It makes no difference from which direction you approach Piet Plessis - it will be via a dirt road. The hamlet doesn't lie on any tourist route. Not many people go that way unless they have to. And the few who do arrive in Piet Plessis seldom go farther north; they usually go back the way they came.
Here, north of Vryburg, cattle, and game are the main attractions. Most visitors to this remote part of the country are in search of calves or kudus. Or trouble, if you happen to find yourself on the R377 between Stella and Piet Plessis after heavy rains. It's the reason I'm regarded with wide-eyed amazement by two women when I park my mud-caked bakkie in front of Piet Plessis Primary School.
"Looks like you're on one heck of an adventure!" says Surika Coetzee before she introduces herself and Jana Mostert.
Surika talks and laughs with abandon. She has a knack for making a stranger feel like a friend in no time, and before you know it you're joking along with her about the vegetables Jana is selling out of brandy boxes and a cooler.
Jokes aside, Jana's green beans and spinach are as fresh as you'll get anywhere. She grows these vegetables on the farm belonging to her and her husband, Rikus Mostert's. Judging from her accent, she is not originally from these parts. "No, I'm from Bushmanland. From way beyond Pofadder."
Before any photos can be taken of Piet Plessis's vegetable vendor, she hops into her bakkie. "Forget about it! You'll have to come photograph me in Bushmanland, in my natural habitat."
Surika, who is a teacher at the primary school, takes me to her class, where the children jump to their feet to greet me: "Môre, Oom!" The maths lesson is interrupted there and then for a crash course in journalism.
Denne historien er fra Winter 2022-utgaven av go! Platteland.
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Denne historien er fra Winter 2022-utgaven av go! Platteland.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
There are few secrets in Verlorenvallei
All platteland towns have that one famous (or infamous) character who knows everyone's business. Meet Livia Hoogenboezem, the keeper of every piece of gossip in Verlorenvallei...
To the babbling brooks of Sabie
Roughly every five years, Jaco and Jens Reverchon get itchy feet. They hopped around Cape Town, moved up north to the Greater Kruger and then, recently, put down roots next to the Sabie River where they live a peaceful life with their animals.
Willie Strauss Never an idle moment
A variety concert... that is how to approach your life and career when you want to survive as an artist living in the platteland. So says singer, lyricist and radio food expert Willie Strauss, who entices visitors to Die Sinkstoor in Cullinan with traditional offal and his mother's Bushmanland boerekos.
To die for
How do you avoid the tourist avalanche if you live in an Afromontane forest where holidaymakers descend in December? You drive to lonely outposts in the mountains of the Cape, says photographer Obie Oberholzer, and you make pictures rather than take them.
The art of small talk
In the city, a glib smile suffices when it comes to interaction with any stranger that crosses her path. Yet a visit to Struisbaai taught Elizabeth Wasserman that small talk is no small matter
Find wisdom in the forest: It all starts with soil
A tree is an investment in any garden, even though patience is required to pluck the (figurative) fruit. When you plant several trees together to create your own forest, the reward is much greater. They offer shade, they support life… and they improve your soil. We spent time reflecting in our white karee“forest”– and learnt a lot
Ohrigstad's tiny big farmer
Agriculture courses through the veins of the Els family, who have been farming in the Ohrigstad valley in Limpopo since the 1930s. And they are getting younger and younger: Grandfather Jan Els was 36 when he set out, father Dewald 27… and littleWaldo got behind the wheel of massive machines at the age of 6!
On mountains and moments
On a trip in the southern Drakensberg, a torrential downpour and a field of prickly thistles got acclaimed photographer Obie Oberholzer thinking about the power of perspective
Spring on a stick
Expand your braai repertoire by serving a side dish of flavourful spring-vegetable kebabs cooked to perfection over the coals.
Postcards from the Tankwa
The R355 between Ceres and Calvinia is the longest stretch of gravel road between two towns in South Africa. And if you find yourself on this route, you're in the Tankwa Karoo. From the road, the surrounding plains seem lifeless and dull, but when you stop your car, sit quietly and breathe in the atmosphere, you realise there might just be much waiting to be discovered here.
