One Last Time Before Lockdown

What do you do when the border posts close unexpectedly, but you’ve already travelled all the way to Gauteng and hired a vehicle and a roof tent? Do you get on a plane and go back to Cape Town? No, you turn the journey home into a new adventure.

- Justus Visagie

The Lekkerbek farm stall is next to the R54/R500 intersection, west of Vanderbijlpark, on the ragged fringe of Gauteng. It’s not a fancy farm stall where you can order a coffee with almond milk. No, it’s just Steve Albertus’s bakkie, his Venter trailer, a beach umbrella and some mielie plants. It’s Sunday and Overvaal Stereo comes through loud and clear on the radio; the preacher’s voice wrathful. I pull over to ask for directions, and because I’m curious.

Steve sells watermelons, honey, jam and mielies. He worked underground mining platinum and gold for 36 years. Trying to make small talk, I ask him how far we are from Potchefstroom. “Sixty-four kilometres,” he says, not really concentrating. His attention is on the sermon.

“I have to get to Kimberley,” I say and get back in my car without the customary handshake.

Don’t touch people if you can help it, they have warned us all.

Plans cancelled

I live in the Strand, near Cape Town, and I was in Gauteng to travel to Botswana with adventurer Anton Poplett and optometrist Karl Danneberg, who do charity work giving children free eye tests in remote parts of that country.

The pandemic derailed our plans. Now I’m stranded with a Hyundai Tucson, a roof tent and an order from the president to avoid other people as far as possible. The responsible thing would be to drive home along back roads, through the least populated areas of the country, right?