Forgotten Towns of the Karoo - a photojournalistic essay

Carnarvon
Day 2: 17 December 2005 SATURDAY

WWe were fortunate enough to reach Carnarvon just before the last daylight gave way to the most incredible display of stars. The town had incredibly wide streets, with no lines or arrows to indicate direction. Interestingly enough each shop was painted a different pastel colour. So the centre of town looked very bright and colourful with locals walking around everywhere. When we saw a huge group standing on the street, we knew we had found a shop. So we stopped and bought our supper for the night, which consisted of boere-wors, spaghetti (my favourite), chips and cool drinks.

We stopped at a garage and met Bronwin and her nephew, Nes who were playing in the streets. When we had everything we needed we headed to the campsite. The campsite was situated right next to a hospital. I thought that it was the most inconvenient place to have a campsite. But nevertheless, we looked around and I inspected the campsite facilities and found they looked clean enough. So we drove around trying to find the owner of the site or a caretaker, but we were unable to find anyone to give us assistance. So Etienne suggested we camp for the night, and when the owner find us sometime during the night or the next morning, we would pay. I thought it was our best option, because we really didn’t have any other option anyway. Near the entrance to the campsite was a house where we had stopped but no one was home and we thought they might be the owners and would come back sometime soon.

So we found ourselves all alone in a massive campsite. We chose a spot fairly close to the ablution facilities and a braai spot and set up our camp. It wasn’t long before we had a cosy fire going and our boere-wors was braaing while we were experimenting with our cameras. So it really was a very comfortable setting. The sun had set and our drinks had kept us warm in the slight chilly breeze that had crept up from somewhere. We were just settling down about to start eating when a blue opel bakkie came driving into the campsite. I was slightly disgusted with the timing, because I was hungry, and my spaghetti was going to get cold. But I put down my plate to greet the manager of the campsite, because that’s who we assumed it would be. They drove up to our campsite and slacked down and then slowly drove past, where they then made a u turn and stopped with their lights shining straight onto our campsite. Not knowing who they where we just stood and waited to see what they would do. My heart was in my throat because it was evident that these people weren’t the managers. Suddenly they just accelerated and drove past us and out of the campsite. Etienne and I looked at each other and we both agreed that we did not like this unfriendly encounter. So we thought that we should just look out to see if they did come again, because we did have a clear view of the entrance and the main street from where we camped.

I sat down and picked up my bowl of, now slightly cold spaghetti, and started to eat further. That night, of all nights, a very cold breeze picked up and Etienne who had thought that the Karoo wouldn’t be cold, never packed in a jacket. But he was definitely wrong, and that night he was very sorry he hadn’t packed in anything warm, not even a long sleeved shirt. I on the other hand always pack in too much, so I was fortunate. I would have offered him my jacket, but it wouldn’t fit.

I sat there and tried to eat my food, but silently I was petrified and prayed, because we were in a strange town, far from anyone we knew. Strangely enough, from where I was sitting I could see into the hospital grounds and to my surprise saw a police van stop at the front of the building. People climbed out and a discussion was heard, but it was more like a commotion, but I couldn’t make out what they where saying, it was too far away. That left another chill down my spine. It really was something odd that happened at night that felt stranger that what it really should have seemed. The police van then suddenly sped of and left the hospital grounds.

Etienne was still eating at the fire and my drink was finished and trying to calm myself, I walked over to our cooler box and poured myself another drink. The light on the table momentarily obscured my vision to see in the darkness as I focussed on the table, but I knew Etienne could see me from where he was sitting at the fire, so I was minding my own business when I suddenly heard a twig snap right behind me! The hair on the back of my neck stood straight and I swung round and threw half of my drink out all over myself in fright! But I found myself looking into Etienne’s face where he was standing laughing at me. I was totally disgusted with him. But he tried to sympathise with me, because he admitted he also felt a bit edgy.

He was actually surprised that I was so frightened. From then on my nerves where totally ruined. The slightest twitch of a twig or a distant bark of a dog made my heart race in fright. Unfortunately this wasn’t the last of the night’s horror. I had just sat down and picked up my plate and took one bite from my spaghetti when another car came driving into the campsite. I just have to mention that we weren’t visible from the road, because the braai we used faced the other way, so the only way for them to know we where there would have been the times when we used the flashlight at the table. But a car came driving right up to the ablution facilities and right there I got so angry that someone disturbed my peaceful dinner which I so desperately wanted to eat, which was ice cold by now, that I actually just wanted to scream! Come to think of it, maybe I should have just done that. Maybe that would have helped to relieve some of the stress in me.

