It was Thursday afternoon that we left the comfort of our home , that was me and Christopher, to drive the few kilometres into the Dome area to set up for the night at Baskop near Schoemansdrift. The idea was to walk the next day from Baskop over to Deelfontein, but making some arrangements to take luggage and cars over to Deelfontein so that we could do a light weight hike.
On arrival we were greeted by T&A with the message, "don't use the front entrance, it's occupied by wasps", Allen had been stung by the pest when he first entered. Later on we also suffered a wasp attack in the big shed whilst admiring an old John Deere tractor. Most likely from the 40th of last century.
This was old year's eve, it was felt that it was compulsory that we should stay up to see in the new year. We noticed some sporadic fireworks being set off on the other side of the valley and figured that this was a practise run for the great display at 12. Just before the time we got into position, ready with our cameras. It turned out to be the first disappointment of 2021. Nothing happened, they had obviously exhausted their supply before the time.
The hike in the morning took us along the river, that was after we had done the transfer of cars and luggage over to Deelfontein. It was a lovely walk along the river, the path had been freshly slashed the previous afternoon. It had not been used during the corona time, thus was heavily overgrown. Before we left the river Christopher was complaining about stomach cramps, I volunteered to accompany him back to camp where we fetched Allen’s bakkie and transferred it over to Deelfontein. There we sat waiting for the hikers to come through, which they did in the afternoon, all weary and happy after a long, 12 km, and beauty full hike.
And, by the way, who was with us? It was a private hike organised by Tania and consisted of: Tania & Allen, Sharon & Martin, me, Christopher and Jenny. Jenny was a late joiner, she had been in Cape Town and became a corona refugee when she fled from the lock-down there.
The highlight of the afternoon was the swim in Gerhard's pool. He usually keeps it covered to save water, but opened it for a lovely splash.
The weather had changed, it had started to rain over night. This didn't deter us and used a gap in the rain to venture out to do some hiking. From Deelfontein one can do a number of day hikes. We went over the road and up the mountain, over the top and down again. The rain got us again, a decision was made to take a short-cut. We still managed a 7 km walk through pleasant countryside.
The weather remained cool, there was thus no demand for swimming. We took a short walk instead to the bush camp, past Gerhard's workshop and music auditorium. It is amazing what he occupies himself with. Apart from running the farm and looking after hikers he tinkers with old music instruments, he has an installed pipe organ, is restoring old cars and built this auditorium which is designed to attract classical music lovers and practitioners to have workshops there. The piano we found in the auditorium was used by Jenny for a short concert
For Sunday morning Gerhard had planned a different hike for us which would take us to see some game on the other side of the road. I went along as far as the road, nursing a bad knee, I returned on the road. Soon after the hikers returned and we went home.