Day 120 Standerton

Activity started at 6.30 this morning so we were up early and made tracks, for once the camper started without too much problem so we filled up and headed out of town, stopped at the end of the street to let the dogs have a run and a piss, discovered that my petrol cap was missing, so went back to the garage to fetch it and noticed a leak under the car, shit, and shit again. At first it did not look serious, just a leak where their was an obviously loose clamp. I had to wait awhile for the mechanic to arrive but he had a look and said 'yes, the clamp was loose', tightened it and put a second clamp on, then ran the engine to see if all the leaks were gone and suddenly we heard a crack and water poured out from under the radiator, turns out she was a solid block of ice and the pressure caused the seal at the bottom to burst and that was the end of radiator number three.

radiator number four

Wardens main drag

I prefer not to say much more on the subject, I had to pay a guy to go into Harrismith to fetch a replacement and have it fitted, meanwhile we walked around Warden about ten times, know it quite well as a result, lots of dry and dusty sandy roads, large plots with nothing but brown and baron looking gardens, no evergreens that we could see, certainly no veggies or fruit trees. We did get a procession of people popping their heads into the camper for a chat, to look at the snakes and to talk about our travels.

I did answer a petrol attendants questions about permaculture ans encouraged him to grow a gardens in the location where he lives, he was extremely interested, quizzed me on everything, has a library card, they do have a library apparently although we did not see it on our many walks, he also has access to the internet there and will follow up on the basic info I gave him and start with a small bed and grow from their, very intelligent man, way too advanced for pumping gas but not complaining as jobs are scarce in this town, hope he comes right and spreads the knowledge to others and also produces enough food for his family as well as some to sell, that will encourage him I'm sure. We went to visit the beautiful church built 100 years ago when the town came into existance.

We were finally on the road at 3;30 after emptying my bank account, but I am very pleased that I was able to get wi-fi access at the garage and contacted all the agents I could find in Marloth Park with my mingy offer of R60 000, the plots will surely have gone for R300 000 or more originally but with times being so bad they have been reduced down to R91 000 and upwards, many in the R130 000 bracket are the sizes I am looking for.

I have to thank Karel for his wisdom, he told me farm small, fill every space on your plot productively, and share a larger portion with others that you don't have to be directly responsible for, you will make as much money, but it will be managable and won't take over your life to the point where you run around like a headless chicken achieving nothing. He should know.

So I thought about the three farms I Wwoofed on, Sue's was 177ha, they farmed a tiny portion of that, Karel has 2,8ha, farmed not even a quarter of it, Lizelle has 100ha and farms a small portion only. But what struck me as the most ludicrous was the fact that all three bought most of what they ate, be it milk, veggies, meat or general grocery items, none of them ate self sufficiently from their own gardens, I know it's what they are all aiming for, but simply not happening at the moment. I want to do it differently, I want to be eating off my land first before I spend money developing the house and the luxuries, I also want to use every inch of space on the plot in a productive manner. I want to follow Bill Mollison's edict of starting with your back door and growing outwards from there, all three farms had their gardens too far away from the house and could quite easily have brought them closer, been more intense and ultimately more productive, good lessons to learn from others before starting on my own. I can see that having a lot of space allows us to spread out because we can but ultimately it doesn't make good sense from a practical point of view, too much effort to walk too far to garden, wastes precious energy and resources.

So I sat with my 2200m square plot and put in the design I think will work, house, guest house, 6 campsites, lapa and bushpub, greenhouse, Arbor loo's, woodshed, sauna, laundry, water tanks, four compost heaps, garage, ablutions, boma, pond, orchards, herb garden and veggie beds in between everything that will be connected by paths. This way I can design what is needed up front and build as and when the need or the money presents itself, but with a basic ablution, four cleared sites, the electricity connected and an arbor loo, I can live on the site and start the bushcamp with the minimum outlay and use every months income to expand and develop the rest in my own time.

All looks plausible, so much so that I now have a few people clambering to come aboard and help, I guess it now looks like a workable plan and not an airy fairy dream any more. The girls are all the help I want though and if they buy in, then we can afford to do it, it will give us a homebase and an income when they get tired of working for Image. It is also managable by one of us or all three of us at once.

When I think about all the options I have been presented with, the plots I thought might work, the places that looked good, the choices I could have made, the farms I wanted to buy but were unable to, the plans I put in place with high hopes, next to all of these, none of them compares to how excited I am by the option of a small half acre plot in Marloth Park, a place I have never even been to, know nothing about but am willing to purchase based on a google earth picture and an x marked on the map plus the info I got from Cami-leigh when she stayed there with Angelo.

So I do believe that the Universe has led me here, got me away from the Karroo, disappointed me on the West Coast, led me astray with constant hassles with our home on wheels and finally put me in place to find this perfect plot to build my dream on, so one of you sellers in Marloth Park, please wake up your ideas and accept my little mingy offer, I will be very grateful.

Peps thought this was a road and fell through the ice into a freezing river

freezing cold night in Standerton

We made it to Standerton, followed the caravan park signs, discovered that the park closed down years ago and ended up sleeping in the park behind some private chalets.

