A male that looks beautiful and a beautiful white female.  They were just woken up so they looked a bit dazed.

They were handed to us and we sat there playing and petting them.  Soon they were fully awake and wanting to play.  Bernadette got some excellent photos here, and we were almost sad when we realized we actually needed to get a move on so that we don’t end up getting to our camp site too late.

Lion Cub

Lion Cubs

Lion Cubs

Sucking my thumb

We thanked the guide for an awesome experience and headed off towards Graaff Reinet.  For a while after leaving the cheetah farm, we both just sat there wondering if what we’ve just experienced really happened.

In Graaff Reinet we filled up on diesel, and then stopped off at the Great Big Church in the city centre.  Once again Bernadette was out with her camera getting photographs from various angles.  And I just watched as she was across the road one moment, and the next she was somewhere else.  We left PE earlier than we normally would’ve because we wanted to stop off at the Valley of Desolation to take a couple of photos there.  The previous year we were there with the 4×4 club, and it really is a beautiful place.  It was around 16:30 and the sun would begin to set, so we needed to rush to get to the view points to get some nice photos.  When we got out at the first viewpoint we felt how cold it had gotten.  I was still in a short sleeve shirt, and the icy wind blew right through it.

Valley of Desolation

After stopping at the toposcope on our way down, we started heading towards the camp site.  It would be about 80km of travel on dirt road, and we would cross the provincial boundaries between Eastern and Northern Cape.

Once pass the Ouberg Pass we turn right onto the dirt road.  It’s a very well kept dirt road and at times I couldn’t believe we were traveling 140km/h and still have it feel like a tar road.  Traveling at that speed at dusk meant that every now and then we’d have to slam on brakes for dips in the road.  In the whole hour and a bit that we drove, we only came across 1 other car.  I just love dirt roads

We finally got to the camp site at around 19:10 and we had to be at their briefing at 19:30.  I was just going to have a drink and then go up to the conference room before setting up the tent.  When we got there though, the scouts had already setup camp and they said we were more than welcome to use one of their tents.  I didn’t need to be asked twice before saying yes.  It was cold and dark and I really didn’t feel like setting up our tent.  The scouts are from the Walmer and Cleary Park chapters in Port Elizabeth, and these kids are some of the most well mannered and respectable people I’ve ever come across.  I’d normally cringe at having to spend time in a camp site with so many kids, but they were really well behaved.  I know I sound like an grumpy old person, but when we go away, I want to be left in peace and quiet.

After the briefing we headed back to our tent, and got our fire going.  Soon after eating we were in bed and didn’t have any problems just falling asleep, we were pretty tired.  We were in for a very cold night, and had to be up and leave the camp site around 7:00.

Camp Site

Bernadette decided to organise a weekend away for us and a few friends. We decided to go to Bergplaas, which is in the Baviaanskloof. Bernadette and I have stayed over in this mountain hut before, but knew we wanted to go there again, and for longer. I left the booking and organising to her, as she always does it so well, and we were set to go on the weekend of 8-10 August.  It was also to be referred to as “Weekend at Bernie’s”.

We just need half an excuse to travel into the Baviaanskloof because we love the area so much.

So on Saturday morning at around 8:30 Bernadette and I left in the Pajero, and Barto joined us in his Triton. We were actually amazed at how much stuff can fit into a short wheel base Pajero It always seem like we take along too much stuff, but while packing you always think you need all the stuff you take with.

I wanted to take the longer route to get to Patensie, so we headed towards Longmore forest. If you take the road running past Culturama towards Longmore forest and you carry on driving you eventually get to Hankey. This is a drive worth doing, and currently it’s very green around that area. Makes for beautiful scenery.

Before we got there though, we stopped off to buy wood. Normally we would buy a feed bags and be happy with that, but Barto decided this time we’ll take a bakkie load of wood with. And…. we did

On the way there we met a couple of guys driving through on their Mountain Bikes, but besides that, for about 2 hours we didn’t have any other people or vehicles on the road. That’s the way we like to drive.

