Rainy Days..Dream Away

drip drit splat splish tosh tish
slip, slosh, stomp, glide, swoosh
rain drop drop drip drop

it didnt rain for long, such is the nature of the topography of this zone,
this land of leopards and wildcats, sheep munchingly unaware,
just a few days and the rivers flw steady,
floating drifts, uncrossable bridges,
stones tumbled on banks,
and of cos,
fireplaces, hisses, logs, chips, twigs and bellows.

managing the guest house for Pieter V is a breeze, especially in this weather. a couple arrived just as the rain started, and stayed for four days, chatting by the fireplace, Dani her name, a sweet creature, book headed, early bedded while Simon and i spent the late hours emptying the liquor cabinet, whiskey first, head first into arguments, discussions, midnight meanderings into lifestyles, cities, the future of the humanity-kind, compassion, bliss and freedom. we never arrive at conclusions, the fireplace is not the place for full stop, dominated by question marks and commas, parenthesis, hypothesis...

eventually, they left, back the way they came.. the roads washed away clean in some parts, mostly its dirty..stones rubble tree trunks, trackless, almost pointless to even try navigate without paddles and a wet suit.

word already from farmers downstream is that the main road through the baviaanskloof is well-washed away, so these will be interesting times. times ti reflect, to love, to consolidate, recover, repair.

Shelter from the Storm

I was three weeks in the Kloof before it started raining. 21 days of dancing under the radar, tucked deep amongst buffalo herds and roaming leopards. Somehow, Pieter V agreed to house me in exchange for feeding his dogs and watching his guest house.
It’s a strange life in the kloof, visitors are few, friends dotted along the valley in various shades, each community hosting a different worldview, each bound to each other through circumstance and a single dusty road.
The rain made the Baviaanskloof a whole new ballgame, rivers appearing where stones had stood, rivers becoming raging torrents, un-buffered, depositing downloads of sticks and stones, the water soaked to the bones.
This is water scarce country and yet, when the rain comes down like this and out of season, it heals and damages, like licking honey off a knife.


Still there were dry fireplace nights and days, few guests wandered past cos the road was washed into temporary oblivion,
the pit-pat-splish-splash soundtrack with crackling woodburn harmonies breaking the monotony of a life in the country, marooned in a dessert of a farm, islands of people watching the Baviaans River swell and burst.
Another log in the fire...

Dreams of Reality

We were out in the middle of the Baviaanskloof, when the first sign appeared. Black Eagles in the sky, swooping, training, preparing for a future silent kill. Just like the dream, they served gigantic infinity signs across the Eastern Cape skyline, an almost audible swoosh trailing blue light on fuzzy clouds.
One Eagle descended, heading true west, towards the setting sun, just like in the dream. Wretched dream I wish never had, propelling me onto this trajectory of uncertainty, further and further into the depths of Leopard County and further into my future.
Chasing a dream literally, following the signs, past Willowmore and down-swoosh descend like the Eagle of my dreams, into this adventure.


I saw the Wagon Wheel an instant before I saw it and I knew that this was where the dream was directing to me to. I thanked the students who’d given me a lift, cleared the gate and walked along the rocky road, unsure, determined.
The silence was immense, only in a place as far away from the craziness of men could you find this tranquillity. The mountain faces, with caves for eyes, wore thorny crowns, watching my steps as I breached the second gate and saw the house and tree, unaware that this would be my new home....