THE ANSWER TO LIFE
Fish are hard to find in the Eastern Cape Highlands but it’s a good spot anyway to set your worries free
A fishing trip to the Eastern Cape Highlands makes so much sense
WE are close to the end of an exhilarating, yet enervating 400km dirt track motorbike ride from Nieu Bethesda.
Dirk Ackerman, the adventure motorcyclist directly behind me, thinks my flapping hand signal indicates some interesting mountain scenery he should take note of on the left. A few seconds later he narrowly misses the mountain reedbuck ram that was poised to cross the dirt track when I’d passed it moments before.
Such are the trials of travelling the engaging Joubert’s Pass above the town of Lady Grey at dusk. Riding the second half of the 43km dirt track, at 2 234m above sea level the third-highest pass in the country, in near darkness had not been on our agenda but we had somehow misinterpreted the distance to our farm-stay.
When we finally saw the Glen Doone farm gates and headed for reception we thought our trials for the day were over — but that was before we discovered our cottage was still about 4km away, down a fairly challenging mountain dirt track. Yet, when we finally arrived at our “cottage” we discovered its luxury far surpassed the expectations the website had created and the memories of our earlier challenges faded fast.
Glen Doone is in the heart of the Eastern Cape Highlands, a region famous for its spectacular mountain scenery, trout and yellowfish angling, rock art, early dinosaur fossils and, of course, South Africa’s only snow skiing resort, Tiffindell. With its eight spectacular passes, six of which are dirt tracks requiring a highclearance vehicle or 4x4 in winter, the region has become a bucket-list spot for all serious off-roaders and outdoor adventurers as well.
The area boasts its fair share of historical anecdotes, too. Tales of cattle-rustling raids between Moshoeshoe’s Basotho people and the Xhosa to the south in the 19th century abound and the heavy traffic resulted in the triangularshaped region between Barkly East, Maclear and Lundean’s Nek being dubbed Wartrail.
In later years, a number of remote police outposts were established and manned by Wyatt Earp-type law enforcers such as Constable Erasmus. According to writer TV Bulpin, over the 14 years Erasmus was stationed near Lundean’s Nek, cattle rustlers gave him a very wide berth because “his administration of justice was swift, rough and ready”.
The next day I wrestled with a dilemma when I awoke at dawn. Should I go with the third member of our party, Jaco Loots, on a backroads journey through part of the Wartrail region to Rhodes for lunch? Or should I laze around the house a while and go trout fishing with Dirk later? As I watched the putty-rock buttresses of the Witteberg slowly come to life in the first rays of sun from my window, my mind was made up for me when I fell asleep again. When I woke later, Jaco had gone.
The Karringmelkspruit that runs through Glen Doone farm for some 4.5km is reputed to be among the best “wild trout” fishing environs in the country. But when manager Keenan Spann brought us some rods the night before, he’d said the fishing stocks had been severely affected by the drought. And having walked the river for over 2km without seeing a single trout, we realised the situation was dire indeed.
After giving the dam a try towards dusk and having no success either, we took a merciless ribbing from Jaco around the braai fire later. He kept saying how thankful he was that he’d bought extra meat on his travels that day. Dented egos aside, while it would have been wonderful to catch and braai a fresh trout that night, it has never been that important for me to catch something while flyfishing. The opportunity to increasingly free your mind up with each cathartic cast is reward enough.
It’s famous for its mountain scenery, angling, rock art and SA’s only ski resort