TIMELESS TANKWA

Why not take a drive through the Karoo Poort and experience the Tankwa Karoo, where the desolation is beautiful and time stands still? Jan De Klerk Kruger explains why this region will get into (and stay in) your blood.

The Cape is in the grip of a heat wave, the mountains are ablaze and it’s the weekend when the Argus cyclists battle in and against a furious southeaster. So everyboy wants to know why the five of us are going to the Tankwa Karoo in this weather.

Well, there are myriad reasons: So we can drive on a gravel road for a change and tackle back roads, in search of open spaces and primordial silence.
What’s more, you don’t have to go far to find it, because there’s an abundance of it all around you.
Yes, what awaits you in the Tankwa, are desert-like Karoo landscapes, deserted plains, inviting turnoffs, guarrie bushes, dry riverbeds, thorn trees, Karoo robins and ancient rock formations.
There is no cellphone reception and the emptiness gives you a feeling of freedom and imperceptibly calms you down.
It’s 38 °C when we cross Bain’s Kloof and Michell’s Pass on Friday afternoon after leaving Cape Town, headed for Ceres.
Here we fill up with diesel one last time and buy our last supplies. (Later we’d realise you can never take enough ice with you … In the early evening we luckily still managed to fish one or two cubes out of the cool box.)
Even our vehicles, two 4x2 diesel bakkies with great willingness under the bonnet and a hunger for gravel, can’t get to the Karoo Poort, 40 km northeast of Ceres, quickly enough.

In the welcome shade of the Karoo Poort’s poplar lane we stop and braai sausage.
This poort between the Kwarrie- and Saalberg is wide enough for the road as well as the Doring River to comfortably wind their way through it.

It’s well worth stopping here, because when you get back into your car and continue driving, the poort is like stage curtains that open up before the start of a concert.

We’re on the (in)famous R355 between Ceres and Calvinia.
As this road has a reputation as a tyre-eater, we opt for a softer ride and deflate the tyres to 1.8 bar.
The heat hits us like a heavy punch bag when we stop for photographs about 70 km further.
From here it’s roughly 70 km of good gravel road to the Tankwa Karoo National Park, with some drifts still muddy after the rain of a few days ago.
Here and there we see a crumbling clay house that has surrendered to the seasons and has started melting into the surrounding veld. As we drive over the plains en route to the Roggeveld Mountains in the distance, the beauty of the countryside unfolds majestically before us.

Just before yet another cattle grid we see a dust devil going through its paces across the plains. It takes me back to my own Karoo childhood when we used to see these whirlwinds approach across the plains.
My dad even told me you could catch a dust devil in a grain bag. But it had to be a 200 pound muid grainbag.
If you could catch up with the whirlwind, you could bag it and release it in the farm shed. You could keep such a wind going for a week by throwing a handful of sand into the shed every morning.

At the park office we’re warmly welcomed with a jug ice-cold water and clean
toilet facilities – in the middle of nowhere.
The park has six campsites (you have to bring absolutely everything), of which Pyper se Boom and Langkloof are the closest to the park office.
The others − Skaapwagterspos, Steenkampshoek, Volmoedsfontein and Bessiesfontein − are much further off.
At the office we fill up another 20-litre water container for the portable shower bag, buy two more bags of wood and hit the road to Pyper se Boom through a clutch of drifts and dry riverbeds.
The jeep track running in between thorn trees and interesting rock formations is flanked by dry riverbeds on one side and mountains on the other.
The park is still being developed, and we only have a pencil-sketch map from the park office to direct us. There are also no road signs and place names to indicate campsites.
Looking for Pyper se Boom, we stop later and compare the map with the contours of the mountain slopes.
About 6 km further we turn left and reach an old ruin and an even older bluegum tree. Could this be Pyper se Boom?
After a brief huddle we decide to push on to Langkloof, because according to the map we would drive past Pyper se Boom. (We would realise later this was indeed Pyper se Boom.)
According to the map Langkloof is about 6 km north of Pyper se Boom.
En route to Langkloof the sun starts setting, so we decide to pitch our tents right there under a thorn tree next to the dry riverbed.
Fortunately, the park office had given us permission to camp at any of the two campsites or sheltered places near Langkloof.

Up Ouberg and down Gannaga

Today the circular route to Sutherland and Middelpos top the menu. On the way to the Ouberg Pass (1 404 m above sea level) a desert landscape surrounds us on all sides.
Here it would even be hard to farm with stones, but as you approach the foot of the 13 km long pass, the vegetation becomes lusher with green thorn trees here and there.
On top of Ouberg we cook a hearty breakfast on a gas stove, under a tarpaulin strung up between the two bakkies.
It’s already 39 °C, but the view compensates for it.
We look out over the vast Tankwa Karoo and wonder how far you can see into eternity. All the way to the third generation, we reckon.

After breakfast we pack up in the oppressive heat and continue towards Sutherland.
On top of the Roggeveld plateau the gravel road isn’t too bad. Here it almost feels as if you’re driving into another Karoo, one with green lucerne fields.
Sutherland is quiet on a Saturday afternoon. We stop for a cooldrink at the local bar to cool down, but emotions are heated inside. The Stormers and Bulls will battle for honours later this afternoon, and a man who has already booked his seat in front of the TV, lets rip at the minister of environmental affairs for barring the culling of caracal.

Later we stop at Middelpos and its owner, Koos van der Westhuizen, to find out how things are with his Anatolian sheepdog, his boerbull breeding and the latest cricket score.
He opens the general dealer so we can buy ice cream, beer, tin mugs and more ice.
About 16 km from Middelpos, close to the top of the Gannaga Pass, we drive into pouring rain, which turns into a hailstorm moments later.
Descending the pass is slow but beautiful, and the lovely smell of damp veld and the cooler weather are much better travel buddies than the dust and heat of a few hours ago.

At the park office the rain meter measured 22 mm, and we have to take it slow and carefully through the streams and muddy riverbeds back to our camp. Fortunately, the tents have survived the storm, but the wind has torn the gazebo in half.