Our second weekend out: the yearly Herman Charles Bosman celebration in Groot Marico, South Africa on October 15-17. To make it a real holiday weekend, we camped at the Riekerts- or Bosvelddam near Groot Marico. Luxury camping at that; Greetje & Arend offered us their cabin at the dam, so we weren’t cramped in between other tents. We actually should go there more often. Nothing like a decent patch of water if you are living in the semi-desert, and it is only a three hours drive (which is really nearby around here). Even if the dam is packed it is still fairly quiet and relaxed cause most visitors are Afrikaners who go fishing.
Herman Charles Bosman is a South African writer who worked as a schoolteacher in Groot Marico for some years. The area and the people provided the background for his best known short stories, the Oom Schalk Lourens series and the Voorkamer sketches. All the Bosman events are organized by a group of old South African hippies from Groot Marico, and they always do a fabulous job. For starters: moerkoffie, diphaphatha = roosterkoeke, bread from the woodoven, bushtea with honey, homemade marmalades – delicious.
The connection between Bosman and Indian music might be somewhat vague, but the tablas, sitar and etcetera do fit in the flower power atmosphere. Note the Aloe marlothii on the right; it’s the archetypal aloe one can find in the bush a lot. You can take find literally – quite some finds have been transplanted to our yard.
Maud’s favorite part of the programme: ‘Tree outing and identifying at RiverStill Guestfarm for the early birds’ by Koos. We lost some early birds when we had to cross the river Groot Marico, and a couple more while walking up the hills. Or was that because neither the daggha plantation nor the mampoer distillery seemed to be anywhere near?
Great camouflage! (That piece of grass is some type of walking stick.)
After learning which shrub to use for toilet paper, what berries to eat, the meaning of ‘English wood’ (good for nothing wood, remember the Boer War 1899-1902) and much more we moved on to flowers.
Bram’s favourite photograph subject: trees. Actually women are probably the real favourite, but trees have more patience.
The Bosman weekend wasn’t our only aim. We also had to do Serious Shopping in South Africa. Bram needed some pool items, and since we had to do SA-shopping anyway we made a list of other things we couldn’t find in Botswana, the main item being a fitting collar for Moira. Bram figured Rustenburg was our best not too far bet, which seemed nice, cause Hamish had told us over and over again how fabulous camping at Rustenburg Kloof is.
The one pretty picture one can make at Rustenburg Kloof. Can’t tell one is camping next to a motorway that’s busy day and night - as busy as the baboons that consider this camping their supermarket. But our shopping spree was really successful; got the collar, and a big bag of doggy candy, and much more.
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