Holidays on the road(side)

Car troubles are as much a part of travelling as Ultra Cities, Wimpy coffee and fighting over who chooses the music

- Liesl de Beer

It’s such a familiar scene: a red triangle, a family huddled next to their broken-down vehicle, someone struggling with the jack… The family car, which has been as reliable as a head boy all year long, suddenly acts like that same head boy at Plett rage…

We lived in Rustenburg when I was growing up, and later in Meyerton, and from there we’d do our annual trip to far-off destinations. We had a few monumental break-downs over the years and the family still talks about them at get-togethers. When did we break down where? Was it in the green Kombi or the blue one?

I’m one of six children. As our family grew, my parents had to swap their Ford Anglia for a green Volkswagen Kombi, with fabric curtains and all. My father encouraged our nomadic inclinations even further by building a trailer on his own. He named it Oskar.

In 1974, we set off on a tour of what was then still South West Africa. Oskar had completed one or two long-distance trips, but the corrugated road from Henties Bay to the interior was his last – he literally stripped his moere (his nuts).

There we were, stuck in the middle of the desert with a broken trailer and a freezer full of fish. The Burgers, who’d camped on the coast with us, eventually caught up. Oom Jan and my dad managed to get the freezer and the remnants of Oskar onto the back of the Burgers’ Bedford truck.