Farm Life Is the Good Life

"The tiny town of Tarkastad is in a mountainous knuckle of the Eastern Cape. Gravel roads take you past flocks of sheep and the odd steenbok to these peaceful guest farms."

- By Toast Coetzer

It’s good to take a wrong turn every now and then. Suurfontein, says the sign, and I take it, leaving the R61 behind. Sunday afternoon minibus traffic has just begun to pick up, shuttling people between the rural districts east of here and Cape Town, a thousand kilometres away.

Driving through a farm security gate, I notice that the gate is closed at night between 6pm and 6am. Such gates are common these days, put up to control traffic in farming areas where stock theft and other crime has become a problem.

The gravel road flicks to the right and aligns itself with a long rib of mountains. When the road veers left again, I pull over to take a photograph. Another mountain has come into view now, rising over the sliding slope of the closer mountain like a distant moon.

A hundred metres ahead, a scurry of guineafowl cross the road. Cattle to the left. Sheep to the right. Driving a back road from my mother’s farm (in the neighbouring Cradock district) I have snuck into Tarkastad by unconventional means. The R61, which bisects the district from east to west, is usually how you’d get here. But open a map book, or better yet, pull up Google Earth and wait for all the wriggly lines to rise from the topography. Gravel roads enter this area from all over, at the most unusual angles.

My plan is to explore some of these roads over the next couple of days, visiting guest farms as I go. But first I need to find my bed for the night, at Carrickmoor Guest Farm…