Monday 2nd October 2017
Capetown to De Aar
Having packed our suitcases the previous evening we are able to take our time going down to breakfast and as the 110 religious ladies have now headed off back home the buffet breakfast is an altogether more leisurely affair.
However, it is amusing to see that they have been replaced by considerable numbers of U.K. Holidaymakers who seem to be equally intent on racking up the calories and ironically are in hurry to go the swimming pool and acquire a skin tone as close as possible to their African counterparts!
It’s soon time to check out and take our rental car back to the Budget office and from there take a taxi to the Capetown Station.
The taxi driver obviously feels that we are in need of some spiritual guidance as he keeps reminding us that we should be grateful to the Lord for all manner of things. He can obviously pick out a couple of heathens when he sees them.
At the Rovos building we are met by a veritable lineup of staff welcoming us to the world of Rovos Luxury Travel.
Rovos is one of two luxury train companies( the other being the Blue Train ) operating in South Africa and it was founded in 1989 by Rohan Vos.
Gail and I had had some misgivings about taking this trip for some time as it is somewhat removed from our usual mode of travel. Our initial introduction to Rovos did little to allay our concerns as on entering the Rovos lounge we were offered a range of drinks and were serenaded by two admittedly excellent musicians on violin and guitar. All a bit of a hoot really!
The man himself, Mr Vos, gave a speech about the journey( during which he chided a couple of travellers for not paying attention, forgot to thank the musicians for their efforts and couldn’t remember the name of the lady in charge of the onboard team). In short he left no-one in any doubt as to who the Rovos kingpin was.
However, we soon realised that many of our fellow travellers were equally amused by the whole charade and in fact proved to be delightful companions.
The Rovos owner shook everyone’s hand before sending us on our way and after a short walk we board the Pride of Africa which is a beautifully reproduced train designed to remind us of the days of more elegant train travel.
From the moment we arrive on board the superb staff are on hand to make meet any request we may have and in no time at all we are seated in one of the two dining cars and being treated to a wide variety of dishes, all complemented by some great local wines.
Initially heading northwest out of Capetown we head to Paarl, which we had visited on our previous day’s tour of the wine region, and shortly before the town the shanty dwellings and the incredible piles of refuse along the roads is a very confronting reminder of the huge gap between the wealthy and the poor.
We now pass through some very attractive scenery to reach the town of Worcester, at the southern end of the Hex River Valley and eventually we reach a new pass opened in November 1989 to supersede the old one which had carried traffic into the interior since 1876. This new pass involves four tunnels, longest of which is 13.5 kms, and represents a saving of 8 kms over the length of the old pass.
It is now on to the historic town of Matjiesfontein which we all disembark from the train. This town has something of an eerie, ghostlike look about it but it does have some fine old buildings and a surprisingly impressive motor museum complete with a photograph of a visit by King George V1, Queen Elizabeth and the very young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. The Lord Milners Hotel is still in operating though one wonders how it manages to survive. Apparently quite a few people, including some ‘ bikies’ come here at weekends to breath a little life into the town.
Dinner comes along all too soon as we continue towards De Aar, a major railway junction where the lines from the Western and Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Namibia meet.
Off to bed at a reasonable time to allow another glorious meal to make its way south.
Cheers
The Obese Ferret
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