Karoo National Park camping

First stop en route to the Karoo National Park outside Beaufort West was the Huguenot Tunnel's toll plaza. R13 later and we were whizzing up the mountains and through them, and on our way to the hot hinterland.

We discovered the first of many roadworks a few hours into our trek, and waited for ten minutes while traffic in the opposite direction was allowed through. By the end of the trip I was assessing local provincial government corruption levels by the state of the roads. Let's just say that I think the Free State must be in big trouble. More later. The Western and Eastern Cape were quite impressive.

It was hot when we arrived.

We changed campsites to find more shade for the tent and car, and moved from a really grassy stand to a small, bare one surrounded by acacia. But at least we were protected from the sun. It was 36'C in the shade.

At this point A Very Sad Thing Happened, but I will write a separate post about it.

I learned on our last expedition to Namibia that setting up camp fast and making sure a fire is going well before dark is the best way to maintain inner peace. Starting to cook in the pitch dark is harder than it sounds, especially if everything has to be set up from scratch. And I hate the white glare of headlights and gas lamps, so light comes from candles with glass shades. So the new routine of early nights and early mornings starts, with sleep feeling normal at 9pm...

Supper was lamb chops with rosemary, lemon and berber pepper. Very good. And bubbly for Valentine's Day.

When it got really dark big moths and other night insects made me a bit shivery - they were attracted to the electric lamp that came on automatically near our stand. We have only ever experienced this night flurry of wings in really dry places. Why is that?

After I'd returned from my shower, and was ready for bed in the tent, Vince popped back in and said, Did you take my toiletry bag from the washrooms?

No...

That bloody guy stole it, then, he muttered, and popped back out again.

Padding back and forth outside, he returned with the bag soon, searched in it, then muttered again and this time stormed out. He doesn't storm very easily.

His bag with fancy electric razor and headlamp plus sundry had been removed from the bathroom, and his T-shirt that had covered it hung up carefully on a hook. Odd. When he returned to the bathrooms he spotted the elderly, fattish man camping near us, leaving with a bag that looked just like it, which the man denied when confronted. Vince reached for the bag and unzipped it- sure enough. When he got back to our tent he discovered that his prized headlamp was missing, so he went to their caravan to ask where it was. Don't know nothing about the headlamp was the lame answer. Then 2 minutes later the man comes to us and gives it back! Scared, maybe.

No tyres were slashed, no fuss was made. It was just bizarre. Camp kleptomaniac. They had KwaZulu-Natal number plates and cleared out of camp early the next morning.

And so to sleep. That first night started awfully hot, but it got cool very fast, and we pulled the unzipped sleeping bags over us sometime in the fox-singing dark. We were happy to be there, but still sad from The Very Sad Thing and rattled by The Thief.

We hoped the rest of the trip would be better. I worried about jinxes.

Camping Supplies

Above, after our first shopping phase, the haul: planning for 13 days and 4,300 km/2,671 miles on the road and in a tent.

My photos from our trip? After deleting about a tenth of them, I have 1,309 left.

So, instead of panicking, I will start the story at the beginning, and take it day by day. Some days had many stories in them, even if the whole story was in one picture, or in words because we were too busy staying on the road to take pictures, or too shy; and I will sometimes depart from the timeline and take a story and tell it on its own.

We planned to camp for the most part, with the exceptions of one booking made at a self-catering cottage on a farm near Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo (R400 or $54 per night), and one at a luxury self-catering (contradiction in terms?) lodge in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. As things turned out, the money for the latter (R1,360 or $183) was rather wasted, though the scenery did not disappoint.

On average we paid between R145 - R200 ($19 - $27) per night at SAN Park camping sites. In return we got a stand for our tent and car (usually a patch of grass with a shade tree) with water and an electrical point, impeccably clean ablution facilities (shared),which included showers, baths, toilet stalls and sinks with copious mirrors, and scullery and sometimes kitchen amenities. Two of the camp stands had views beyond description (Glen Reenen, Storms River).

The gas (which was diesel for the thirsty Toyota Landcruiser) cost a lot. It costs R7.50 per litre in South Africa [in 2010]. That's about $4.10 a gallon in US terms. We paid about $440 for gas, for 4,300 km.

