The Great Trek to the Eastern Cape.

The Bluegum Trees that
we were used to

            At last my dad was being discharged from the army and this would be final on 24 June 1944.   He was sent on leave, so in the mean time the sale of “Maizefield” was finalised and we would move during May 1944.   As far as I know there were a few pieces of furniture and my dad’s tools that would be sent by train, the rest would all be sold or given to loyal farm labourers.   There were also odds and ends like milk buckets, a milk separator, a churn, two large three-legged pots, etc.   Mommy wanted her bed, her sewing machine and her dining-room table with its six chairs.   The piano was returned to her father, my Oupa Dave.   There wasn’t much else of value and, after all, we were buying a farm ‘lock, stock and barrel’, which included the furniture.   Everything had to be taken to the railway station to be loaded on a railways truck bound for the Alexandria station.

Hillman Car similar to the one we used

            Daddy had bought a Hillman motor car in which the family would travel.   I do not remember anything about where we slept the night before we left or when we greeted all the family, but I do know that it was a car loaded with four adults and three children, and then there was still Chips and Toby.   How this was done only the good Lord would know!!!   That night we slept in a boarding house in the small village of Naaupoort which used to be a large railways junction, very noisy and very smoky because of the steam engines with their smoke clouds from coal fires.   We started very early the next morning as we were very anxious to see our new home, and we had food to eat along the way that was packed for us by the boarding house.   My dad gave up trying to answer all our questions.   But … my mother was not happy.   “Where are we going?   Have we done the right thing?   Just look what the countryside looks like — too many bushes, rocks and hills!   What about all the snakes?”

            In those days it was a dirt road through the Karoo and it was very dusty and hot.   You would hang a canvas bag filled with water on the front of the car where the wind from the moving car would keep the water cool.   The dust was inclined to cling to the damp bag and you had to be careful when pouring water into a cup.   Not an easy trip, it was very bumpy and everyone was tired from sitting cramped up all day.   There were steep hills and long stretches of down hills and after sunset it looked terribly strange.   We were used to the flat, treeless roads of the Free State.   My poor dad, he just had to keep driving and hoping there would be no breakdowns.   He was very good at trying to calm my mother and cheering up his children.   I wonder how the modern children of today would cope.   We really had the most wonderful parents.

Aloes flowering in May

           We eventually made it to our new place and arrived there after dark.   Let me tell you that it is very dark on a farm if there is no moon, and so it was that first night, but the Potgieters had left candles and matches in strategic places which we soon found.   We all washed ourselves with cold water and found beds to sleep in.   I know that I slept in an outside rondavel with a thatched roof where there were four or five beds.   A rondavel is a hut built by the Xhosas and can be square or round.   This one was square and even had a fireplace.   It was warm and cosy and we went to bed by candle light and soon everybody was fast asleep despite the strange night sounds of an Eastern Cape farm.

            The farm was registered as “Janedale” but my parents decided that we would call it “Hopewell” as it was hoped that it would be a better place than what “Maizefield had been.   So from now on I will only tell you about “Hopewell”.

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