South Africa

South Africa, Maverick Life, Culture

Karoo Characters — Celebrating more than two decades of Heartland storytelling and road-trip adventure

Victoria Nance of Dustcovers in Nieu-Bethesda, surrounded by books and beasts. Photo: Chris Marais

16 Jan 2025

To celebrate Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais’s two decades-plus in the lovely, crazy, challenging Karoo, let’s meet some of the posse of creative, mostly positive, mostly eccentric characters.

It was in the early winter of 2004, with the first frosts already biting the plains of the Eastern Cape interior, that I turned 50 and went slightly mad.

I bought my wife Julienne a house in the Karoo.

We were both deep city rats back then, besotted with the fleshpots of Johannesburg in the early flush of democracy. If someone had told us we’d spend the next 21 years (and, possibly, the rest of our lives) in a platteland town called Cradock (now Nxuba), chasing the storylines, both modern and ancient, of the Karoo, we would have chortled and replied:

“Us? In your dreams!”

But the Universe, it seems, has its own designs for each and every one of us. Never mind the puny plans we humans might have conjured up.

We somehow found ourselves freelancing for the now-late SA Country Life magazine, and after a while it just made sense to up sticks, say goodbye to that expensive, exhausting city life and head for the platteland. How we chose Cradock (now Nxuba) as a home base is a story for another fireside, in this, the 21st year of our passion for the Karoo.

As time passed and the long dryland journeys stacked up, we built a network of people across the Karoo, an ever-growing posse of creative, mostly positive, mostly eccentric characters, many of whom became the kind of friends you see once a year in a flurry of lamb chops, red wine and laughter.

Karoo Ben Dekker, legendary wise man, traveller and hermit, photographed off Second Beach in Port St Johns in 2004. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Ben Dekker, South Africa’s most celebrated castaway, once told us:

“The two of you don’t travel from place to place. You travel from face to face.” True, that.

And although when we first met Ben he was living in a shack at Second Beach, Port St Johns, he often hitchhiked through the Karoo, sharing his wisdom with kind motorists and, on occasion, sleeping rough in the veld.

So, to celebrate our two decades-plus in this lovely, crazy, challenging environment, let’s meet some of those “faces” that Ben speaks of:

A jol at the Williston Mall

Of the 100-odd towns, villages and populated railway sidings of the Karoo, the Northern Cape settlement of Williston had us charmed from the start. The Williston Mall, an eccentrically decorated courtyard, restaurant and guest house, offered us shade, shelter and WiFi on a desperately hot day. Midsummer kindness personified.

Karoo On the road again: Pieter and Elmarie Naude with Koeks Naude of the Williston Mall. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Our hosts, Pieter and Elmarie Naude, became firm friends over the years.

For a decade every spring, we would cross the Great Karoo and attend their Williston Winter Festival, the greatest cultural dance gathering the Karoo has ever staged. And when those days faded, the friendship remained.

Tough cheesemakers

Through the Naudes we met the Schoemans, Pieter and Fransie, out at Langbaken Farm where they made magic cheeses led by the famously tasty Karoo Blue range. We used to visit them and come away with wheels of the stuff.

Karoo Pieter and Fransie Schoeman of Langbaken Farm – firm friends and famous Karoo cheesemakers. (Photo: Chris Marais)

And then, when the eight-year drought gripped the Upper Karoo and choked the life out of many farming enterprises, the Schoemans were part of the community fightback to help feed the needy and keep local morale high. When your livelihood depends on water from the sky, cloudless days are a curse.

The singing traffic cop

In nearby Calvinia, we met Boeta Gammie (Jan Isaacs in uniform), the little town’s singing traffic policeman. Once, when we were working in Calvinia on another story, Gammie heard it was Julie’s birthday and came over to serenade her with one of his hit songs.

At the time, we were devoted owners of a German shepherd called TwoPack. It so happened that Boeta Gammie, in addition to his snake-catching, Sunday lay-preaching, traffic copping and stage performing, was also a keen German shepherd breeder. We always have lots to yack about when we see him in and around Calvinia.

Karroo Theatrical Hotel

Mark Hines and Jacques Rabie are the gold standard of Karoo Tough, Karoo Creative and a little Karoo Crazy in a rural setting where making a living is not always a walk in the park.

Star attraction of the Steytlerville Follies: Jacques Rabie (left) and Mark Hines. (Photo: Chris Marais)

They came to Steytlerville decades ago, bought a derelict old hotel on its outskirts, invested like crazy and transformed it into a delightful Art Deco complex with overtones of Spanish Provincial and a Saturday night Follies show that draws the punters from all over the country.

They travel to all corners in the quiet seasons and return with new ideas for the property and the weekend show. They’re also as resilient as meerkats and twice as funny once the party starts and the air is filled with flying wine corks. Our kind of people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zitFmtBvWl8

John and Potlood

Many of our friends are bookish sorts who like dogs. John Donaldson of Richmond in the Northern Cape once owned four bookshops on the main street and had a fabulous pavement special called Maximus Papenfus, aka Potlood.

John Donaldson in a bookish setting with the late, lamented Maximus Papenfus, known around his neighbourhood as Potlood. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Potlood and John were constant companions, travelling together, hanging out together and, occasionally, saving each other’s lives from death by nighttime roadside kudu or vicious pitbulls on the loose. Potlood has passed on, but the friendship with Mr Donaldson remains. We still have to bond with his new dog, a bull terrier called Peanut.

Dustcovers of Nieu-Bethesda

Just down the dirt track from Richmond and in the shadow of the looming Compassberg is the mountain village of Nieu-Bethesda.

It sports a bookshop that punches way beyond its weight and is owned by Victoria Nance, who loves a book and an animal to distraction.

Victoria Nance of Dustcovers in Nieu-Bethesda, surrounded by books and beasts. (Photo: Chris Marais)

Everyone, it seems, eventually pops into Dustcovers for a tome or two, once the thrill (or shock) of an hour spent in the Owl House and Camel Yard has been experienced. Victoria’s book collection, a mix of pre-loved and brand-new, is one of the finest in small-town South Africa.

Occasionally, we arrive and bend her arm to close up shop and share a sundowner with us at Boetie’s Pub, the storied bar down the street. DM

For more stories on the Karoo from Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais, try their Karoo Roads series of books, priced at R350 (landed) each.

The Karoo Quartet Special (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 be ordered from [email protected].

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