...into the fire

11 November 2007

So, we decided to avoid Harrismith on our return journey. We sat down with a map and Hubby, Mr. Precise Engineer, mapped us out a route that would take us around Lesotho on its west side, meeting up with the N1 in Colesberg. We know the road and the scenery and the landmarks from Durban to Colesberg (via Harrismith) already, we reasoned, so why not kill two birds with one stone…see some new countryside and avoid that nightmare of road destruction in Harrismith?

I have to admit I was a bit reluctant. I’m not ordinarily inclined favourably towards long stretches of road that don’t have regular rest stops or petrol stations with ultra-clean bathrooms. Like most women, if I am to drop my drawers and expose my delicate bits to strange porcelain, I have a very strong preference for that porcelain…and its surroundings…to be immaculately clean. But Hubby was keen on taking a new route and after seeing the myriad of little towns…most of them no more than 50 to 75 km apart…I agreed to his plan.

So, we had our breakfast and hit the road. After filling Bertha and making sure our padkos and cool drink keepers were full up, we got out onto the N2 headed towards Port Shepstone. At Sheppy, we turned north towards Kokstad, a town I have never seen and Hubby hasn’t been to in 25 years. The adventure was on.

I must say, it was a learning experience.

The first thing I learned is that making the assumption that all those little towns would have petrol stations was a grievous error. The second thing I learned is that it was also a mistake to assume that a major brand petrol station…like Shell or CalTex…would have clean restrooms. My third lesson was that pay toilets actually exist in South Africa…I have never seen one before in this country and today I saw three! And finally, I learned that, as bad as the road conditions at Harrismith were (and they were really, really bad), those conditions were not as bad as they could have been.

I quickly discovered that on a road trip, I get very thirsty. Probably the drying effects of the air conditioning in the car (it also gives my hair static electricity, to Hubby’s never-ending amusement and my everlasting annoyance). So, we keep a cooler box of iced drinks in the back seat where I can easily reach it. We pack it full of Sprite Zero and Coke Lite and guzzle our way across country.

En route to Durbs we stopped at Ultra Cities and Star Stops and whatever Engen calls their mega petrol stations whenever Bertha started looking thirsty, when it was meal time (diabetics have to eat regular meals, even on the road), or when one of us needed to find a loo. On the N1, N5, and N3, that was just not difficult. On the R56 and R58, it was virtually impossible!

Because we were unsure of petrol availability along the way, we stopped for fuel when the gauge hit the halfway mark or lower (depending on where we could find a station). At Kokstad we filled up the car and emptied both of us out and got on the road to parts unknown…at least to us…confident that we would encounter multiple petrol stations along the way…doesn’t every rural town have at least a one pumper? Those farmers have to fuel up their cars and trucks, too, after all. Every thing was fine until all that Coke Lite I drank decided it needed an exit. Unlike Hubby, who can pull off to the side of the road and make an acquaintance with a local bush or tree, I require technology for such an event, so I said “Pull in at the next station you see, I need a loo.” He nodded while I consulted the map…maybe 20 km to the next town, so not to worry.

Yeah, right. The next town consisted of several hillsides full of rondawels, a bottle store and a tavern. As did the next…and the next…and the next! A hundred kilometres down the road and there’s no petrol, no loo…and no bush big enough to hide my glowing white moons! We did wend our way through one scabrous town…Mt. Fletcher, I think…but the Engen station (the only one in town) was so filthy and dilapidated I was unwilling to risk it. Dirty is one thing…dirty toilets are something else again.

But I’m experienced and I’m stoic. I know if I adjust my posture just right I’ll put a minimum of pressure on my bladder and I can wait it out. “Just take it easy on the bumps,” I told Hubby. “There’s got to be a place ahead with a relatively clean loo.” And Hubby, bless his empathetic little heart, tried to avoid the potholes and go gently over the unintended speed bumps, and on the map I saw another town just a few kilometres away. Hope was born anew.