Etienne then said we should work out a plan, just in case things got any worse that we would have a plan. It was then that I realized that if Etienne was getting so concerned to have decided to work out a strategy, that things were getting out of hand. Once again I saw a police car parked in the hospital grounds, and I thought it very ironic. So close, yet so far, but we were sitting in the darkness. So Etienne stood up and went to the table where he switched on the flashlight, which basically worked like a spotlight, and shown it in the direction of the ablution facilities. Meanwhile the people who had just stopped besides the ablution facilities had gone into the building and switched on the lights inside. We heard then fumbling about doing something that just made us wonder about their activities. When Etienne had switched on the flashlight, someone came walking besides the building and clearly got a fright because exclaimed in surprise and he walked back and we heard people talking. A commotion was heard inside the building and suddenly the light went out and doors slammed and they sped of in their car and went out of the campsite. Etienne and I looked at each other, and we both realized they where obviously busy with something which they wanted to hide. I gulped down the rest of my food, which got stuck somewhere in the middle of my throat. I was just in time, before another car, a 4x4, came driving down the road with a whole bunch of men on the back of it. We both thought they might stop where we were so we jumped into the car and drove up to the entrance before they could drive in themselves. I don’t know whether they saw us climbing into the car or not, because when we came to the road they were simply gone. That obviously did not help to ease my extremely troubled heart and mind.

It was then that Etienne suggested that we should drive through the night to the next town, because he wasn’t going to be able to get any sleep when he would constantly be lying awake waiting to see if there would be an ambush. I happily agreed, thinking this would be the end of this horrible night. But I was wrong…terribly wrong. We had just stopped the car at the tent, when an opel corsa bakkie drove into the campsite with its music blasting the poor leaves of every tree in the vicinity. Immediately we jumped into the car. We were prepared to leave the camp with everything there if our lives where at stake. So we sat in the car and watched and waited. It was a bunch of drunken men, and we weren’t sure as to their exact intentions, so I suggested that I pack up the loose bits around the camp, while Etienne watches them. If anything should happen, he should call me and we would then be able to drive away. I was fairly happy with this setup and all worked out well, until another car came driving up with even more drunk men. When Etienne saw them he called me and I jumped back inside the car where we waited once again to see what their intentions where. They never noticed us, so I climbed out of the car and continued packing up and everything went well until we had to open the boot. When Etienne opened the boot, the lights inside the car went on and we where lit like a Christmas tree. I stood in shock and looked at the men, who then clearly saw us. Etienne saw them looking at us and jumped out the car, because by then it was only the tent that had to be packed up. He told me to stay in the car, and he walked over to the tent and ripped out the pegs. He shoved the tent containing the sleeping bags, pillows, jackets and blankets all inside the car. Shivering with cold, because it was so cold that night, he jumped inside the car and made a final turn around our campsite and looked for anything we might have left behind. Luckily we had done a good job and we drove past the drunk men who were nostalgically glaring after us.

For once I was utterly relieved to leave the campsite and felt very safe in the car. We decided to make the most from driving at night by taking night shots of the town. I thought it would be interesting and started organizing the car, especially to find the cameras because the car was an utter mess from having thrown everything into the car without any care as to what went where. The tent was peeling over the back seats and whenever I looked for something I had to lift half of the tent before I could find anything. Tent pegs were dangling in midair. But I managed to find the camera bags amongst the clutter and we set of for the centre of town. It was initially quite fun to be awake in a small town at night, because we saw the locals walking about from one house to another. This was about ten o’clock at night. We found a church which had a tower which had this interesting green glow to the tower. I managed to get a few shots of that before the cold made me shiver so badly, that I just couldn’t hold my camera steady on the bonnet of the car. Etienne was more persistent and took numerous street shots, some of them where absolutely amazing. It was as if the atmosphere was captured in the photo.

When we eventually had enough photographs, we decided to drive to Loxton. But it was a mission to find the road that led to Loxton, because we simply couldn’t find it. We looked at the compass on the Jeep, and eventually found a road which went in the right direction, but it had no boards to indicate where it leads to. So we trusted the compass and the map and took that road. The roads we had travelled on so far has the following in common, they are always quite wide, and consist of a fairly flat surface, with very few gates or anything besides the roads. That night we were travelling by night, but what caught our attention was the fact that the road was going up and down and there where numerous gates on the sides of the road, and we seem to go over numerous farm gates. It’s the type of gate where you have two ways of going past the fence, either by opening the gate, or driving over poles which lay horizontally, that prevents livestock from crossing over, because their feet won’t have any place to grip on.

