The Roggeveld Tour

There’s really only one time of year to cross the dry husk of earth that is the Tankwa Karoo, and that’s mid-winter. And, for me, there’s also only one road to do it on, the Rietfonteinpad (east from Tankwa Padstal) which later joins the R356 (‘the forgotten highway’) to Sutherland. At least this is what I’m thinking as I smugly enjoy a cup of flask coffee in the windless and sunwarmed conditions in the middle of nowhere.

- Nick Yell

After coaxing myself out of bed and into the wildly frigid temperatures outside, I’d finally left home around 9.30 am this morning. Sir Galahad (1990 Honda XRV750) was freshly serviced and was also sporting a new Continental TKC front tyre which I was hoping would help me cope with the loose-surfaced and muddy conditions I expected along the way.

The most enjoyable stretch of dirt track thus far this morning has been the Katbakkies and Skittery Passes. I never tire of this crossing from Op-die-Berg to the Tankwa, the gnarled and pitted rocks of the Skurweberge, Swartruggens and other ranges twisted into grotesque statues always get my imagination thinking of warring giants turned to stone.

Travelling through the Koue Bokkeveld earlier, surrounded by these unique rock sculptures, my thoughts migrated to the Afrikaans writer and poet Izak Wilhelmus van der Merwe — better known as Boerneef — a name that was casually thrown my way by veteran travel journalist Richard van Ryneveld when I told him of my route plan before I left.

As a result I’d printed out an excerpt of one of his poems I discovered in Tim Couzens’ Battles of South Africa (David Philip, 2004) which I read during my lunch stop. As Couzens says by way of introduction to Boerneef’s unique understanding and feel for this rockhard landscape: “These places that he knew were stone-hard, stonecold, stone-sober and his poetry (excerpt below) — so much more concise and allusive than prose — was the same.”