Alright, alright. I will admit that I may have made a few mistakes that undermined my bushman persona, while Ann has always maintained, without a shred of evidence at least, that I need some guidance in that department.
It was our first caravan. Although a secondhand, five-year-old Sprite Alpine, it was in reasonable condition. We had spent a little to clean it up and made sure everything was working before deciding to venture out to the nearby Loskop Dam, just north of Pretoria, on a practice run.
Before leaving, we stocked up on a selection of foods. As one does. Flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, tea, and coffee, as well as meat, charcoal, and wine, as well as an oversupply of canned foods and accoutrements. As one does. Enough in fact to feed us for the winter, let alone two nights.
The milk, eggs, and butter were among the items we placed in the standard fridge that was mounted just inside the door of the van. Despite warnings to the contrary, I placed the eggs neatly in the egg trays provided in the fridge door.
I noticed at the time that someone had screwed a hasp and staple on the fridge door, which was designed to take a padlock, but at the time I thought that as we were the only occupants, it was a little crazy to actually lock the door! I mean who would steal the contents?
Towing the caravan turned out to be a breeze and the trip on the open road to the park went uneventfully. In fact, the journey simply improved my confidence and confirmed that this was certainly something I could manage quite expertly.
Loskop Dam caravan park was a municipal park in those days, comprising immaculately maintained lawns under large shady trees on the edge of the crystal-clear waters of the dam, with plenty of space to accommodate the most luxurious of caravans and tents.
We entered the gates and followed a narrow gravel road, which wound itself around the park and provided easy access to any of the many sites. Every twenty metres or so in the road, we encountered quite an imposing speed bump. The car and caravan mounted the speed bumps one by one; front wheels up, back wheels down; back wheels up, caravan tow hitch down; tow hitch up, back of caravan down, front of caravan down.
We pulled onto a site, and I was able to position the caravan under the shade of a large evergreen. From my position inside the vehicle, I considered the one parking movement a pretty professional accomplishment.
However, once we alighted, it became apparent that the ground on which I had parked was not entirely level and that it would require some adjustment on the shoreside to bring the caravan to a level footing.
Ann unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was at this early stage that a couple of campers wandered over to us and extended a very warm and friendly helping hand, which I was inclined to accept. But before I could respond to the offer, Ann called me to the door.
Do not accept their offer of help! she ordered in an urgent whisper.
Why not? I asked perplexed.
You don’t want them to see the inside of this van, came the reply. Just trust me! she urged.
Thanks chaps, I said to our new neighbours. That’s very kind of you but I’ve got this. They shrugged their shoulders and went on their way with a friendly wave.
When I stuck my head through the door it looked like a war had played out inside. The cupboard doors had been flung open, with flour and sugar, among other things, strewn across the length and breadth of the cabin. To make matters worse, the unlocked hasp had slipped off the staple so the door of the fridge had swung open and had obviously been swinging back and forth over some period of time. Eggs had been launched in various directions. Milk had fallen over and the liquid mixture it formed resembled a very large portion of scrambled eggs, with a good mix of the flour and sugar to boot.
You stupid. I can’t say what Ann called me because this is a family book. Besides which, some things are best left unsaid.
I did however cotton on to why Ann wanted me to avoid the embarrassment of clearly demonstrating the incompetent amateur that I clearly was. (Where is the ‘we’ in this story?)
Eventually, and a good hour later, the inside of the caravan was returned to almost normal, and I went back to the levelling task, winding down the stabilizer legs and confirming that we were level from front to back and side to side thanks to a handy spirit level.
Then came the tent. Well, this bit was supposed to be pretty easy. We had already had the benefit of watching a couple pull up across the way and set up their tent. While the chap fed the guide rope at one end of the canvas into the awning rail on the caravan and swiftly pulled the tent edge through the rail to the opposite side, his wife ensured the tent unfolded with practiced ease. It took less than two minutes. Slick as a snake in a sewerage pipe. No problem!