We came around a bend in the road and saw a flagman waving us off to the left, off the road. Ahead, on the right, stretched a beautiful ribbon of newly tarred highway, inaccessible. Instead, we bumped off onto an unpaved track reminiscent of Harrismith…and it went on forever! The next time some smart-mouth bunny hugger superciliously finds fault with my choice of an SUV for my personal vehicle, I’m going to whip out the pictures of this abomination that passes for a road and ask if she would like to drive a Prius or some other trendy little pseudo-car over it. It damn near killed Bertha, an SUV built on an honest-to-god truck chassis by none other than Mercedes Benz. I’m sorry, but if my ML, sturdy road warrior that she is, can be brought to a shuddering, beeping, squealing halt by this piece of road, exactly what kind of namby-pamby town car would do better?

The ruts and bumps and rocks and holes were so bad that at times we were literally airborne. On one of those leaps, when we came down, Hubby’s left foot (which had also been airborne) came down on the parking brake pedal. This car is engineered such that, when you try to set the parking brake while your foot is on the accelerator and the car is moving forward, it will emits a series of shrieking beeps and, if the offence is sufficiently egregious, it will simply shut itself off. Which is exactly what happened. Except that we didn’t know what happened at the time. All we knew was that the car was dead, we were somewhere in the middle of the Transkei on a road that would have done a 4x4 challenge proud, and I had to pee so bad my eyes were turning yellow. I started scanning for a likely bush, but there was nothing but rocks…too big to drive over easily, but far too small to conceal anything like my overly-generous backside.

Hubby quickly figured out what was causing the lack of forward motion, restarted the car, and put us back on the trail. Fortunately, we were nearly back on the tarred road…I am sure my bladder would not have taken much more abuse, and within a few minutes we were in a small town that actually had two petrol stations! We pulled in to the first station, only to be told they didn’t have a loo, but the gents at the CalTex cheerfully pointed us around the corner.

They neglected to tell us it was a pay toilet…and why was only the women’s toilet fitted with a coin operated lock?? It took Hubby a full two minutes to get the stupid thing to accept the damn R1 coin (I couldn’t figure it out…I’ve never seen a coin op box like it in my life!) and let me in.

OK…it was clean. But there were three stalls, two of which lacked paper, and the third lacked a functioning lock. By this time, I did not care. I grabbed a wad of tissue and took it with me to a stall I could lock and found heavenly relief.

After stopping to get lunch at the hot food counter at the local Spar (not a restaurant, fast food joint or takeaway in town), we hit the road again, headed inexorably towards Colesberg where I sit typing this.

Looking back on today’s experience, I have come to the conclusion that, between Port Shepstone and Colesburg there are a total of three clean public restrooms: one in Kokstad, one in Maclear, and another in Lady Grey. That’s it. So, unless you have an iron bladder, I strongly suggest that if you are driving from Durban to Bloemfontein or points west, brave the construction debacle at Harrismith…the alternate route not only had worse roads, it had no toilets!

Durban Holiday: Out of the frying pan...

In early November, Hubby and I took a holiday to Durban. This is the second in a series of blog entries written on the road.

Sunday, 4 November 2007

I have never liked the town of Harrismith. The first time I was there it struck me as a dirty, dreary, disorganized little hamlet and nothing I have seen since has done anything to disabuse me of that notion. There is just one thing that makes me look forward to entering Harrismith, and that is the certain knowledge that, once we have wended our way through the inexplicable maze of dirty little unkempt streets and placed our tyres firmly on the N3, our journey is near to its end. As a harbinger of better things to come, it is incomparable, but as a destination in its own right, Harrismith is just a boil on the butt of South Africa.

Now, I am not easily intimidated, but Harrismith scares me. When we first entered the town from the northwest, there was a rather confusing confluence of poorly marked streets that gave us pause. Ordinarily when you make a change from one national road to another, you take a turnoff from one highway to the next, an effort generally involving off-ramps and clear signage. Typically the road is in reasonably decent condition and you just follow the sign boards to determine where to exit, which way to turn, and where to enter. It could not be simpler…unless you are attempting to exit the N5 and enter the N3 in Harrismith.

Under the best of circumstances, making that short little trek is fraught with difficulty. On our first attempt, several years ago, we immediately got lost due to signage that ranged from poor to non-existent. We ended up going the wrong way through a rather dodgy part of town…in the dark…and ultimately had to find a petrol station to get directions. I was desperate for a loo, and while Hubby got directions from the station attendant, I approached the loo with great trepidation, loathe to thread my way through the motley collection of loiterers…many of them quite obviously intoxicated…who were hanging about in front of the door. The condition of the place did nothing to inspire confidence in its sanitation, but beggars can’t be choosers, so I accomplished my mission and got out of there double quick.

