Maverick Life

A Flash in the (Verneuk) Pan — Ravers and rescuers in the desert

Magda Maritz and Nelma Pieterse of the Swartkops cash store. (Photo: Chris Marais)

9 Oct 2024

Verneukpan is the destination of rocket engines, stargazers, writers and trippers of the mind-altering kind. But this time, Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit are here for a desert walk that exemplifies the real South African spirit: the Williston Camino.

On a weekend in the autumn of 1996, I was part of a magazine crew covering a most unusual desert festival in the wide-open Kalahari-Karoo crossover zone called Verneukpan.

This was way before the annual AfrikaBurn phenomenon that happens in the Tankwa Desert down south. It was called Desert Storm, and it was rough as a donkey’s bum – but with glitter.

I remember, like it was yesterday, those first inklings of the many sub-clans that existed side-by-side in South Africa: the Metal Crew, the Goths, the Leather Men, Camo Ravers, the Swanky Girls and the beginnings of a national love affair with a party drug called Ecstasy.

Among the crowd of techno-ravers kicking up dust at Verneukpan, I met a bus driver from Roodepoort who arrived in his double-decker and shot a heap of film to take back to his mates on the West Rand.

But the happiest chap at the Desert Storm Festival was not stoned, nipple-pierced or frantically hip-hopping. He was an old guy called Mr Haffajee, who had driven from Durban in a huge refrigerator truck full of chilled and bottled water. Mr Haffajee was selling out, at outrageous prices.

He also allowed customers two minutes of chill-time in the freezing darkness of his cold room at two rands a pop. And there was, of course, a huge queue for both services.

Williston Camino The Karoo-Kalahari Crossroads leading to Kenhardt or Verneuk Pan. (Photo: Chris Marais)

The seemingly endless horizon of the Verneuk pan flats of the Northern Cape. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Fast-forward

It’s 27 years later in the autumn of 2023, when my wife Julienne and I return to Verneukpan.

Instead of an old office car, we arrive in a rather gaudily tricked-out gypsy wagon of an Isuzu bakkie. Instead of a mad desert rave, we are now covering the end of the Williston Camino, held in aid of the local drought-stricken farmers.

Read more: Escaping to the Karoo for remarkable back road adventures in a trusty double-cab

But first, we have to secure a bed in the nearby town of Kenhardt – a little trickier than you’d think.

The legendary hotel with the endless stoep is completely and indefinitely full. That’s because power giant Scatec is building a monster solar farm in the area and their blokes need somewhere to sleep.

We search high and low until we find someone with a spare bed in a guest hutch under renovation. No matter. After 30 years on the road, we are used to laying our heads down in villas of reduced circumstances.

Team Oma Miemie, consisting of Hannah de Bruyn, Ricky Isaks, Angelique Alexander, Lizani Boer and owner Veronica Rorich. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Magnificence of a really good pie

And besides, it’s nothing that a slap-up lunch at Oma Miemie’s Café & Bakery can’t fix.

Newish owner Veronica Rorich, from Cape Town by way of White River, is a psychologist, plant nursery expert, modern farmer and owner of one of the finest farmstalls in the Northern Cape: Oma Miemie’s.

She has taken over a family farm 27km north of Kenhardt.

“The land had not been occupied for 50 years,” Veronica tells us. “I opted for farming methods that are predator-friendly and regenerative. I kraal my animals at night.”

And when she saw Oma Miemie’s was for sale, Veronica jumped at the chance. All the lamb or mutton now served from the kitchen at the farmstall comes from her farm. We sit down and order pies containing slow-roasted lamb and combinations of sweet potato mash, tomato and rosemary, rounding off with what turns out to be the finest pecan pie ever to have passed our lips.

Part of the Williston Camino pop-up camp. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Hot and sweaty, tired but happy after the long Williston Camino haul. (Photo: Chris Marais)

The Williston Camino

How we come to be here goes back a couple of days to Williston, more than 150km to the southeast. We’re down there on a research job, and everyone in the little town seems to be looking for two missing women.

