The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Getting there
Berg en Rivier sits right on the line between Gauteng and Mpumalanga, at the foot of the Gouws Mountains, next to a stretch of the Wilge River that still runs clear. The road out takes you through Pretoria’s traffic, past what’s left of Bronkhorstspruit’s industrial area, a hard left toward Groblersdal, and then you watch for a gravel road sneaking off to the right with the mountains sitting on the horizon behind it.
A word about that gravel road. It has not felt a grader in a very long time. It will loosen your fillings and shake you like a malaria fever. Slow down before you have to.
Camping in winter, in the dark, in a tent
Reception is on the right, the campsites are on the left down by the river, and a friendly face at the desk sends you off to your spot. Ours we found in total darkness, which is the first thing we did wrong. The second was deciding to camp in winter at all. The third was that neither of us had ever unfolded the camper trailer before and had only a vague idea which end went up.
Two R50 headlamps from Builders, bought as an afterthought at the till, turned out to be the best money spent all weekend. A lot of pulling and guessing later the rooftop tent was up and everything was where it should be. We stepped back to admire it.
The trailer was on a slope. The downhill end of the slope was the river. The river was about four degrees.
There were words. Then we moved the whole thing to flat ground and did it all again, properly this time. Rookie mistake, lesson learned, and then we were in our chairs with the fire going and the small night sounds of the bush around us and the whole sky doing its thing overhead. Heaven.
Morning
Cold, but not unbearably. We got the fire going again and burned the last of it off with Carlo’s coffee, which somehow tastes better when someone else makes it. The rest of the morning went on trying to persuade the Wilge’s famously large bass and yellowfish to look at our lures. They didn’t. We were rescued from our own fishing by the arrival of the rest of the crew, who put up a tent city that would have impressed a nomad, then spent half an hour on running repairs, because even the mighty Jeep had not survived that gravel road untouched.
Then the track.
The track
We were not expecting much. We got a lot. Sheer downhills straight into tight turns between the trees, sharp climbs out the other side, and every one of them a small test of the vehicle and the person driving it. The river stayed on our right the whole way and the mountains sat in the background, and the D-Max, the Jeep and the Amarok took turns against whatever the route put in front of them.
There was one climb that made everyone go quiet. Dimitri, who has been doing this far longer than any of us, gave a short pep talk over the radio in his own particular style, explaining which parts of your anatomy, other than common sense, you’d need to get up it. It worked. We got up it.
The radio chatter between the three cars was the best part of the day. It always is.
Dusk caught us still working our way around the hills with a good piece of the route untouched, and the smaller members of the group were starting to mention that breakfast had been a long time ago. So we turned for camp.
We’ll be back. The route’s still out there, waiting, and we didn’t finish it.
