ED’S LETTER

It’s a privilege to travel, but it can also be the source of great strife in a marriage… I love a good map and I love a good back road, but I’m also incapable of asking for directions. These are three combustible characteristics in the wrong set of circumstances. A woman with a few married years under her belt will see trouble coming and rein her husband in when he starts acting like a headstrong horse that wants to deviate from the standard course. But Ronel and I were newly wedded when we tackled our first big road trip from Cape Town through the old Transkei to Umdloti in KZN. She had no idea what I was capable of when we hitched our small pop-up caravan (basically a double bed on wheels) to our Toyota Conquest and made our way along the N2. I behaved myself on the journey there. We camped in the big towns and kept to the main roads. But a week in Umdloti gave me more than enough time to study my map book. I wasn’t keen to drive the tiresome stretch of the N2 through the Transkei again. I schemed in silence while Ronel napped under the umbrella on the beach. On the way back to the Cape, we stopped for lunch at the Wimpy in Kokstad. That’s when I deployed my map book. “Check this, Babe,” I said. “There’s a brand-new tar road from here to Matatiele. From there we can drive to Maclear, and on to Hogsback the next day. It’s much prettier. And shorter. And quieter than the N2 with all the cattle and taxis.” “Are you sure?” she asked. “Absolutely, Babes! Let’s take the scenic route.” Ah, the days when my words were still gospel… The R56 to Matatiele was indeed glorious: smooth tar with not another vehicle in sight. In the distance, a thunderstorm was brewing around the mountain peaks. “This road must be one of South Africa’s best-kept secrets,” I bragged, as if I’d discovered it all on my own. Ronel just smiled and flipped the Juluka tape over. “We are the scatterlings of Africa,” Johnny sang. And then, in Matatiele, the tar came to an abrupt and rather unexpected end. In its place was what seemed like a donkey track, which went all the way to Maclear. There was no turning back. The Drakensberg loomed high in the windscreen. Flashes of lightning illuminated our panicked faces as we – and our tiny caravan – bounced towards the unknown. Johnny had fallen silent a long time ago. As had Ronel. Four or five hours and two punctures later (one on the Conquest and one on the caravan), we crawled into Maclear in the dark. Later that evening, as the thunder still rumbled above our bed, I tried to make peace. “Wow, what a drive! What an adventure, hey? Sweety? Babe?” Now, 25 years later, you’ll understand how much pleasure it gave me to read Zigi Ekron’s story about the same road on page 102. I’m so keen to drive it again now that it has been fixed up. And I hear that the detour from Matatiele to Mount Fletcher via the Mariazell mission station is also something special. I’ll just have to convince Ronel…