I unfolded our tent and thread the guide rope into our awning rail and started to pull it through. It got to about half a metre along the rail before the rope held tight and wouldn’t budge any further. I could bore you with a ball-by-ball description of the events that followed in the hours that passed, but all I will say is that after much heaving and pulling in which we both lost much of the skin off our fingers, we got the tent erected.
In mitigation, I submit that upon our return to the caravan shop the following week, we discovered that the rope they had provided was too thick for the guide rail and needed to be replaced. But, while sitting, exhausted and out of breath under the tent, I had come to realize that I wasn’t as experienced at this camping lark as I had initially thought.
The next morning, when the sun rose in the east, I realized that I had positioned the caravan and tent in the worst position possible in relation to the African midday sun. The caravan and tent had been perfectly aligned to capture direct sunlight all day long.
We learnt many a sound lesson from that very first outing and indeed, the longer we travelled, the more practiced we became.
Notwithstanding, a few years later, while touring Nah-mib-ee-ah, we stopped over at a camp site on a ranch in the Khomas Hochland. The site was spotlessly clean and covered in rich green lawns that the farmer kept in pristine condition with an irrigation system. I use the word ‘ranch’ intentionally because in Nah-mib-ee-ah the ‘farms’ are so big that they simply cannot be placed under the ‘farm’ category. These are huge expanses of land on which sheep and/or cattle mingle with indigenous wildlife way out on the lands, year in and year out, with very little interference other than by marauding leopard that live in the mountains and occasionally descend to catch a lamb or two.
On the occasion of this camping trip, we stayed on this ranch a couple of nights and from that base we travelled into the country’s capital Vint-hook to explore the surrounding sights. We had a steel trunk in which we kept all our perishables, and while in camp I always put the trunk under the caravan, out of the way. The trunk also had hasp and staples, which I would lock. However, on one occasion I forgot.
As we set out, Ann asked, Have you locked the trunk?
No, I replied, but don’t worry, it will be quite safe way out here on the farm!
Mistake!!
During the day, while we were savouring the delights of German beer and cuisine in the city, a troop of baboons descended on our camp site, found the trunk, ingeniously unclipped the hasps, and had a field day with the contents.
On our return to camp, we found the pristine lawns covered in bright red tomato sauce and an assortment of powders left as a greeting card from the visitors we never actually got to see.
As mentioned before, eventually, over time, I’m pleased to say, we did become accomplished travellers. But not nearly as seasoned as some we encountered along the way.
Be prepared!!
On another occasion, we had set up camp at Crocodile Bridge in the Kroo-ger National Park. I had positioned the caravan close to a water tap, to which I had screwed our hosepipe in order to get running water into our own taps.
We were sitting under the awning enjoying a sundowner and watching some im-pah-lah in the felt beyond the fence when a substantial looking camper van pulled up with what looked more like a horsebox in tow. The camper pulled into the stand diagonally opposite us and the couple disembarked.
The couple themselves were something to behold. Both in their mid-fifties, the lady was colossal, while her husband a slight gentleman and much shorter than the lady. But what struck me was the fact that the gentleman was neatly dressed and the woman wore a flowing, grey cotton dress, the sort of outfits one would expect them to wear to work in the city.
The woman strode purposefully towards the tow hitch connecting the horsebox to the camper. Then with little effort, she unhitched the trailer, lowered the wheel, and swung it sideways on as if it were a toy. This she did while hubby looked on. Until, that is, she barked at him in Afrikaans to plug the camper into the power socket. He scurried away to do her bidding.
Once a mat had been rolled out and camping chairs and a table set down, the aunty turned back to the ‘horsebox’ trailer and with a flurry, opened a set of double doors mounted in the side facing us.
I’m not sure what we were expecting but whatever it was, we had it totally wrong. She leant into the trailer, wrapped her gigantic arms around the object inside and out came an old-fashioned, twin-tub washing machine in a single, flawless movement. This she plonked down on the grass and connected the electrical cable to the power point.
Then she picked up the hose pipe that was connected to the machine, strode across the path to our site, unclipped our hose from the tap and clipped hers on. Without so much as a ‘howdie doodie’, she called out in Afrikaans, If you need water, you can just disconnect!
I chose not to need water until she packed her twin tub back where it belonged later that night!!