THIS leg of the road trip was the longest – distance, not time – and I had to be properly prepared. I filled up with petrol, and selected a suitably long playlist. While waiting for the guy to finish checking my tyres and whatnot, I became vaguely aware I could hear a news broadcast on the radio.
Wait, what?
See, how it works in my car is that there is a bluetooth thingy that goes into the cigarette lighter hole, which connects to my phone and allows me to play my downloaded favourites. It’s set to a certain station on the radio, and in the two and a half years I’ve had the car, no one has been allowed to touch it lest it should cease to work and I’d have to find the instructions and fix it. Well, maybe it was something to do with the dry Karoo air, but it had indeed lost its place.
There ensued much swearing as I tried coaxing it to return to its designated frequency, and a mild panic I would have to drive more than 300km without music. The horror! Anyway, I eventually got it right (without the manual) and headed off on the N9 to Graaff-Reinett.
It is a beautiful stretch of road, with only a few traffic cops hiding in shady picnic stops with speed cameras. Thank you to the random stranger driving from the opposite direction who flashed their lights at me, in the good old-fashioned and time-honoured warning practice, although it’s been so long since that happened I couldn’t work out the message until I saw the speed trap.
Things for which there are warning signs on the side of the road include tractors and springbok. I saw neither on this trip. What I did see, a lot, with no heads up whatsoever, were swarms of locusts. They bounced off the windscreen in lurid yellow splatters and got stuck in all the crevices of the front grille. When I arrived at my destination, the Drostdy Hotel in Graaff-Reinett, the porter immediately spotted an opportunity and offered to have the vehicle washed, bless.
The hotel is like a little village, with tree-lined avenues and single-storey buildings with doors and shutters painted in ice cream colours – pink, yellow, green, sky blue – wherein the rooms are located. I had a marvellous suite, spacious and cool, with a shady courtyard beyond the French doors, which opened onto a stretch of grass. Conveniently, the swimming pool was directly opposite my suite.
For more information about Drostdy Hotel, click here. Graaff-Reinett is the fourth-oldest town in South Africa and a charming place to visit. If you can, pop in at the Merino Butchery and pick up some brisket rashers – delicious!
PHOTO CREDIT: BIANCA COLEMAN ©