People
Introducing the People of the Karoo: lords, ladies, legends, rogues, scoundrels, train drivers, farmers, shepherds, shopkeepers and hoteliers. In our travels across the Heartland, we look for the eccentric, the remarkable, the iconic and sometimes just the twinkle in a grandma's eye. We stop and talk with gypsies driving their donkey carts towards the horizon, old windmillers who keep the steel flowers of the Karoo turning in the breeze, children with dreams that stretch beyond the southern Swartberg mountain range and cooks who keep the secrets of their dishes close to their hearts. Come in. Sit down. And hear their stories...
The Creek in Cradock!
So my old mate Rod Dry from the Silver Creek Mountain Band phones me up late last year.
“Hey bro. We’re coming down for Christmas, playing in Bathurst. Any chance of a gig in Cradock? We don’t need much. Gas money will do.”
Waking up in Williston
I’m sitting on a small koppie overlooking the Northern Cape village of Williston and there seems to be a lot to think about. The full moon is just setting, the sun is about to rise and the sky is a layer cake of lavender and salmon tones.
Text & Photographs by CHRIS MARAIS
Offbeat Karoo Part II
OK, so they might be a little crazy. The might swim upstream. They might be slightly off-beam. But these eccentric characters and their escapades are what gives the Karoo a lot of its magic. Come and meet them. Don’t be shy – most of them don’t bite…
Offbeat Karoo Part I
They say the dry spaces of the world attract eccentrics, and South Africa’s Karoo is no exception. CHRIS MARAIS goes in search of the legends and the whacky characters who make this the world’s most people-friendly desert.
Star Man Waiting In The Sky
What will you do when you meet your first alien? Ask Henk Swanepoel of Smithfield – he’s got the reception all worked out…
Text and Photographs by Chris Marais & Julienne du Toit
The New Laird of Matjiesfontein
There’s a new Rawdon in Matjiesfontein. After more than four decades of this tiny colonial resort town being owned and run by David Rawdon, the legendary South African hotelier who created the concept of what is new termed a ‘boutique hotel’, his nephew Jonathan Rawdon has taken the baton.
By Tony Jackman
Portrait by Tony Jackman
Additional photographs by Chris Marais
Matjiesfontein - A Place Like No Other
Matjiesfontein seemed arrested in time one sunny August day as devotees arrived to mark the passing of hotelier David Rawdon. Yet there were few tears; rather, a sense of gentle celebration of a life lived full and long, of having achieved it all, leaving no room for regret.
By Tony Jackman
Photographs by Chris Marais
Queen of the Aga
The legendary Aga, warm heart of the Karoo, is not the easiest girl in town. However, Miss Aga has finally met her match in the form of Emmie Heathman, the Stove-Whisperer…