As we get closer to Loerie and Hankey, there is a turn off we’ve taken before.  This leads you to a dead end, or at least it was supposed to take you to Loerie, but the road has been grown over.  I took this road anyways to show Barto, as it has got beautiful views as you driving along the edge of a cliff.

From here we headed off towards Hankey.  From Hankey to Patensie we took another gravel back road before stopping off in Patensie to fill up and get our last supplies before heading into the Baviaanskloof.

A quick stop at Kondomo to sort out our permits and all the other stuff that’s associated with it, we headed into the kloof.

Baviaanskloof

I immediately noticed how much worse (in terms of potholes) the road has become.  This suites me, because the fewer people are able to get into the Baviaanskloof, the lesser the chance is of someone doing something there that will make the area inaccessible to the rest of us.  I’m referring to the beach ban and other bans.  It might sound selfish, but it’s always a few people that spoil it for every one else.

We stopped off at a few places to take some photos.

Barto

Just before we got to Combrink’s pass, which is the first pass you get, we saw a VW Polo in front of us.  We asked about it when we got to the reserve’s manned gate, and they said they warned the person that they won’t be able to go through the passes with such a low car, but the guy didn’t want to listen.  Later on we met up again with them after we had over taken them and then stopped off alongside the road to see if this Polo was really going to go through with it.  At a deepish water crossing we stood and spoke to the guy while he was contemplating whether to not he was going to attempt it.  We warned against it before we left.  Nothing was heard from them again, so hopefully they turned back.

When we got to our destination, Bergplaas, we quickly offloaded before we started with the fire for Barto’s potjie he was going to make us.

Bergplaas

Gordon, Jessica and Stephen joined us about an hour after we arrived.    While waiting for the potjie to be ready, we enjoyed the afternoon and evening relaxing around the fire.

After a nice evening we all headed for our beds.  During the night the wind came up and we could hear it howling outside.  As we were on top of a mountain, it was probably a lot worse than we thought it would be.

The next morning we all woke up lazily, and had this as a view when we went outside:

Mountains

I can get used to waking up between all the mountains.  It’s excellent to look around you and not seeing any evidence of life around you!

After breakfast Gordon, Jessica and Stephen headed back to PE.

The rest of us decided to go for a walk around the farm.  Barto went to show us the old farm house ruines.  You could even see where the flower beds used to be.  We checked out some foot prints near the dam and then headed back for a lazy day around the hut.  Barto and I went to drive around a bit while Bernadette caught up on some reading.  I headed back a short while later to catch a snooze.

When Barto got back we had lunch, and then again I went for snooze

When I woke up Bernadette asked me to take some photos of her, so we headed towards a couple of the ruines.  With her doing all the settings and me just pressing the button to take the photo, it came out quite nicely.

Bernadette

Bernadette

After the photo shoot it was time to head back to the hut for another fire.

Fire

The evening was again spent relaxing around the fire, with Bernadette and Barto trying out different techniques of photographing the moon and stars.

When we woke up the next morning, we reluctantly packed up and headed back home.  Damn, wish I could live like that every day!

When we started EC Offroad Adventures one of the first events we just knew we were going to do was an all night 4×4 event.  This is something that would put people out of their comfort zone, and see how well they perform under pressure and when they’re tired.

To be honest, while we were doing the planning, we didn’t yet know what the response would be like.  It was a struggle to get people to go on 4×4 trips last year when I organised it for the Algoa Toyota 4×4 Club, but we were pleasantly surprised.  11 vehicles with 31 people attended!

The whole trip report can be read here: http://www.ec-offroad.co.za/trip-reports/baviaanskloof-night-event-2009

We enjoyed setting it up, getting to know more people, seeing everyone enjoy themselves and just running the whole event.  I’m not sure who had more fun, us or the participants!

