Set in the Cederberg mountains, Clanwilliam is stupidly pretty. We stayed about twenty five kilometers eastish of the town past a couple of mountain passes on a property owned by friends of Bianka's. Nestled in a valley with hiking and climbing trails quite literally on its doorstep, it is with no hesitation or slaving to hyperbole that I'd say this is the most outrageously beautiful patch of land that doubles as someone's home that I've ever been to.
JP and Tracy were excellent hosts. Tracy occupied much of Bianka's time leaving JP to detail his life as a reporter for crime and conflict in Johannesburg to me ("they gave you a bulletproof vest with a couple of plates missing so you had to decide beforehand if you were going to be a hero or a coward"). Between meals and beers there was opportunity for a small hike and two short walks, further ramming home how beautiful this part of the world is.
I really can't see myself tiring of gorges carved by prehistoric glaciers, waterfalls, rock pools and meandering rivers set amongst mountains but if it does happen, it's certainly not Clanwilliam's fault. When I say I'd like to one day pack up, go bush and forget about people and their things, this is the sort of country I'm thinking of.
After arriving and unpacking (our accommodation was a colonial style Dutch beach house, owned by friends of Bianka's), it didn't take too long to discover a bar at the end of a cul-de-sac which probably constituted the town's main strip. Sitting at the edge of the street we had a view of the petrol station, hotel (it looked like a prison), beach and perhaps most crucially, the police station.
The ensuing eight hours sailed by with each round of drinks seeming to elicit either new companions or wilder goings-on and stories. Initially, a South African couple sat by us. Inside of twenty minutes he had my email address and was trying to sign me up to a copper mine in the DRC.
Chantal and Cornel would appear at the next round and stay with us through the night. Handily, they were the proprietors.
Burnouts and some argie-bargie by the hotel.
Another round.
Local getting dragged into lock-up by the cops at the station.
Another round.
Locals protesting local's incarceration.
Another round.
Cornel telling me of how he supported Kevin Bloody Wilson on a cruise ship.
Another round.
Cornel explaining his broken hand and arm was due to trying to jump onto a sprinkbok from a car doing 100km/hr. He missed.
Another round.
Listening to Kevin Bloody Wilson and Rodney Rude at Cornel's insistence instead of Bob Marley.
Another round.
Somewhere in amongst this, shots were being presented too.
Then a seafood platter on the house appeared.
The night is a haze but how this sort of supreme luck (the food and much of the drinks in the latter part of the evening were free) and hospitality continues more or less unabated in my travels is beyond me but absolutely welcome.
Mid Friday afternoon I was handed the keys and received instruction and passable directions to drive to Hopefield as Bianka was too boozed to tailgate drivers for an hour and a half. Presumably escaping her attention was the fact that I'd had just as much to drink as she had (three beers over three hours, in case anyone is too concerned about the state I was in).
The landscape quickly flattens out to the north of Paarl and the green of the vineyards wedged between mountains is replaced with rolling hills coloured straw brown by paddocks of wheat. Sadly, we were out of the wine barrel and into the food bowl. The property we were staying at in Hopefield is a bee farm managed by Bianka's mum and stepfather. Pierre farms the honey and Helena uses the beeswax, propolis and assorted other bee related things to then produce healthcare items ranging from body scrubs to disinfectants. This is all done on site in a backroom which doubled as a braii room and the venue for much of the evening's (heavy) drinking.
While I can't say that it's ever been a life goal of mine to get pleasantly inebriated in the heart of the healthcare production line, the company and setting made for an inimitable and unique experience a long way from the backpacking trail I'd plundered a year previous. This would quickly become the strong and inescapable theme for the week.
Nanga friends will recall my demands with respect to jetlag (punish me if I complain) and my attitude to defeating it (drink heavily, sleep little). In the days leading up to my departure I explained this as an MO to Bianka and it required very little persuasion for me to head straight to Fairview - a vineyard in the Western Cape - to sample eleven wines and eight cheeses sometime before midday. Built at the base of a small mountain, the estate is picturesque. It was the sort of setting that would comfortably make all but the best Margaret River vineyards turn green with envy.
Apparently, this is more or less standard.
Bianka - a friend that I made last time out - would be my company for most of the week, a stark contrast to my last visit where for all intents and purposes I was on my lonesome and followed my nose for six weeks. A possessor of Gauteng numberplates (they render road rules mere suggestions), she mixed immense impatience with open and total tolerance where each was most appropriate, is excellent at picking and arranging accommodation while being a terrible guide. Finally, and perhaps most luckily, her knack for spotting large aquatic mammals would much later become a huge boon.