We needed a lot of supplies for two meals a day (breakfast and dinner), plus inbetween snacks.

We had the two strong plastic ammo boxes.

Pantry  ingredients: Pasta, polenta, packaged marinades, canned tuna, self-raising flour. Cornichons, salamis, home made chutney, crackers. Pepper grinder, salt, olive oil. Bags of lemons, pineapples and avocado. Long life custard for Vince. Garlic and onions and shallots and potatoes. Apricot jam. Road basics, with variations possible.

In the fridge and cooler (replenished on route with the ice that every place sold) were frozen lamb and boerewors and cheddar and parmesan cheese and peaches and nectarines. My mother's suck confit (indestructable, hredded into mac and cheese and eaten on our second last night after the worst drive ever, above Rhodes). Also sugarsnap peas, cherry tomatoes and long-lasting iceberg lettuce. Vinaigrette in a glass bottle with stopper. And rosemary and thyme in ziplock bags with the air sucked out. Butter. Wholegrain bread.

In the Kitchen Box was my kitchen, and the dining room: A chopping board, a chef's knife, a paring knife, two wooden spoons, tongs. Plastic wrap, foil and trash bags, a torch (flashlight) and Tabard citronella candles for mosquitoes. Enamelled tin plates, bowls and skottel (lidded dish) for chops and sausage. Napkins and kitchen towels for wrapping around glass. Three candle holders with glass chimneys. and many candles. Two tumblers for wine or beer, knives and forks for eating.

Plus, tucked behind the driver's seat cast iron pot and pan. With  a kitchen towel between to stop rattles. Rattles can drive you mad.

Above: our kitchen at Glen Reenen Rest Camp, Golden Gate National Park, Eastern Free State

We packed the rest of our life into designated bags.

A breakfast bag: long life milk, coffee, espresso pot, sugar in a mason jar, enameled cups, teaspoons, rusks.

I aways looked forward to breakfast. While I was still asleep, or brushing my teeth, Vince would fire up the Cadac gas bottle, balance on it the wire grid we used for braais (barbecues), and make the coffee. Then he'd warm the milk in a little pot. We'd sit in our camp chairs, sip the strong coffee, dip our rusks and look at the cliffs of Golden Gate in the early morning light, or the conversational sparrow weavers at our feet in the Karoo, or the waves of the Tsitsikamma shoreline crashing on the rocks below.

Above: Breakfast coffee, Day 6

The Fire Bag: matches, wood, blitz fire lighter briquettes, axe for splitting wood, braai grid and tongs, charcoal.

The Green Bag: bath towels and toiletries.

The Tent Bag: pillows and sheet. Yes. Sheet. The sleeping bags in tight drum shapes.

Not to mention toilet paper. In case. A spade. Really in case.

The scullery bag with soap and sponge and brush and plastic basin.

The Orange Basket with flower and bird and animal books as well as passports, wallet and binoculars and journal for expenses and gas. And pencil. With eraser.

And wine and beer. And lots of water.

At last we were packed. With tent and chairs and tiny wooden folding table and less tiny wooden folding table. Air mattress, pump for same.

We were ready. Covered in Basotho blankets, to which my mother pinned Jane's gift of a mini Estorbo - the taliscat to guard our comings and goings, the Landcruiser was ready to go.

Regard the number plate. It will come up again.

And now a word for our sponsors:

To HP - we could not have done it without you
To MM - for letting us go
To Jay and Guy - the fridge, the ammo boxes...
To Tipsy - for praying for us on mountain passes

Merci.

Curious about where we went and what we saw? Check it out. 

Day 1 - Cape Town to the Karoo National Park
Day 1 - Tortoises- a sad story
Day 2 - Karoo National Park - a thief in the night
Day 2 - Traffic Cops in Beaufort West - how the law won
Day 2 - Coffee and a Rusk
Day 3 - Karoo National Park to Nieu Bethesda
Day 4 - Doornberg, the farm of our dreams
Day 4 - Nieu Bethesda
Day 4 - Sneeuberg deli and Two goats brewery
Day 4 - Flowers on Doornberg
Day 5 - The R26 to Golden Gate - the worst road in the country?Day 6 - Maliba Lodge, Ts'ehlanyane National Park, LesothoDay 6,7 and 8 - Golden Gate and Glen Reenen Rest Camp

Day 6, 7, 8 - Flowers of the Free State
Day 9 - Sani Pass
Day 10 - Driving to Rhodes
Day 11 - Mountain Zebra National Park
Day 12 - Storms River

Flowers at No. 9

...in Constantia, in my mother's garden.