They’re all paid-up and booked to walk the Williston Camino up to Verneukpan. They duly head out with the other entrants, but they now seem to have disappeared. It eventually appears that they realise this 166km trek through the desert is too daunting, so they cadge a lift back to Williston, jump in their car and scoot off into the night.

“The Williston Camino?” we ask.

“Why don’t you catch them as they’re walking onto Verneukpan?” someone suggests.

And so we do.

The welcoming party for the Williston Camino walkers. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Back to the flats

After another visit to Oma Miemie’s the next morning for breakfast (smashed avocado on sourdough with bacon bits for my wife, full farmhouse for me), we drive out past the famous quiver tree forest and bemoan the fact that it’s no longer accessible to the public.

“The farmer who owns the land really tried to make it nice for visitors,” a local has informed us. “He even built an ablution block and picnic stands. But it was badly vandalised by a bunch of drunks and so now it’s closed.”

But on the road to Verneukpan via Swartkop, we see the horizon filling up with those deliciously gaunt treescapes again.

In this wide-angle world filled with miles of nothingness, we see modest, self-sufficient little homesteads dotted about the landscape all the way to the Swartkop Cash Store. There, we meet owner Magda Maritz and her assistant, Nelma Pieterse.

As you would expect, a cash store in the middle of nowhere sells everything from boiled sweets to tinned fish, blue jeans to meat mincers. And because few locals own fridges, Magda has to keep her shop open seven days a week. Hers is the only show in town.

“The Camino people slept here overnight,” she tells us. “We fed them royally.”

Magda directs us to Verneukpan, and off we go, spotting straggling walkers all along the way. The area opens up into a land of mirage and blue sky. We reach the welcoming committee and their clipboards and proceed to a cluster of tents, where everyone’s chasing shade and resting tired feet.

Magda Maritz and Nelma Pieterse of the Swartkops cash store. (Photo: Chris Marais)

For young and old

Strolling in from the vastness is the oldest Camino-walker, 78-year-old Corrie Laubscher from Durbanville, Cape Town.

“We struggled in the soft sand,” she says. “We slept hard. We got blisters on our feet. It’s been at least 15 years since I did such a tough walk. But it’s for the farmers.”

The Williston Camino, involving 110 walkers, is part of a programme called Save a Farm and, with the help of radio station RSG (Radio Sonder Grense), more than R700,000 has been raised this time.

Read more: When the Karoo was gripped by the worst drought in recorded memory

Some of us come to Verneukpan to ride very fast cars with rocket engines. Others come to camp out and see the stars. Some like to walk across its flats. Others like to visit the pan from time to time and write about it. Some like to take a mind-altering potion and trip out on the vastness of it all.

Then there are those who live here, who raise families in the midst of drought and very occasional flood, who sometimes probably wish they farmed along a flowing river.

Along the way, the Camino participants have had a reality check on what it means to farm in a perpetually dry region.

“We left some food for a guy for his dogs,” says one of the organisers, Este van der Merwe. “And then we found he was eating it. Families can’t afford to pay school fees or university fees. Die behoefte is so groot. The need is so great. But farmers don’t want to ask for help. What we do is make money available for them on a credit card.”

There. Right there. That’s the real South African spirit, hard at work in the hinterland. DM

This is a short chapter excerpt from Karoo Roads IV – In Faraway Places (360 pages, black and white photography, R350 including taxes and courier in South Africa) available from September 2024. Anyone interested in pre-ordering a first-edition, author-signed copy should please contact Julie at [email protected] for more details.

The Karoo Quartet (Karoo Roads 1 – 4) consists of more than 60 Karoo stories and hundreds of black and white photographs. Priced at R960 (including taxes and courier in South Africa), this Heritage Collection can also be ordered from [email protected]

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