Here’s to soon revisiting my past – by Metrorail

THE DAY after I wrote a very grumpy column about the sand dune that had swallowed the railway station in Simon’s Town, I received a cheerful and encouraging email from Riana Scott, who told me all was not lost. Help was on its way. She attached a very detailed report of the work being done by Metrorail to dig out the buried railway line and it seems as though we will soon have a train service in our corner of the Peninsula again.

In fact, according to the official report, we should be able to use the train to Simon’s Town from the end of this month.

I am delighted to hear it. Not being a regular commuter any more I do not make much use of the train service, but I used it to travel to and from work for many years and my children used to catch the train to school every morning.

I have often said I believe the Southern Suburbs train service is a very under-used tourist attraction.

Where else in the world can you travel along the ocean’s edge through quaint and attractive touristfriendly towns like Muizenberg, Kalk Bay and Simon’s Town?

Seagulls swoop across the line and the sea spray hisses against the carriage windows when the wind blows. From your seat you can watch yachts sailing, kayaks plunging through the surf and seals loafing in the rock pools. Sometimes you even see a whale spouting. We should be encouraged to buy season passes for visitors and the whole experience should be far more widely advertised.

One big factor, of course, is the safety of passengers, but it shouldn’t be too difficult or costly to have guards on the trains. There were always guards on the trains when I used the system. Maybe we could redeploy a few of our ubiquitous parking area arm-wavers to be train guards instead.

I have promised myself that as soon as the service is up and running once again, I shall spend a day being a railway tourist.

I will board the train at Sunny Cove and travel to Muizenberg, where I know just the place to get a great breakfast, then I’ll hop aboard again and head back to Kalk Bay for some trendy shopping among the treasure troves along Main Road, before heading off to Simon’s Town, where there’s a pub that serves an excellent pint of Guinness.

I may even have several pints, because I will be going home by train, so I couldn’t care less if I’m way over the legal alcohol limit. This could become a regular event if my exploratory trip proves to be fun.

Last Laugh

A Gauteng traveller became rather confused by the network of roads crisis-crossing the Karoo, and eventually he stopped at a remote farm to ask for directions to Vrotwaterskuil.

The farmer scratched his head and said, “You can take that gravel road… No wait, sir, that road is blocked by the washaways. Rather take that sand road. No wait, that’s blocked by a fallen rock.”

Then he scratched his head and said: “You know what, sir? Actually you can’t get to Vrotwaterskuil from here. You’ll have to start from somewhere else.”