Above, Verbascum nigrum, self-seeded, and a wonderful, vertical accent.

An indigenous gardenia, once our potted Christmas tree, now happier in the garden. It made flowers for the first time this year

Eucomis, or pineapple plant. A misnomer.

It is March, so it is time for our South African Easter lilies to start blooming: Amaryllis belladonna. Flowers appear before leaves, so they are very striking.

Which brings me to The Question: when will the Brunsvigia bosmaniae at the Hantam National Botanical Garden outside Nieuwoudtville bloom???

In 2006 I was lucky enough to visit what was then the farm Glen Lyon, Neil MacGregor's sheep farm and flower preserve in the last year that Neil conducted flower tours personally, in his flower bus. In what must have been a bitterly heart-breaking move, the great South African decided to shut up shop and the farm became the Hantam National Botanic Garden, run by SANBI - so it is in excellent hands. If he had had a successor interested in continuing the farm and flower business, the flower bus might still be running.

We owe him a massive debt of gratitude for preserving that unique piece of the geophyte world.

Rose Gray

A cursory glance at the New York Times showed me that Rose Gray, one of the founders of the River Cafe (London's Thames, not the rather slimey institution on New York's East River), is dead. She was 71.

I have only eaten at the restaurant a handful of times, but it is the 3 early River Cafe books that are part of the backbone of my cookbook collection and whose spirit continues to influence my own cooking. The recipes employ few, fine ingredients, and put them together impeccably. I love them.

Rose Gary and Ruth Rogers have been more influential than most people realize.

Ratatouille

Above: Tipsy holding the aubergine just picked from my mom's garden.

I did not always like ratatouille.

Then one night in New Haven, Lucy, a pretty fellow waitress at the restaurant where I worked at night, invited some of us over for dinner to the apartment she shared with her doomed boyfriend, the alcoholic and bi-polar barman. Ratatouille and chicken breasts were on the menu. The unctuous former saved the latter from the dessication for which it was destined. I was converted.

For Four:

8 garlic cloves, peeled
5 shallots or small onions, halved
1 big aubergine, cubed
3 tomatoes, quartered
1 sweet red pepper, in chunks
6 small courgettes, in thumb-sized lengths
lots of thyme
lots of parsley
Salt, pepper, some sugar

In a generous sloshing of olive oil over medium heat saute the cloves of garlic and the shallots, add aubergine, stirring until coloured lightly; add the pepper, the tomatoes, the courgettes. Add the herbs, salt, pepper and a little sugar. Stir again and cover with a lid. Cook for about an hour and a half. Remove lid and finish in a hot oven for half an hour to allow it to caramelize slightly.

Serve with dry chicken breasts.

Also very good, cold or hot, on bread. For wildness, add a poached egg.

Hanepoot grapes

It is late summer here in South Africa, and in the Cape that means one thing.

Hanepoot. (Hah-nuh-poo-wuht)

Time for ex-patriot South Africans to start weeping into their lattes or cups of strong English tea. And to reach for the bourbon/whisky/shiraz. Or whatever they drink in Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi...

Jantjie, kom huuuuuis tooooooe....

When the hanepoots start to turn light, golden-rust brown at the tips of each berry, you know that they are ready. The muscatty-honey taste is swelling inside their skins and the first grape crushed between the teeth crushes your heart just a little.

Properly Muscat d'Alexandrie, hanepoots make supermarket seedless grapes look as stiff, boring and without character as they have been bred to be.

They are best eaten straight off the bunch. Or crushed and lightly frozen, to be sucked like slush from the plastic bottle they were sold in. That was the way I drank them after sweaty, hot horse rides long ago in the Tokai forests. That farmstand is now a golf estate surrounded by electric fencing.

But the hanepoots taste the same.

Shelterpop lilies...

Are up at AOL.