The way the warren wind spins

Copperton is a barely-there town in the Northern Cape. Will its once-profitable mine reopen? Will the solar and wind farms around it be enough to help some of the farmers through the merciless drought? And what about a time before Copperton existed – does anybody still remember?

- TOAST COETZER

My day began in Kakamas, a gravel road away from Kenhardt, where I turned south along the R361 to Van Wyksvlei, past farms with names like Liefdood, Ysterdoringkolk and Droëwater. Close to Van Wyksvlei I turned left onto the R357 – still gravel – until I reached Copperton. On this entire drive, all 300 km of it, I only encountered two other cars. (Not including the few town cars in Kenhardt.)

Most people would breeze into Copperton from the east, since the 60 km section of R357 that rolls in from Prieska is an easy, open tar road.

Copperton is in the Karoo and I passed lots of sheep farms on my way here, the white walls of their farmsteads glittering like the sails of ships in the distance. But Copperton is different. Although there are still sheep farms, the immediate landscape is dominated by other things: mine buildings, a tailings dam, three solar farms and a wind farm under construction.

It all started in the early 1900s when, so the story goes, a couple of Germans stumbled upon some bluish rocks dug open by burrowing meerkats. After some informal surface mining, and an intervening world war, the effort was abandoned. Proper exploration began again in the 1960s, and Anglovaal started mining copper and zinc in 1972. That’s when Copperton was built. When the mine closed in 1991, Armscor set up the Alkantpan Test Range on a vast tract of land west of the mine, using it to test big guns like G6 howitzers – firing off rounds as far as 70 km.

I clock in at Nelspoortjie Guest Farm, 16 km from Copperton, and conveniently right next to the R357. Owned by Wilhette and Pieter Fourie, this is home away from home for many contractors working on the solar and wind farms. Bag dropped in my room and a meal organised for later, I drive to Copperton.

It’s time to meet the “mayor”.