Clannies: Beer, boats and bros
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| View from the porch |
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| The essential supplies |
A few weeks back a small group of guys hopped in a bakkie (truck) gathered our supplies, put some heavy dubstep on the radio and with the resident Bergie (hobo) of previous stories at the wheel we headed off on the 3 and half hour drive to Clannies, otherwise known as the Clanwilliam dam.
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| Bergie at the wheel |
The nice thing about the dam is although it's a little bit of a drive up there it is one of the more sizable bodies of fresh water near to Cape Town and the entire town is equipped to store and service boats and to cater for weekend or holiday goers to visit the dam, so it really is a no mess no fuss option. You leave your boat up there, it gets regularly serviced and you just pitch up, hook it up to the car and drop it in the water. If you don't have a boat then I am certain that there are some to rent but the best idea is to be lucky enough to know someone with one. Something I have been fortunate enough to experience more than once in my life.
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| Swartland road |
The other massive plus on the drive up is that you are surrounded by the Swartberg mountains and the agricultural areas that lie beneath them. They generally reward you with some great vistas and stunning light shows as the sunset moves through its many phases. In truth if we had left when we planned to we would have enjoyed the sunset from the comfort of our porch with the fire going and the smell of kilograms of meet on the braai.
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| Swartland sunset |
However due to some masterclasses in faffing we viewed it along the open road from the back window of the bakkie. Although it's hard to nitpick at where you see it when it looks like this. We eventually arrived in the early evening a little after dark and after we had stocked up on some more essentials from the local garage convenience store, which apparently entailed about 20 boxes of various flavors of rooibos tea along with about 40 sticks of droewors (kind of like jerky if jerky tasted AMAZING), we headed off to our accommodation.
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| Saving creatures |
Our house was actually a little outside the back of the town, about a 15 minute drive along a dirt road which was great for two reasons. We were a little away from the main concentration of boat traffic with our own slipway so we had no need to go back in to town other than the occasional bolstering of supplies and secondly it gave the bergie the opportunity to save a life. Granted that is was only a shongololo (centipede) but every little creature counts in terms of good karma which had to be boosted by the sheer skill it took to see it crawling in the road at night.
So the evening ended with some meat on the fire, a good few beers and a drinking game that involved sitting in a circle, clucking like a chicken and strange hand gestures to indicate direction, skipping people and change of direction. Seemed simple enough but add in consideration for the number of beers that had already been consumed and the tequila penalty shots and even Einstein would have battled with its complexity. As a result our honorable intentions to make a salad were quickly set aside and additional meat was added as a substitute making it the perfect traditional South African braai of boerwors, lamp chops, keebabs and beer. And so ends the first day. All the action is yet to come. In truth this was just a teaser as there is in fact a video in editing, with the famous Moses, of the whole event which tells a far better story than I can put in to words. Just a side note on Moses who as the owner of the boat, despite destroying the tendons in his ankle in a drunken skate boarding accident just a week before, was such a trooper he went through with the weekend even though he couldn't partake in anything more than being the designated boat driver the whole weekend.
Here are a couple of the action shots from the weekend, just as a little precursor of what is to come in the video which will hopefully becoming to a computer screen near you soon. peace.
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