Slept with a head full of dreams.

Day 119 Bloemfontein

Camper would not start this morning but she did kick in eventually without a push, haven't learnt how much petrol to pump into the carbs for her to catch before I actually flood her, will figure that out when we are done travelling I guess.

the quiet truck stop

Long hot day with the dogs shivering and shaking at every truck bearing down on us, made it out of Bloem and onto the Winburg road which led us straight to the toll gate, paid up the R41 without a fuss, too much effort to try and figure out alternate routes or argue my case, because there is no alternate route, we headed off the N1 at that point anyway and shouldn't encounter any more tolls where we were going. We never saw a garage for the full 103 km and we were again on the smell of an oil rag when I spied the Total sign coming into Winburg, filled up full this time even though their is a heavy smell of petrol in the van, I think it must be the two holes in the chassis, I will try and epoxy them up and see if the smell improves, looks like the holes go through to the petrol tank.

Been thinking about a plot of half an acre in Morloth park and it is strating to work for me, have to just do some calculating to see if I can fit in all the main bits of my farm along with a campsite and if I can I might go for that. It will require a seller to desperate enough to take what I can offer, which will be way lower than the prices on offer at the moment.

I did finally decide that the only way to be happy is not to want all the material things, just to have a dream and be willing to pursue it, it motivates me out of any slump when I think about what I want to achieve, makes all the difficulties worth it when I hear others complaining about their lives but unwilling to do anything positive about changing it for the kind of life they really want. I think most people don't have a clue what life they really want, makes me one of the minority on that score.

Drove 350km today, we were heading for Bethlehem but I could not have found a worse pit to plan to spend a night in, four different people sent me all over town, with one way streets all going the wrong way, in search of the caravan park. The first woman was at a guest house, she told me to just go around the corner and I'll find the campsite, what I found was Campworld, can't imagine they would be happy if they arrived for work in the morning and found a campervan crashed through their window and the occupants fast asleep, we would at least not be short any camping equipment or dehydrated food. I finally found the info centre, in the municipal building, could not take the dogs in so made the guard bring the info guy outside, and lo and behold, the town does not have a caravan park, and it is a huge town, amazing, must wonder about the idiots that sent me on a wild goose chase, but when I think about it, I could not tell you where their is a campsite in Joburg and I lived there on and off for 40 years.

So we headed out even though I was fed up with driving and trying to keep the dogs from stressing, another 80km to Warden and did not even stop to look for a camping place, pulled straight into the truckers rest stop. This is a huge place next to the Durban Highway, it has a little spaza selling cold white bread sandwiches and processed junk, four toilets all marked 'mens' a wellness centre clearly marked 'not for the public' and a truck coming and going every few minutes which is just what my stressed out puppies needed for the night. They are hiding under the covers, but I am not driving any more, will make Ermelo tomorrow and the eco park on Friday. Sarah phoned me this morning to give me directions, arrange for the keys and to let me know what work was expected from me, build the permacultur gardens she said, apparantly I will have all 4ha to myself, looking forward to it especially having the river to play in every day with the dogs, our own tent so we can get out of the camper, an easy job to do digging and planting and lots of time to write and plan without stress.

Lets not talk about the cricket

Did swap some emails with Gissie this morning, can't believe that Image want her to fly home to SA and then back to the States, they must be smoking some strong stuff, she told them to go ahead and book it, she booked her own trip to Nassau, Miami and on to Seattle all for about $800, cheaper than flying from SA to Seattle, so she is heading for some R and R for a few months, chose a sea port after 6 months at sea, but doesn't seem to mind.

not empty for long and we had to move

So, our nice quiet truck stop has just become a nightmare, must be 1000 trucks lined up and streaming in to this parking area, which is huge but looks small when a ton load of 24 wheelers are trying to squeeze themselves in, not easy to squeeze a 24 wheeler into a small space. It seems we were taking up the space of two trucks so we moved down to behind the gate thinking we would be out of the way, after squashing in another ton load of noisy machines we were still in the way and a very polite black gentleman informed me that these trucks pay to be here and maybe we would like to make other plans, I got the hint, plus the dogs could not have been more stressed out, every time a roar went past and the cmper rocked they tried to burrow deeper under the covers, so we drove off into town and parked at the local garage, all sand roads in this town, not sure why. A far more peaceful night although the occasional truck going by kept the dogs under the duvet all night.

What an education that truck stop was, especially after all the stories I heard from Noel and Vic about truck driving around the States and how well controlled it is, stops with hot showers and buffet meals, regulated hours for driving, decent conditions all round. Well it's like comparing apples and eggs to what we have, those poor guys will piss in a real crap house, eat the worst kind of unhygenic, processed rubbish and sleep in a cold truck with no chance of any kind of hot shower and in the morning they will all attempt to untangle themselves and head off in a procession to their relatively unexciting destinations to just do it all over again come the end of the day, no wonder so many of the drivers are clambering to get to the States, other than some decent working conditions it is also possible to save some dollars to bring home and at an exchange rate of 10 – 1, worth the effort.