Forgotten Towns of the Karoo - a photojournalistic essay

Prins Albert
Day 3: 18 December 2005 SUNDAY

Prince Albert was the most impressive and most developed town we had visited from all the Karoo towns. Its tourist setup had been fully developed and was still growing. I loved absolutely everything about Prince Albert. We drove through it and discovered crafts shops and guest houses overruled most of the main street.

At one point we climbed out of our car to photograph a building and saw two dogs stalking a scarecrow. The one dog was so absorbed by it, but obviously very upset because the cloth on the scarecrow was forever shaking in the wind, and that had completely upset the dog to such an extent that he wouldn’t stop barking at it. But his friend wasn’t bothered by it at all. He simply sniffed all around the scarecrow and simply left his friend to bark to now avail. Their owners where constantly trying to reassure him that all was well, but he sure did not believe them, because eventually they had to walk up to him and physically drag him away from the scarecrow. As they where dragging him away, he still kept on barking.

We left our scarecrow to be left in peace and we searched for the campsite and found it occupied by numerous people. The campsite was clean and tidy, with massive trees providing ample shading. Wind blowing through the trees sounded like waves at sea. The manager was hanging around the campers, laughing and chatting. It wasn’t long before the manager introduced himself to us and organized a camping spot for us and we pitched our tent and left it to go and find some a shop to stock up.

We bought some meat and wood, and on our way back to camp, thought we should look into the hotel pub. I’m sure glad we did, because we met the barman, Desmond Williams, a thin, but very pleasant guy. He stayed with his wife and twelve year old daughter on the premises. His older daughter of twenty-seven, worked in Johannesburg as a makeup artist. They talked to each other each day, but only saw each other once a year. He’s an incredibly considerate man. He supplied food to the poor on credit and he loved his wife tremendously, even after so many years. He assured us that her happiness was all that he needed. If she was happy, then he was happy. They’ve been working at the Hotel for four years. They came to Prince Albert together with his boss, who had bought the place when it had burnt down some years ago who had it restored to an impeccable condition.

Desmond’s motto in life was that you should always dream that your luck will hit you and that’s what keeps you going. He’s a very friendly and patient guy, and he told us that when some of the guests go out at night and return when the doors have already been locked, his phone number was on the door so that they may call him. He would stand up and open the door for them in his pyjamas. He told us that at one stage he had to wait inside the Hotel for some guests to arrive, but he thoroughly disliked waiting in the hotel because he heard too many creepy sounds, and he thought he had seen ghosts. Apparently some of the guests have confirmed that they too had seen ghosts who live there in the hotel.

Desmond was no judge of character and welcomed all who came into his bar. A large number of gay people have come to Prince Albert and he has had very interesting conversations with them. While we were talking so much with Desmond, he got called to do things like taking wine up to guests in their rooms, and each time he left he excused himself like a real gentleman.

When he had returned from one of his errands he came back and surprised us by having arranged something for us to eat on the house. And only a few minutes later on, he arrived with a whole platter of goodies for us. That was really a kind gesture, one which we never really expected but appreciated a great deal.

Eventually the conversation returned to ghosts, and Desmond told us of his experience with the ghost on Route 62. He had been travelling at night with his wife and her sister, when at about three o’clock in the morning he saw a woman standing besides the road sticking her thumb out to indicate she was asking for a lift. But what was unusual, was the fact that she was facing the opposite direction, but was on his side of the road. He slowed down and looked at her in astonishment, because he had never seen a white woman standing alone beside the road at that time of night. As he got nearer to her, he realized that he felt unusual. His hair stood straight as if he were near electricity and he had goose bumps all over him. Desmond then lifted his arms to show us that he had goose bumps from just talking about it. He then told us his tongue had felt awkward and swollen, and it felt as if he wasn’t capable of speaking. Only after the whole ordeal, did his passengers confirm that they too had experienced the same thing. When he came right next to the woman, she suddenly jumped in front of the car in the road. Desmond then jumped of from his chair and stood with his back to us and acted out exactly how this happened. We could see the seriousness in his eyes. He sat down again and went on to tell us he got such a fright, and slammed on the brakes, and as he looked back in the mirror he saw a light, like a motorbike’s slowly disappearing as he drove away. Thereafter he just drove on forward at about thirty kilometres an hour. He shook his head and his big eyes showed real fear. He then told us of another experience with the same ghost which happened with two other passenger who where both asleep when he encountered the woman again. Desmond saw the lights of a motorbike following him. But he was aware of his previous experience. They drove on for quite a while and Desmond realized that the light didn’t go away. He then asked his passengers to see whether they could see if it was a motorbike that was following them. They looked behind them and to his surprise asked what he was talking about, because there wasn’t anything that was following them. Apparently this was the Uniondale ghost.

All the while he was talking to us, he kept on helping customers. It’s as if he really was at home and enjoyed what he was doing. He had his chair in the corner and whenever he wasn’t busy he sat down to listen to our stories or continued from were he stopped talking. He really found our story from Carnarvon very interesting and laughed when he heard we woke up amongst two herds of sheep. But he saw the seriousness of the whole situation and congratulated us on making the right decision to leave Carnarvon when we felt so unsafe.

