Welcome back to Graeme and Trevor's Road Trip! Graeme Sacks continues the true traveller tale of two brothers exploring an oft-neglected part of our beautiful country.
4. Next we headed for Springbok along the N14, then North to Steinkopf along the N7 and West to Port Nolloth on the R355. By the way, Springbok was an interesting stop. We had lunch at the local diner, which doubles as a bookstore specialising in South African history. The owner told us stories of 'Boere Joode' - Jewish pioneers who lived in the area in the early 1900's
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| Children of Kuboes |
Boere Joode Synagogue, Springbok |
5. Port Nolloth is a sleepy little seaside town, where we befriended some Afrikaans holidaymakers and ended up braaing and singing songs until the early hours
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| Church at Lekkersing |
Quiver Tree, Keimon |
6. From Port Nolloth, back along the R355 there are 2 turn-offs onto dirt roads that lead to the Nama villages of Lekkersing (click here for a virtual tour of Lekkersing) and Eksteenfontein The roads were in pretty good condition and should be easily accessible in a normal vehicle. From Eksteenfontein we continued north on the dirt road to another Nama village called Kuboes, which is close to the Ai-Ais Richterveld Trans- frontier Park.
These tiny villages are surrounded by mountains and desert and are full of colorful huts and houses.
We had only planned to spend 1 night in Kuboes, but found the place and the people so warm and interesting that we stayed three nights. The owner of the chalet where we stayed "Kiewiet" Cloete took it upon himself to show us the area, its people and history. It really is a magical part of the country and worthy of a longer return visit in the future.
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| Oom Simon, Kuboes |
"Healer" caravan, somewhere along the road |
7. We left Kuboes and headed back through Port Nolloth, to Upington where we spent the night at a B&B on the banks of the Orange River.
8. From Upington we headed towards Vryburg, making a detour to 'Witsand' Nature Reserve to see the beautiful white sand dunes. It was there that we learned that wearing open sandals on sizzling hot sand dunes results in painfully burned feet!
We had a blowout 10kms before we reached Vryburg so were forced to spend the night there. Sorted out our tyres in the morning and headed home to Jo’burg, lunching in Ventersdorp along the way.
The trip was a great success and worthwhile exercise in “letting go” by not making plans and following your gut feel.
