READER STORY
Gerrie Cilliers tows and pitches her caravan all by herself – for more than 19 years now. The fact that she is 86 old makes it even more impressive. We go camping with her.
About 40 km outside of Brits in the North West, Gerrie Cilliers sits in front of her Jurgens Surfer Delux on one of those camping chairs with the built-in footrest. The thick see-through plastic tablecloth protects the pretty blue-and-white one underneath it. Clamps on the sides keep the wind from blowing it away. Three white chairs stand ready for dinner and the hot tray is switched on. Here at the Thaba Morula campsite, Gerrie Cilliers is at her happiest. But call her Gerrie. Not Mrs Cilliers, doctor Cilliers, or founding member of the Tuks Alumni caravan club. And definitely not “tannie”. She’s just Gerrie, no matter how old you are. She’s been camping with caravans for 53 years. First with her husband, Arnold, and their kids. Later it was just her and Arnold. But since 1998, after Arnold passed away, it’s only her in the caravan. “My husband taught me well. When his health started to wane he suggested that I learn how to tow our caravan and taught me how to do it. The last time I towed it with him, before he passed away, he congratulated me on how well I towed. It did a lot for my confidence. I had a fantastic husband.” When she hitches her caravan to her Peugeot 407 with its automatic gearing and hits the road, her husband’s lessons are always in the back of her mind. “He taught me to shift gears in time before the engine labours, and to take a wider turn.” After all these years, though, she still struggles to make a turn in reverse with a caravan in tow. “I know all the theories. You have to turn the wheel to the right if you want to go left, but I just can’t do it. I can reverse straight but a turn is too much of a challenge. >
Technology to the rescue
But this reversing thing doesn’t bother her much. Initially fellow campers helped Gerrie to get the caravan to where it had to be when she arrived at a campsite, but all the while she kept her eyes peeled for a way for her to do it herself. The solution came in the form of a caravan mover. Now when she arrives at her stand she first walks around the caravan twice (first one way, then the other). Then she stands with arms akimbo before she manoeuvres the caravan into place. “Sometimes I have to look in the mirror to remind myself how old I am,” she says with her cordless electric drill in one hand. She uses the drill to lower the corner steadies so the caravan is level; she then uses a latchkey to loosen the caravan’s roof so she can lift it and finally she uses a gadget to pull the rally tent through the slot. The diamonds in her wedding ring sparkle in the sunlight as she drives tent pegs into the ground with a rubber mallet. “I just realised that I can’t always depend on other people. But I actually am still a little bit dependent because I can get the caravan out of the garage and hitch it and connect the stabiliser, but I can’t disconnect it myself because my hands are a bit small. I can’t pull the lever that loosens the knob and turn the wheel at the same time. This is why I always have to ask a fellow camper to help me out.”
Gerrie’s new caravan
Gerrie bought her Surfer Delux about 11 years ago. She towed the previous caravan – a Sprite Musketeer – by herself for a while, but her friend Jannij Stander saw the Surfer Delux and decided that this caravan had Gerrie’s name written all over it. Jannij brought the sales brochure to a lecture at their church – a lecture about focussing your mind. “He (the guy who presented the lecture) said your mind is like a butterfly: It flies all over and every time you have to bring the butterfly back to the starting point. During the interval, Jannji told me about the caravan and I couldn’t get that butterfly back to its place,” laughs Gerrie. The next morning I called in reinforcements and took the church minister – who used to be an engineer and is himself a keen camper – with me to have a look at the caravan. “I said to Jan [the minister]
that he must ask the technical questions; I would ask the general ones.” Gerrie added extra plug points to the outside of the caravan, had an extra power socket installed inside and insisted on space for her freezer. All the work was completed within a week – the kids were on their way from England and the caravan had to be ready. Over the past 11 years Gerrie put her personal touch on the caravan. A brightly coloured quilt that she made herself covers the bed, the plates are kept in cloth bags so it doesn’t get dusty, in the toilet a doll hides a roll of toilet paper under her knitted frock; and glass mugs and cups are protected by cloth so they won’t crack. Gerrie only drinks out of glass when she camps.
A stormy night at Aldam
When Gerrie and Arnold bought their first caravan in 1964 – a Venter with tent sidewalls – they had two boys and an infant daughter. In those years glasses were definitely not a priority. They chose the Venter because it was spacious and the family could tow it with their light-blue Mercedes-Benz 180 diesel. “We went to a show where my husband showed me which caravans we could tow with this weak car – and they were all such small things. And I said: ‘No thanks, not for me. I’m claustrophobic; none of these will work for me.’ “That’s when we saw the Venter and it felt like it was as big as a hall and I said: ‘That one I can see myself in’. We camped with it for quite a while.” With that Venter the family explored the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, North Coast, interior, and the Kruger National park until they found a stand at Allemanskraal Dam near Winburg in the Free State. “That night there was a terrible storm. The boys and a friend each clung to the tent poles like bushbabies. Then the wind raised everything 15 cm into the sky and with a ‘whoosh’ brought it back down. I was lying in the caravan with my daughter, praying. Later I was praying that if we had to go tonight, that we at least all go together so no one stayed behind alone.” That storm was the Venter’s death knell. The Cilliers family began looking for a >
Sometimes I have to look in the mirror to remind myself how old I am.
caravan with solid walls and decided on a Camp Pride. Gerrie says this caravan served them well. But also only until the family grew and they couldn’t lift the roof easily. Next on the list was a Constantia. “It was an excellent caravan. It was so big three adults could stand next to each other in the small passage. It was wider than a car.” Their camping adventures, however, came to an abrupt standstill when the Valiant they used to tow the Constantia was stolen. For four years the caravan stood in the yard, and when Arnold bought a bakkie, the caravan was sold to road workers to use as a place to live. The Musketeer followed – a stalwart after the Cilliers family welcomed two more kids.
The heart and soul of the club
These days Gerrie tows her caravan about once a month together with the Tuks Alumni caravan club to a campsite about 200 km from Pretoria. “The best is being outside in nature. The caravan is so nice – easy to clean and everything you need is close at hand, you don’t have to walk far to get anything. It’s much better than a chalet. You sleep in your own mess – you don’t have to clean someone else’s.” Gerrie is dearly beloved amongst the fellow campers. Everyone comes to say hello, but by now they know you can offer to help but otherwise stay out of her way when Gerrie starts to pitch camp. Tracy Coetzee has camped with Gerrie a few times. She helps with the poles as Gerrie pitches her caravan. “Gerrie is such a cheerful person and she does her own thing. She is a shining example that you should never stop living and should never back down from something that looks difficult.” Zaaiman Stander has been camping with Gerrie and the club for almost 20 years. He says they haven’t just learned a lot from her but she’s also the heart and soul of the club. “She’s the moral compass of the group and keeps the conversation on a respectable level. She has a wonderful sense of humour.” When people ask why she still goes on camping holidays, Gerrie replies that she will continue until she can’t anymore. “It’s a way of life for me. It’s who I am.”