The Spirit of Africa is the brain child of Sarel Van Der Merwe in conjunction with Mitsubishi Motors.  I am not only a fan of this competition because I love and drive a Mitsubishi, but also because it’s something put together by the legendary Sarel.

Towards the end of 2007 I read about this competition again, and something inside me said I must do this.  I spoke to Barto and together we decided that we will do it in 2008.  We didn’t really know what to expect of the competition, so really, we were expecting the unexpected, and we were surprised at the end of the day.

Maritime Motors in Port Elizabeth was kind enough to lend us one of their vehicles to go and practise a bit a couple of weeks before we went up to Kosi Bay for the first stage of the competition.  We appreciated this very much as it enabled us to get a feel for the vehicle.

We flew up to Durban, hired a car, and drove for about 450km to get to our destination.  There we were met by Sarel and his team and enjoyed the first evening relaxing.

The next day it was time for all the heats of the competition.  It turned out to be full on offroad racing.  Where time, hitting poles, everything was counting against you.  We enjoyed it very much.

The following day there were a couple more challenges, of which we turned out to be the first team to score full marks for one of them.  That was a nice feather in our cap.

After that it was back home, after an incredible experience!

This year Bernadette and myself will be going up as a team and Barto with another friend.

What is an epic adventure without some cool people to share it with?

We had some more planning to do for our Night 4×4 Event for EC Offroad Adventures and time was getting tight.  There was basically one day we could do it, and we already had an event on that day.  The event was the Algoa Toyota 4×4 Club’s Annual Jamboree.  Barto, myself and Bernadette had to set up the obstacles, and run the whole event.  We decided to do the setup of our event after the jamboree.  This would mean starting at around 17:00 and possibly driving the whole night.

This is sort of how the conversations went in setting this up :

Barto – Let’s do the setup of the night event the night after the jamboree

Chris – Cool, I’m in.

And then I asked my lovely wife:

Chris – We need to do the setup of the night event the night after the jamboree, which means we’ll probably not sleep for 24 hours.

Bernadette – Cool, I’m in.

As easy as that we had planned what would become an epic adventure!

Friday afternoon we all went out to Offcamber Adventures, the venue for the jamboree, at around 13:00.  Once we had finished setting up tents we headed out into the trail to setup the course.  We enjoyed this a lot, and got our vehicles seriously full of mud!  We relaxed the evening and went to bed around 23:00.

The next morning we were up at 06:00 and packed up all our gear, and getting ready for the day’s action.  Around 10:00 we started with the jamboree that basically had us standing in the sun until 14:00.   Obviously we were already tired at this point, but none the less we got ready to leave for the Baviaans.

We left at 15:00 with the sun still high in the sky.  Our first priority was to get a fuel stop so that we would have enough fuel to drive through to Uniondale.  In Barto’s Triton this would not be a problem, but I was doubtful of our Pajero as this was the first long trip we did with it.  We arrived at a petrol station at around 16:00 after taking a beautiful scenic drive to Patensie.  At the petrol station we met 2 Baviaans Honoury rangers.  Barto told them about our plans for the evening, and they seemed quite excited to hear about it.  I assume not many “normal” people drive the Baviaanskloof at night.  After filling up we headed to the Kouga Dam (which would be our starting point for the Night 4×4 Event) taking some roads we haven’t traveled before.

At the moment the dam’s level is frighteningly low, and it’s a pity the Eastern Cape is only now starting to think about putting water restrictions in place again.

At around 17:30 we left Kouga Dam and started our journey into the Baviaanskloof.  We made various stops along the way, and at Smitskraal we stopped, put off our vehicles and enjoyed some food.  Holgat’s Pass has deterioted very much since we were there a couple of months ago.  It’s a pity and good at the same time.  The pity is that the roads are getting damaged very badly, but the good thing is soon only experienced people will be able to drive there and that means fewer people to mess up all the camp sites.  Sorry, I just like solitude when we go camping instead of people with music playing until late at night.

