RHODES VILLAGE
There are no tar roads and few people in the historic village of Rhodes. But solitude and a fascinating past are just two of the reasons you should visit.
Tyson Jopson finds views, history and chatty locals
You often hear about towns named after people. Rarely do you hear of places named before them. But that, sort of, is the story of Rhodes Village – a hamlet hidden beneath a neat copse of pine trees between the large toes of the enormous feet of the Southern Drakensberg. ‘They named this place in 1891, in the hope that Cecil John would grace the town with his beneficence,’ says Dave Walker, leaning back against the wall of the Thankshjalot Bar in the Walkerbouts Country Inn and Pub. ‘He never came … too busy making the big bucks down in the Cape. Instead, as the legend goes, he sent £500 and an ox wagon with a load of pine trees that now line the streets. If you ask botanical types, there’s no way that these are the same trees, and there’s no record of any ever being sent up, but they say you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.’ Built into the wall next to Dave is a frog tank – home to three bloated, aquatic frogs that move so infrequently that at first I think they are plastic bath toys. A parrot screeches in the background. ‘At any rate, they also say the town clerk disappeared shortly after, presumably with the £500, and Cecil never did grace this place with his presence.’ The last part is true (Cecil never did visit Rhodes) but, like Dave, I find myself not really caring all that much if the first part is or isn’t. There’s something about this bar. Perhaps it’s the quietness that renders veracity non-essential. And, besides, there’s enough truth on the walls – newspaper clippings, old photos, sporting memorabilia – to root most of Rhodes’s history firmly in reality, even if some of the stories curl at the edges. And stories Dave has aplenty. He first visited in the late 1970s, during Rhodes’s ‘Hippie Era’. Dave wasn’t aware of this at the time but among the alternative-lifestyle seekers, some locals tell me, were also draft dodgers. They would post a man up on the nearby hill to warn of approaching military police. When alerted, they’d flee up to their cannabis plantations in the mountains, leaving their wives and girlfriends to give the officers hell. Dave worked nearby at Tiffindell Ski Resort for two years around the time of South Africa’s first democratic election. He’s made and sold cheese, fashioned flies (fishing is big here), renovated the village’s original farmhouse, bought and sold property (he still does) and now, besides running the inn, makes combustible, compressed cardboard briquettes as he has an aversion to waste.
But even a man with never-ending stories isn’t immune to a conversation about the weather, especially when there’s been a week-long war raging in the clouds overhead. Ominous thunder rumbles above the mountaintops and a ferocious wind swirls dust clouds down the gravel streets, swooping past a mix of neat and ramshackle Victorian-style houses, a boarded-up hotel and rusty decommissioned petrol pumps. Two vandalised stop signs – ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and ‘Stop Worrying’ – shiver as a gust sails past them. So too the smattering of ‘For Sale’ signs sticking out of unkempt lawns. Life in an historic village, out of the way and off the beaten track, has its drawbacks. There’s not much in the way of amenities. Obtaining resources – building materials, fuel and general supplies – is a logistical challenge. Many of the homes are of the holiday variety, their owners only visiting a few times a year. ‘The folks who visit Rhodes are of a particular mindset,’ says Dave. ‘To really enjoy it you need to take a week off, be prepared, and have a good reason.’ That night 11 reasons shuffle through the doors of the Walkerbouts Inn – a group of elderly botanical enthusiasts from Grahamstown, led by Rhodes University botany professor, Roy Lubke. They’re here to see the wildflowers: red-hot pokers, yellow thistles, yellow dobo lilies ( Cyrtanthus flanaganii) and tritonias that adorn the mountainsides at this time of year. ‘We saw more flora in half an hour here [in the Tiffindell basin near the ski resort] than we’ve seen throughout the year,’ says Roy. That night the group is abuzz with stories and photos of the day’s outing. On my last day I head out to Alpine Swift Trails, another big reason people come here – for trail running and mountain biking. Run by Hylton and Sunelle Dunn, the impressive facility is built around a 25-metre swimming pond fed by springs and cleaned by water lilies and koi. I take a hike up one of the nearby peaks with Hylton, who points out some of the trails. There are endless possibilities for hikers, runners and mountain bikers. Some trails go all the way over the Witteberg Mountains to the farming community of Wartrail, others skirt the high-altitude Lesotho border near Tiffindell, and shorter, easier ascents take you into the hills around Rhodes Village itself. There’s a glint in Hylton’s eye as he talks me through what’s on offer here for visitors and it soon becomes very clear that this place is paradise for anyone who loves the outdoors, and the small village beneath those mysterious pine trees are the fabled gates to it all.