What made us travel so far was the fact that we where travelling in the right direction according to the compass and the fact that we didn’t exactly have a place to return to. Neither of us wanted to face Carnarvon again. So we drove on for about an hour, until Etienne said I should look out for a camping spot. I just looked at him as if he was joking, but was shocked to realize he actually meant it. So I swallowed my fear and said I would look out for one, but I honestly couldn’t find one because I was scared, and nothing looked like it was suitable. Suddenly Etienne stopped the car and said we should admire the view. I said okay, we should, but then he meant we should get out of the car. I stubbornly told him, I’m not putting my feet out of this car! He just shivered in the cold and grabbed the tent canopy and pulled it over him. I must admit, while we where sitting there I did start to relax and enjoy the stunning stars and the flat landscape. Because in the horizon you where able to make out the silhouette of the landscape. We never once heard anything there, it was actually quite pleasant.

Etienne started the car again and we drove a bit further, when we heard this flop-flop-flop from outside the car. My instant reaction was disappointment, but also fears, because it sounded like a flat tire. I thought someone might have sabotaged the car. Why I thought that only Hollywood would know, because I was definitely shivering with fear. I thought of monsters walking around at night and hillbillies stalking us, but I should have known better. Etienne stopped the car and we walked around to find the flat tire, but found nothing. Not even a stone was stuck on a tire, so we were a bit puzzled over the origin of the sound. But I had this eerie feeling the whole time that night. But I just put it down to being over sensitive and from the stressful situation we had in Carnarvon, so I said nothing. By this time it was about half past eleven at night. So we drove further and heard nothing like a flat tire again. Etienne then had an inspiration to see what he would be able to capture with his camera in this darkness. I was also curious, but also envious, because my camera was useless with bulb function, so I just stayed in the car and pulled the tent tighter around my shivering body. I saw him standing just in front of the right hand side of the car, and he switched off the car lights when he had finished setting up the camera, and he went back to the camera. I made out his silhouette, and heard him shiver in this cold for quite a while and knew he was pressing the button down to open the shutter to take a long exposure.

It was then that I heard the faint moan of a windmill turning in the far distance. I yawned and was tired from the excitement of the day and wanted to close my eyes to sleep, but was slightly restless. Etienne started to move again and I knew he had finished his first shot. Once again he was standing still, but not nearly as long as the first time when I saw him grabbing the camera. He opened the door with such haste and shoved the camera with tripod and all onto me and slammed the door shut. I looked at him in surprise and he just started the car and said, he will tell me something freaky later on, we just have to go! That obviously upset me, but I unlocked the camera from the tripod and packed it away. When we had driven a fair distance from where we were, he told me he had heard someone (or something) coughing very close to where he was standing! I just swallowed air. He said as soon as he heard it, he froze in fright and looked around him, but obviously couldn’t make out anything in the darkness, so he thought it best just to get away as soon as possible.

I didn’t want to know how big my eyes had stretched that night. We drove a good few hours after that. When Etienne realized we weren’t going to find Loxton any time soon and he was getting tured, he said we should look out for a camping spot. I realized he had been driving a good few hours without any sleep, so I didn’t want to push him into driving any more. Although I honestly wished we could have found a hotel or a decent campsite. We came upon a clearing that must have been a water hole, because it was dry and it had cracks in it like dry clay. It was ideal because we wouldn’t have had to clear any vegetation to set up the tent. I felt very uneasy about just setting up the camp in the middle of now were, because who could tell we would be any safer there than where we were when Etienne had heard the mysterious cough. But I knew we had to get some sleep. We managed to set up the tent, with the help of the lights of the Jeep, before we were totally overcome by the cold. Etienne parked the Jeep to block most of the wind which really shook our tent quite hard. Fortunately we didn’t have to search for our bedding, because everything was already inside the tent.

I sighed with relief as I curled up in my sleeping bag, imagining warmth creeping into my freezing bones but the cold breeze managed to squeeze into my sleeping bag and no matter what I tried, my nose felt like it was going to get frost bite. Just as I was about to fall asleep Etienne jumped up in surprise. He thought he heard someone walking outside the tent, but I had hoped he had been wrong but truthfully, I had heard it too. We held up our heads to listen better, but then we realized we hadn’t secured the tent canopy with the proper tent pegs and they flopped against the ground so that it sounded like someone was walking right past our tent. We hadn’t secured the tent pegs securely because for one, it was too cold to do that too, and secondly, we had to search through the horribly cluttered car to find the small bag in which it had been packed. I don’t know how long we had been lying there before we must have passed out from exhaustion, with the tent canopy flapping persistently against the tent.

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A Short History:

(Daar was al jare toe die woltjek vir skaapboere in die Carnarvon-distrik op vier na die hoogste in die Kaapprovinsie was,) but this typical Karoo town hadn’t grown very much since it was established in 1860 and received the name Harmsfontein.
The name was changed in 1874 in honour of lord Carnarvon, British Ministor from Colonies. The Carnarvonse Nature reserve, 1km outside town is open daily 08h00 to 17h00 and among the wildlife one will find blesbuck, eland, springbok, Hartmannzebra, swartwildebees and ostrich.

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