The Can Do! Trekking for Trash team have finally had access to the web and we are delighted to bring you an update. This is the first blog of three so keep an eye out next week for part 2 and 3!
09 – 13 October
We left Kleinzee at 7am in an effort to avoid the headwind. We walked through town and towards the gate of the next diamond mine on the south side. Here we cut down to the sea and passed the Kleinzee Angling club. It felt so great to finally be on the coast, our eyes feasting on all the sea life. The mussel shells were up to two meters thick in some parts and it was quite a weird feeling as we bounced crunching over them. The smell of kelp was vivid as were the sounds of the waves crashing over pebbles – it reminded me of Greece. For the first time our pace started to differ. Mike went on ahead and I took my time behind him taking pictures and absorbing the atmosphere. I had also been experiencing quite bad pains in my hips so I’d decided to shorten my stride a bit to see if that helped. There was a fair amount of litter to pick up so we were grateful to be meeting our driver halfway to empty the backpack. Early on mike found a chair on the beach! He managed to wedge it on top of the pack – luckily we didn’t run into any humans en route. They would have thought he was nuts.
We had planned to meet Erlo at Brazil at about 12pm but beach-walking, we discovered, is about 30% slower than walking on the road. We arrived there at 1pm and were greeted by Rocky standing on the porch of his fairytale abode. Such a special little part of the world, Brazil is! Rocky is a very interesting guy. Diving for diamonds brought him to this neck of the woods and I am told he has been very successful. He showed us a picture of his 23 carat find! Apparently it is a great surf spot too. I loved their arty home. Colourful/fun/hippie/earthy. Erlo had bought us some lunch from the golf club in kleinzee – it was a rather dreary soggy beef schnitzel cheddamelt with cold fries but it vanished in 5 seconds nonetheless. Rocky made me a lovely cup of black rooibos tea and we sat his in kitchen as he recounted a few of his escapades.
After lunch Mike and I headed north towards the Border Wreck. Another long haul. We started walking along the beach but mike was growing frustrated with the sandy paths so he tried to go inland to find a firmer jeep track. We took a number of paths up to the left and they kept returning us to the beach so after the 4th time this happened and another fork had presented itself to us – I told mike he could go up and I’d see him back on the beach. He went off and I never saw him again. We lost each other for 3 hours. I thought it would be safest to stick on the coast and head for our meeting point so I wouldn’t get lost somewhere in the veld of the diamond mine. I saw no more footprints on any of the paths I found and realized he could no longer be ahead of me unless he had gone 2km up to the main dirt track. I was starting to worry a bit but kept telling myself there was no point in panicing. I had nothing with me but the top/shorts/hat/shades and shoes on my body but I knew I would make it back to Brazil if I had to before I got too dehydrated. After 3 hours of running up and down the veld chasing the cars I kept thinking I was seeing 5km in the distance I gave up hope and wrote notes in the sand. It was getting dark and I turned around and headed back to Brazil. (I may admit to a 5 second pity cry) About 5 minutes later I heard hooting in the distance and almost collapsed with relief! Erlo had not found us at the meeting point but he had spotted me way off in the distance on his way back. He hadn’t found Mike but eventually we got cell phone reception and we collected him from Brazil.
All is well that ends well – we were lucky it turned out OK and I am grateful it happened early on so we can reaffirm our crisis strategies etc. Write the golden rules! We got home, showered and headed straight to the Crazy Crayfish who promised us mussel soup and oysters.
The next day we were dropped at Gate 3 and walked on to Noup. It was a really long day but there was lots to see, the Piratiny wreck being my highlight, and we were incredibly excited to get to Noup to meet Dudley and Aletta. Aletta had been slaving away all afternoon preparing lovely salads, baked snoek, apple malva pudding and all the trimmings. What a treat! Noup is without a doubt the best kept secret of the West Coast. It is beautiful, secluded and tranquil. The stone cottages are comfortable and the power goes out at 10pm without exception which I love. You finish your evenings around a fire or reading a book by candle light , listening to the waves crashing. The next day was supposed to be a Rest Day but Dudley and Aletta had said they would join us for a 5km walk along the beach from Noup to the beginning of the mine. We jumped at the opportunity, certain that we would learn a heck of a lot from Dudley, which of course we did. He taught us about Shell Middens which date back 16000 years – there are 574 found along the west coast. He showed us how we could tell the difference between a naturally occurring shell mound and one left by the Strandlopers by analyzing the underside of horse-shoe limpets. They have a fine ridge or fringe around the bottom. When they die naturally this fringe is the first thing to erode. If they were taken off the rocks by Strandlopers the fringe is still intact except for the chip on one side where they would have used a tool to leverage it off the rocks. When you find shells like these there are always ‘tools’ found in the area, molded rocks etc. We also came across a piece of ancient pottery which tells us the people thousands of years ago must have traded with tribes closer to the Orange river as this was where the pottery was made using the clay found up there. He taught us about various plant species, rehabilitation of the area and the different rock formations. He also explained how diamonds are formed in the earths crust and pointed out fossils which is one of his passions as he has developed an exceptional collections over his lifetime. When we reached the border of the mine, Mike and I decided to carry on walking 9km into Koingnaas just to tick it off. We collected a lot of litter again along the road. Erlo picked us up at lunch time and we went through to the barren Spar to find supplies for our dinner. We went home and started preparing the meal – the boys collected mussels and I sat down and planned our route for the next day. We had invited Dudley and Aletta for a dinner of mussel soup, wors, chops, green beans (from a tin), baked potato, avo, roasted butternut and marshmallow skewers (if that is any indication of what we found in the empty-shelved-shop)
We weren’t allowed into the Koingnaas mine either so we got Erlo to drop us parallel to the coast on the road to Hondeklipbaai and we made our way to the town – about 19km in total. We saw a number of new bugs, ostrich, sheep, Ludwig bustards etc. A kind local artist drove by in a red beach buggy and gave us each ice cold cokes. Moments like those really make your day! We got to Hondehok chalets at lunch time. A 2 roomed clean and neat place packed full of beds. We sat down to get on the with our IT admin as it was the last day we’d have power for at least a week! We had a lovely seafood platter of hake, calamari and prawns at the restaurant next door (Die Rooi Spinnekop) after I went down to the beach with Erlo to take some pics at sunset.