Not wanting to lose any sort of drinking momentum, that afternoon we relocated to Spiers, a former Dutch homestead converted to a vineyard even more enthralling than Fairview. Including a bird park (lots of cages a bit sad), the grounds are massive and simply gorgeous. Strolling aimlessly for an hour or so, we finished at a purveyor of mojitos (Bianka's only prerequisite) and I recommenced my love affair with Windhoek Draught.
The setting sun ushered in dinner, providing a buffet option that included Impala steaks. A quick, easy and delicious decision followed.
After getting on two years of suggesting I'd head up to Exmouth for a little while to hang out with Jim/Desmo and get back to any country town in the northwest, it took starting a new job after getting home from overseas to push me far enough to purchase tickets for a week away. So way back in Feb I hazarded a guess at what dates might work well and just hoped the rest would sort itself out. Even up to Tuesday night (I was to arrive at 8am on Thursday) I had no idea of exactly where I'd be staying or how I'd get from Learmonth to Exmouth (35km). The way I saw it, if this sort of procedural excellence in executing travel was fine for Africa, it can't go wrong in Australia either.
Turns out that Jim had the day off work, picked me up and took me to his house. No fuss made. Coffee was quickly sourced and went some way to extinguishing a hangover made up more of total lack of sleep than too many to drink the night before (though it certainly contributed) and plans were made to go out for a snorkel pretty much immediately. My experiences with snorkelling have been mixed. For the most part, my efforts were from when I was too young to remember, too hairy to make a clean seal on the mask or too drunk/hungover to not panic at being underwater and/or maybe vomit down the snorkel. When Jim gently inquired about my swimming ability and confidence with snorkelling, I kept close enough to the truth with, "sure, I've done it before, I shouldn't have any dramas".
We stopped at a bay in Cape Range National Park which was spectacular enough from the shore.
Wading out leaving Sal and Zach behind, I submerged in about three feet of water to see schools of fish - well beyond bait fish size - frolicking around no more than five feet away from me. This would be pretty much par for the course for the following five days. The swimming and snorkelling all occurred drama free and we headed out toward the reef where we'd find a couple of bombies, an awful lot more fish and most excitingly for me, a shark. It's hard to say exactly what sort of thoughts were going through my head at the time, but let's say it was curiosity that drove me to swim after it. Maybe it was the same sort of curiosity that they endorse when getting "close" to surfers.
"Bet you never thought you'd chase a shark around a reef on your first day, eh Cam?"
No, Jim; I really can't say that I did.
A second swim at a bay a bit further north had a greater practical purpose; Sal had charged us with catching her dinner, something that we didn't do so well with. Regardless, meat appeared on a hot plate and we each drank enough to kill a small mammal. Day 1 was a success.
Friday morning we ducked out for breakfast and again, it was coffee that stymied any unpleasant feelings about the night before. With Zach in daycare and Sal at work, we were left to our own devices for the day. I'd made it clear to Jim some time before that I'd like to spend some time on the ranges in the national park instead of just the water. At sometime just before midday with expectations somewhere between my mostly fond memories of Charles Knife Canyon and Jim's much less fondly regarded memories of its neighbour Shothole Canyon, a lot of the hard work was done by the car instead of any serious bush clobbering on foot. A couple of hours were passed just taking in the canyon (still fondly regarded by myself and much more warmly received by Jim than I suspect he anticipated) and it wasn't until mid afternoon that we descended and just pissed the rest of the afternoon around in a haze of booze, RC helicopter smoke and talking shit.
The following two days marked a return to the water. At times it felt as though Jim was pressing me into abandoning the terrestrial altogether and at times it was truly hard not to be swayed. Whale sharks, leopard sharks, turtles, dolphins, countless fish and just general aquatic excellence make a compelling case for never going home. Twice, I was the last out of the water and on one occasion it took the threat of being left behind to really accelerate my departure.
It was tough to tell who was trying to impress who more. Jim and his colleagues who were inimitably impassioned by all things marine (plus a more than able supporting cast of marine animals) or me with a bit more of a bookish and investigatory appreciation of the land component of the Cape Range National park. With little fear of overstatement, it felt as though we were both prospering from each other's proclivities and interests.
Rounding out the trip was a no holds barred night that started with bloody mary shots loaded with oysters. How it finished is a little beyond me, but I finally got the hangover I really deserved before heading home...
