Well, after the rugby debacle, I'd travelled far. Now, parked in the scrub, on Hendri's farm for the night, I found myself surrounded by some rather tempting, up market (yes George, upmarket) sheep… Look, I've had mutton dressed up as lamb before, more often than I'd care to admit actually, but THIS, this was pushing the limits… Even for the Gypsy in me…
Thank God, nobody, not even the unseen ones, here, was of New Zealand farming stock, neither did Nyati hide any gumboots.
In the Bo Karoo, night arrives in a rush of rusty red colour & silence. The sky glows brightly, the soil too… & the thorn scrub… It's reminiscent of "the war of the world's", or Nyati's logo, then quickly DARK… & SO quiet.
Baa baa baa… Stop it.
Utter silence, complete darkness, & a thick carpet of stars overhead… Kinda scary.
Just as abruptly, the sun climbs back up into place & we're off again… Another perfect day in far away, high country… a harsh alien land.
Nyati seems to relish rolling big wheels across these dirt track roads. We're deep into real bushman country now, truly beautiful, mesmerising in its absolute desolation. I LOVE driving Nyati through this. I wish everyone could feel my thrill.
Miles away from any sign of habitation, the gently flowering thorn trees suddenly stop & scrubby ground cover takes over… No outward sign of why. It just stops. Everywhere. Like that.
Hundreds of kilometres on, & again, with no rhyme or reason, mountains of tossed rocks loom on the horizon. Colossal scattered pyramids. All sizes, shapes & colour of loose rock. Giants playing marbles. What the hell happened here ?
The billiard table had quickly become a broken mountain. The road now climbed steeply, picking it's way through a geological train smash. I smiled in appreciation of the engineers who came here & built this road. Why would they do such a thing ? It wouldn't be gold, diamonds perhaps ?
I was starting to irritate myself now. I couldn't keep my jaw up, & continually pulled over to the side of the road shouting, "WOW, WOW, WOW ".