He never once moaned or sighed from being disturbed too much. It was really pleasant to talk to someone who was happy with what he was doing. At one stage the bar had seemed to fill up with quite a number of people, and he managed to serve everyone. Some were definitely from overseas, and as soon as they got in the bar, they ordered drinks and disappeared to be by themselves. I found it ridiculous to travel all that way and then go and hide somewhere all by yourself, when you could have met someone as interesting as Desmond. But it got quite late, or early, I honestly don’t remember and we wanted to sleep so we said goodnight to Desmond and walked out to go back to the campsite.

The meat we had bought was still in the car and because Desmond had treated us to a platter, we had the luxury of leaving the bar with a full stomach. But we didn’t have a fridge or anything of the sorts to store our meat, so we went to camp and started a fire to braai our meat. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. But I think anything would have been perfect compared to our scary ordeal the night before. Most people, if not all, were asleep at the camp, so we sat down and stared at the magnificent display of stars. For once I definitely didn’t shiver in fear. When we did hear someone cough that night, we just smiled and started laughing.

19 December 2005 MONDAY

We caught up on some much wanted sleep in Prince Albert and I was the first to face the morning and sat for quite a while looking at a bird catching insects. It was quite cute watching it sweep the whole campsite from one side to the other in a Wimbledon tennis match fashion.

No one else was awake, except for two families who were busy packing up, but they were on the far side of the campsite. But the bird wasn’t bothered by them. At one stage he came so close to my feet that he stopped what he was doing and looked me in the eye. It felt like a minute passed by and suddenly he chirped and flew up to a branch to scan the area for more insects.

When Etienne eventually did surface I had my fair share of sunshine and went for a shower. This turned out to be a mission on its own, because had I known the cold water pipes were shut due to maintenance, I would have made other plans. But I obviously didn’t know this, so I picked a shower oblivious to what was to come.

With the little cold water that was still in the pipes, I had a fairly pleasant shower for two minutes. By this time my hair were covered in shampoo and I was busy washing my face when a blast of steaming hot water came pouring over me. Squinting through soap covered eyes I searched for the cold water tap in the unfamiliar shower, only to discover it wouldn’t work. By the time I eventually figured out that the cold water tap won’t help me, I had scorched most of my shoulders and hand where it tingled and burned with pain. Eventually I turned off all the water and tried to wipe the soap from my face. I climbed out the shower, absolutely disgusted and went to the wash hand basins to see if they had cold water. A little stream came out only to spat out the last few comforting droplets onto my scorched hands before it simply stopped. I stood there contemplating whether I simply should just walk out and open the garden hose to wash out the shampoo from my hair, when I heard little kids playing around the campsite. I obviously didn’t want to spend my next night in a Karoo jail cell because of indecent exposure; although I think it would have been interesting. So I went back to the shower and discovered that the water would cool down if I leave it standing in the pipes for a while, but it’s only small volumes of water which did cool down before I had to close the tap. Eventually I managed to wash the shampoo from my hair.

When I eventually did came out the shower Etienne had packed up the whole campsite and had wondered where I had been. I briefly explained to him what had happened and he stood contemplating whether he should shower or not. The last shower he had had was two days ago, so he did the manly thing and went for a scorching shower. While he was scorching himself I was entertained once again by my little friend the bird, while a guinea fowl was persistently making his presence known by sitting on the wire fence and not chirping, but screaming at the top of its little vocal chords. I honestly would have helped him, if I only knew what his problem was.

Etienne survived his shower and he said it was fairly painful, but quite fun. We had taken so many photos at that stage that we had to find some or other way of downloading the images. So we went to the main road in Prince Albert and found a cute restaurant / curio shop where a family worked. The grandmother made the food in the kitchen and her daughter would make sure all the customers were seen to. The son of the mother would run around helping her, while her husband had a computer in the back of the shop where he assured us he would make sure the pictures got stored on CDs and left us to enjoy a big breakfast.

We enjoyed sitting on the veranda overlooking the main street. It was interesting to see how many young kids were riding on bicycles with boxes attached to it, evidently delivering goods. After our hearty breakfast, we left Prince Albert with numerous warnings to be careful on the treacherous Swartberg Pass. I was glad we were on the road again, because the start of the Swartberg Pass coming from Prince Albert was absolutely breathtaking! I was just furious because I had only taken a few photographs when I saw my batteries were flat…

It was approximately 10km from Prince Albert to the Swartberg Pass.

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A Short History of Prince Albert:

It’s a charming Karoo town of large irrigated plots. Named after Queen Victoria’s husband/consort.
Previously called the “Kweekvallei” (‘the valley where things grow’) because of the Swartberg, which feeds streams leading to fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers that grew so lusciously.
There are 12 buildings, which have been declared National Monuments, among which are the Dutch Reformed Church and its Hall, a restored windmill (Albert’s Mill – run by generations of the Albert family, ground wheat until the 1970s) at the south entrance to the town and the Swartberg Hotel building.
A variety of architectural styles, from Cape Dutch and Georgian to Karoo and Victorian could be found there.

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