We depart early in the morning and meet Danny and Garitha, dear old friends and our hosts, on the way to Malmesbury. The rainfall is quite heavy and we are expecting a bit of bundu-bashing along the way to their guest farm, Naries, near Springbok. We have decided to take the long road along the West Coast and some of these back roads are not tarred, so we could be in for some bumpy off-roading.
Our first stop is at the Wimpy in Malmesbury for take-away coffee. This is a welcome break from the cold winter weather outside. We join the N7 to Namibia but do not stay for too long on it before we turn left, just before Piketberg on the R399 towards the Sandveld. This is where my mother’s father grew up in the early 1900s. They were 12 children and were poor and yet he always managed to care for other people. He loved to return to the Sandveld to hunt and visit old friends and family. The Sandveld is a plain near the town of Redelinghuys.
About halfway on the R399 towards Velddrif, a fishing town on the west coast where the Berg River flows into the ocean, we turn right towards the village of Aurora. This is another place that my granddad talked about a lot. There isn’t much to see and we carry on on a dirt road towards Redelinghuys. The weather is forgiving and we make it without incident to Redelinghuys. It is slightly bigger than Aurora. We drive to the other side of town to the old Dutch Reformed church that was destroyed by fire in 2019, just after it turned a 100 years old the year before. There isn’t much left of the once proud building. We still have a lot of road to cover today, so we exit the town and head towards Elands Bay on the R366.
We drive along the Verlorenvlei (it’s name means the lost lake or marsh) – another place my granddad mentioned a lot. I think he was born on a farm close to it. We reach Elands Bay – another small fishing and holiday town for locals. The weather is dreary and, therefore, the views are unimpressive. This is not the fault of the places we are passing by – we should have chosen a better time of the year to do this. We take another dirt road towards Lamberts Bay. The town is much bigger than Aurora, Redelinghuys or Elands Bay and have a number of shops and even restaurants where we have lunch. The food is quite cheap. One of the best known eating places is a couple of kilometers outside town right on the beach. It is called Muisbosskerm (the name is derived from a shelter being built from a bush called “Muisbos”, by the native herdsman). Here you can eat as much as you like – from bread baked there on the beach to fish and even cray fish. Definitely an experience to die for (if not of!). The town also had a cray fish canning factory many years ago and I can remember when I visited Lamberts Bay in the mid-1990s, you could have an all-cray fish buffet at the hotel. Anything from cray fish salad or cray fish soup to whole cray fish as a main course – I counted eleven different dishes at the time! Not sure if the hotel still offers this. Today Lamberts Bay is a holiday and tourist town.
We are beginning to run late and we depart for Doringbaai. After some off-roading we reach this small village which has a small fishing harbour, a light house and even a wine cellar on the beach. Then we drive on pass Strandfontein, a modern vacation town, to Lutzville – both of which surprised me as to their size and level of development. Lutzville is quite big and, to my surprise, found diesel much cheaper there than back in Stellenbosch.
We now head for the N7 towards Springbok, using the R363 to Nuwerus. Everything goes well until half-way when the road becomes a dirt road which is quite slippery in the rain. It is, nevertheless, quite a beautiful area. Before we turn off on the dirt road, we notice the Pot O’Gold tamato sauce factory next to the road – I didn’t know it was here. Once we join the N7 we can move at high speed to Springbok. We will sleep over at Naries, the five star guest farm belonging to our host, which is 27 km to the west of Springbok on the Kleinsee road.
Naries is a guest farm right on the edge of the escarpment from which one can see Kleinsee on the western coast (if your eyes and the weather are good). The R355 from Springbok to just beyond Naries is tarred and in an excellent condition. There is the main house on Naries with en-suite rooms. This was the original farm house and is well-preserved. Danny has also built three thatched-roofed cottages (the “Mountain Suites”) that have been designed in a style that can be called modern-San that make excellent use of existing huge rocks of the escarpment to form part of the buildings (some of the rooms feel like you are in a cave!). These cottages are very luxurious, private and romantic. We also have the opportunity to have a lekker braai in the Gemsbok Lapa, a beautiful entertainment venue they have on the edge of the escarpment. It is well-removed from the Mountain Suites. All meals can be enjoyed on Naries.
Tomorrow, Danny will give us a guided tour of the road to Kleinsee, an area that has been mined for diamonds and copper for decades (including by his father). We cannot wait to hear the stories from someone dear to us who grew up here.