I jumped into the car and we sped off, only find the directions questionable. We arrived at the spot where we were supposed to find the entrance to the N3 only to find a battered, barely paved track leading off to the left and under a cement freeway bridge…no lights, no signage. Cautiously we approached…it looked like we were driving into a dark alleyway where thugs could be waiting to swarm over us as soon as we were out of sight of the main body of traffic on the road in front of the Spur, but as we made the curve we found, to our great surprise, a familiar green and white signboard indicating we were on the right path to the N3 and Durban.

Our second slog through Harrismith was little different. There was still no clear signage indicating the direction to the N3 and this time the road had been re-routed so that we had to cross a dismal little watercourse over a narrow bridge. But, once we got to the proper end of town, we recognized the on ramp and merrily headed down towards our destination.

Our most recent experience, however, was the absolute worst. First, we got to Harrismith at twilight. Second, on exiting N5 there was a detour sign directing us left and when we followed it, it took us to a Y intersection devoid of directional signage. Knowing that, as the crow flies, the N3 entrance was to our right, we made the counter-intuitive choice, this being Harrismith after all, and took the left fork. We followed the road under an ancient railroad bridge and soon found ourselves in a queue to cross Harrismith’s dismal little joke of a river…on a one lane bridge! It was nearly dark and the only illumination was the glaring headlights of the cars and trucks on the other side of the bridge, awaiting their turn to cross.

Hubby shook his head, clearly annoyed, and muttered a few imprecations about this being an inexcusable way to connect from one national highway to another…no signs, no lights, no lane! Curbing my own tongue, I thought about those highway interchanges I had seen off in the middle of nowhere between Beaufort West and the road to KwaKwa and thought to myself, these people should be ashamed of this mess! Even if they wanted the traffic to wend its way through their town in a bid to collect a few traveller’s rands, they should have taken a lesson from neighbouring Bethlehem, which routes traffic through a clean, well-kept town, using huge signboards and on clean, wide, well-paved streets. As it is, Harrismith is a place you want to get out of as fast as you can, not a place that encourages you to linger a while and leave a little money behind in the bargain.

Finally, we got over the bridge and, taking direction from a small yellow sign (unlit) propped up in a gutter, we made a right turn onto a paved town street. This worked well for about two blocks after which the paving disappeared. Literally. We were suddenly clunked off the pavement onto a rocky, rutted, uneven mishmash of gravel, dirt, holes, and bits of old pavement still clinging to the original roadbed. The gravel road out to my father’s farm is better terrain than this! What little ambient light remained was weakened by the choking cloud of dust that boiled up around us and the oncoming traffic…a few cars interspersed with a lot of really big trucks…and we decided to take a break from the confusion and have dinner. There was a Spur dimly visible to our right as we finally punched through that cloud of dust, and Hubby was starving.

I don’t know what we were thinking...that the traffic would melt away during our break, perhaps...but Hubby and I had a quick meal and returned to the fray. The situation had not improved in our absence, and the ratio of trucks to cars seemed to have increased in favour of the trucks. But we knew where the entrance to the N3 was and, fortified with a hearty meal and the happy knowledge that we were but three hours from our destination, we again braved Harrismith’s incomprehensible traffic plan and set out to hit the Escarpment and wend our way down to the Indian Ocean.

It wasn’t as easy as we expected. Dodging and weaving between the huge commercial trucks, we got across the street and headed to the on-ramp only to discover that the road that lead to it had disappeared! In its place was an unlit rubble-strewn construction yard littered with stacks of cement pipe, piles of gravel and sand, and construction equipment. We could see the freeway overpass and the opening beneath is that used to be the on-ramp to the N3, but it was on the far side of the construction yard and the signage was gone. Where was the entrance to the N3? Had they constructed a new one? Just exactly how in the hell were we to get to Durban?

Hubby followed a truck, hoping it would be en route to the elusive N3, only to find himself piloting Bertha into a truck yard. Bless his heart, Hubby is not one of those guys who refuses to ask directions…he pulled right up to the truck boss and asked him how get onto the N3 to Durban and, to our horror and surprise, the man pointed to the construction yard!