While at Smitskraal we saw another vehicle approach us in the dark, and it was strange to see that it was the same 2 rangers we saw at the petrol station.  They stopped by us and we had a nice chat to them.  They informed us to be on the look out for Buffalo crossing the roads to get to water.  It might be a good time to add that this was around 20:30 and the car’s temperature guage was showing that it was 34 degree celsius outside!

When we left Smitkraal, I did a bit of a calculation and realised we would reach the other side of the Baviaans at around 0:00.  At the next stop I suggested that perhaps instead of just heading home when we reach the end via the tar road, we should take on the Grootrivierpoort Pass that runs on the other side of the Baviaans mountains.  This is another awesome pass that we haven’t done in a long time.  It would also mean a lot more driving instead of the 3 hours on tar to get home.  Barto was obviously keen and Bernadette said we might as well as she had prepared to be there all night anyways.  Again, as easy as that, and because we all love what we were busy doing,a decision was easily made.

As we were reaching the end of the Baviaanskloof, we noticed a lot of redness in the sky.  We had a lot of theories as to what it could be, as there was lightning in the distance as well.  Finally at one point when we got out the Baviaanskloof Bernadette said she just saw flames on the horizon.  Standing still and looking into the distance we saw a long stretch of flames.  By estimation it must have been pretty close to Uniondale.  It was amazing how it lit up the sky.

It was about 0:30 now and we headed on into the roads that we were going to take.  At a stop after about another hour of driving we discussed how bad the roads seem and there were clear signs off a flood of some type at all the cause ways.  It was amazing to see as everyone in the Eastern Cape is complaining about not enough rain, and here there were clear signs of recent floods.

By 2:11 we had seen so many buck, rabbits, kudus, unidentified animals (just eyes in the dark) and opened/closed so many gates we decided we needed to take a break.  At this point all the shadows were starting to play tricks on my mind and you start to see things.  Funny and scary at the same time.  We pulled off into the veld, decided to sleep an hour, and then head off again.  All the adrenalin didn’t help though and I probably got 10 minutes of sleep in there.

We woke up and left again with another 3-4 hours of driving ahead of us.  It was beautiful seeing the sun rise in front of us while on the mountain passes.  I find sad that many people do not get to experience the outdoors like we do.  Not that I mean you need to do it at night, but go and camp and wake up early and experience those first rays hitting the earth.  You can always go to bed after that again!

While crossing a dry river bed, I took a wrong turn and while still commenting that this doesn’t really look like a well-used road I carried on until it came to a dead end.  At this point our radios have been put off due to batteries dying, which was caused by chattering too much on them during the day!  First instincts would have been to panic, but luckily we’ve done this so many times, and I know Barto well enough that if he didn’t see as at the agreed upon meeting point he would come back to look for us.  So calmly we did a 20 point turn to be able to back track and drove until I saw the real road.

It might be worth mentioning that normally in convoy procedures you drive with the person behind you visible, but at night it’s a different story.  Well, for us at least.  The 3 of us have traveled around so much already, that we know, without speaking, how this are supposed to run.  Barto drove in front with quite a big gap between us as I wanted to drive with my brights on, and also not in his dust.  So we would drive for an hour or so, he would pull off and we’d meet up, stretch our legs and then move on again.

The last 100km were ahead of us, and the needle on the Pajero’s fuel level wasn’t putting me at ease.  Again we didn’t panic, because we know we’ve got someone there to help us if needs be.  I drove that last 100km to the petrol station conservatively, and we made it with a few litres to spare.

From there we drove straight home to arrive at 07:30 and fall into bed.  We had been awake since 06:00 the previous day, had an awesome time with running a jamboree for the club, started driving at 15:00 into the Baviaanskloof and arrived at home safely.  An epic adventure with 1 hour sleep in more than 24 hours!