No Peace on the road to Vrede…

I breezed through Ermelo, under a sun struggling to break through the cloud cover, which extended all the way from the Swaziland border. I turned onto the R39 to Morgenzon and Standerton and was immediately confronted by a sign that said POTHOLES !!

Ok.... So how bad could it be....??

These signs seem to be a VERY common sight on our roads these days, but often you find a few small dinner plate sized holes in the road, and wonder why they bothered with the sign in the first place…. Not on the road to Morgenzon….!!! You gotta believe this sign Dudes !! They are NOT kidding !!! I am not sure why this track is called a road… It should be renamed and a large sign erected outside Ermelo saying “POTHOLE TO MORGENZON” …. It is after all, just a series of potholes, stitched together by small strips of tar… And the road beyond it to Standerton is not a heck of a lot better…

But the one to Morgenzon takes the biscuit !!!

On one section there were three coal carriers fixing punctures simultaneously, all parked within a few hundred metres of each other, their drivers cursing the poor state of the roads…. I stopped close to the last one in line and grinned at the driver and his assistant… They just grunted in reply to my greeting, sweating while they rolled the heavy spare tyres into position… Clearly they were not enjoying the morning… And who could blame them…? Not I..!! They were carrying heavy tyre-irons, after all !! Jokes about “abuse of company property” would not have gone down well here…

Zambia ? Malawi ? Northern Mozambique ? Where the hell am I?

…..It was like riding through a lunar landscape !! On a few sections of this excuse for a road, cars waited patiently at the far end of the obstacle course, while others negotiated the ruts and potholes at a snails pace… Obviously it was a lot easier on the bike, and I was able to jink around the holes and make it through to the other end a lot faster than the cars… One brave fellow in a pick-up truck tried to follow my line, but soon ended up with both front wheels stuck deep in a pair of potholes that gleefully made their acquaintance with his axle and chassis…I left him standing next to his pick-up, hands on hips, and muttering something that sounded like “bucket”……

No Friends !! It's the R39 between Ermelo and Standerton !! Avoid, unless you have shares in Speedy's Exhausts and Shocks !!

Further along, I stopped to take a few photographs and while I was doing so, an African on horseback came trotting up, and stopped to look at the bike… When he saw me taking pictures of the road, he was moved to say,

“Eish…. Dis road is too much, very bad, sah…!”

“Damn right !”, I replied, “but why don’t they fix it ?”

“Ehh…”, he said, while the index finger on his right hand disappeared up into the small cave of his right nostril…. “It’s the Government ! Dey buy de nice cars, but don’t fix the roads… Too stupid !!”….

That got me thinking….about things Governmental…..(emphasis on the “mental”…) The road to Morgenzon is 43 km long. Every 5kms, there is a sign saying ” Potholes for 5km”… Not a word of a lie !! I counted !!  I have resolved to write a letter to the Town Fathers of Ermelo, requesting that instead of the 8 separate signs announcing the state of the road for the next section of 5 kms, they should just put up the one sign saying:

“Potholes all the way to Morgenzon”….

That way, they could have saved the Government (and us long-suffering taxpayers) the cost of 7 signs, and 7 poles….

What’s that….? Oh, the Mayor’s brother owns the Company that makes the signs….. And his Sister-in-law supplies the labour to dig the holes and plant the poles….. I see….

Well that’s OK, then… Carry on…..!!!

Yeah....And the 5 kms after that...and the 5 kms after that...and....

Morgenzon was an eye-opener ! It basically consists of a single potholed road running down the centre of a down-at-heel little village… Coal carrying trucks seem to arrive from all directions, spilling their lung-coating dust as they go… As a result, the occupants of the few houses I saw, had clearly given up on painting, a long time ago…

Town Population : Not more than a few hundred !

Commercial Interests: Four Bottle Stores, three Butchers, two Cafe’s and a Funeral Parlour….

Town Motto : Let’s Meat and Drink…..

The smell of meat roasting on metal grids balanced on 200 litre drums cut down the middle, filled the air… A few guys gathered around them raised their beer bottles and shouted greetings to me as I passed Butchery No: 2 and 3. (I had come upon the guys at butchery No: 1 a little too quickly for their befuddled minds to analyse what they were seeing…)

“And a happy Thursday morning to you too !” I shouted back, waving my left hand and grinning back at them…. Just another day in Nowhere…

The road from Morgenzon through to Standerton was in as poor a condition as the last 47 km had been, and the roads in Standerton itself where no better, I stopped at the Total garage to refuel and went into the store there to get something to eat, as I had left Swaziland with only a few cups of coffee under my belt…

Buggers didn't speak a word of French...

While I sat munching on a burger and sipping a hot chocolate, I checked my map to make sure that lady in the GPS was getting it right !! I had punched in the co-ordinates for Clarens, in the Eastern Free State, earlier that morning, and had thus far followed her directions without quibbling… Satisfied that she had me on track, I got back onto the bike, and heading out on the road to Vrede… (Peace in Afrikaans…)

While I had been blissfully packing in the calories in Standerton, clouds had gathered to welcome me onto this stretch, and besides dodging potholes, I now had wind and rain to contend with as well ! Luckily, it came down in patches, and during the brief bouts of sunshine, I was able to discern flocks of Red Footed Kestrels, sitting in neat rows on the power and telephone lines… These pretty little raptors, occasionally launched themselves head first into the long grass to pounce on insects disturbed by passing trucks and cars… I was also lucky enough to spot a Pallid Harrier ! I had last seen one of these rare birds in 2004, on a Birding outing at Kaapsehoop, near Nelspruit. I had enjoyed many sightings of raptors since passing Warburton and entering the rolling grasslands of Eastern Mpumalanga. I had already seen Lesser Kestrels and a Marsh Harrier perched close to each other near Chrissiesmeer, and a Long-Crested Eagle perched on one of those “Potholes – 5km ” signs…

My birding skills have been on the wane over the last few years, but my interest had been re-ignited during my 8 month stint in Ghana last year, and I enjoyed the fleeting sightings I got from the saddle, while thundering through the countryside…. Birding at speed !! I can just hear the purists out there, muttering into their guidebooks…

© GBWT 2010