By now it was full dark and that construction yard was unlit. The only light was a feeble spill over from the truck yard’s overhead lights and the intermittent illumination provided by the vehicles that braved the rutted darkness. Hubby saw a truck turn into the gloom and quickly pulled in behind it, using its tail lights as a guide through the plumes of dust churned up by countless wheels rolling through the dirt and gravel. At the last minute our headlights illuminated a sign that directed us under the overhead bridge and Hubby swung Bertha to the right and we plunged into absolutely pitch black hell, the road no more than a series of holes, gravel and a swirling haze of dust. Eventually the road smoothed out, but there was no light save Bertha’s headlights, and so it was with sudden surprise we found ourselves merging into the seething tide of vehicles hurrying their way down the N3 to Durban.

We heaved a sigh of relief at having been safely delivered from Harrismith, and I remarked that I had always disliked the town, that I found it scary. Hubby shook his head slowly and replied that, after navigating this outrageous debacle of disgracefully poor planning and execution, he was afraid of Harrismith, too!

* * *

Our sigh of relief was premature. As we exited the labyrinth of Harrismith and headed towards Van Rienen’s Pass, a bright flash of light off to the right caught my attention. Some kind of beacon, I reasoned, perhaps something to alert aircraft. A few moments later it flashed again but the third flash did not come at the regular interval one would expect of a beacon.

“What’s that?” I asked Hubby, pointing out the window.

“What’s what?” he asked, eyes glued to the dark curving road.

“That flash of light over to the right.”

He rolled his eyes briefly and then fixed them back on the road. “Lightning,” he said, a tinge of exasperation in his voice. How, after all, could I not recognize lightning?

“You’re kidding,” I said. “It had an orangey-red centre…lightning doesn’t have an orangey red centre.”

“It’s lightning, I tell ya,” he said, squinting into the gloom.

“Well, if it is,” I replied, “I hope it doesn’t mean a thunderstorm.”

There is a belief that to name something is to make it real. You do not speak the name of the devil or his minions lest your naming them opens the gates of Hell and releases the little beasties upon you. That belief should be expanded to include weather phenomenon.

The treacherous trip down Van Rienen’s Pass in some serious darkness was accomplished with a minimum of knuckle biting. But when we arrived at the Mooi River toll booth, it was apparent that rain had recently visited the area. Hubby made some comment about the storm being past…a mistake of matchless proportions since it opened those gates a second time. Before we knew it, we were hurtling down a steep winding road in darkness relieved primarily by the blinding high beams of the oncoming traffic…with rain splashing on our windscreen.

“Looks like we are driving into the storm,” I commented innocuously.

Mistake number three…within seconds, the rain was pelting down in sheets and the windscreen wipers, turned up full, could barely handle the downpour. We went on a while, driving through various intensities of rain and I found myself thinking ‘As bad as this is, at least it’s not foggy!’

Yup, you guessed it...within seconds we swopped rain for fog! At first it was ragged little swirly bits that flirted with us, momentarily blanking out the view but then coyly retreating, but it soon tired of the game and attacked us with a vengeance. My lead-footed Hubby actually slowed down after turning on our fog lamps and finding the fog no less impenetrable. At some points we punched through the fog into a mercifully clear patch, but only just long enough to catch our breaths and plunge right back into the all-obscuring wall of thick, opaque mist.

Eventually we got far enough down the mountainside to escape the fog, only to find the sheets of rain had returned. It poured on us all the way into Durban, where it finally let up only minutes before we reached our destination. It was 10:30, we were exhausted, and we were so relieved to have finally arrived that it took a moment to register that the parking area of our B&B was full and there was no place to put Bertha! The night guard came to our rescue and directed us to an alternative, a single garage just a few metres up the hill. It was so narrow that I had to get out of the car before Hubby eased it inside, and he even had to fold up Bertha’s mirrors to make it, but finally we had her ensconced in her snug little berth and we trudged wearily to our room and collapsed into exhausted heaps on the bed. It was morning before I realized that the storm that had dogged us from Harrismith all the way to Durban had spared the Morningside area. Our Bertha, steaming and sodden from her trek through a wet Hell, had deposited us in an area that, despite the humidity that fogged my specs as soon as I exited her air conditioned interior, had received not even a passing nod of acquaintance from the storm that had dogged us for the better part of two hours…Durban was bone dry!