Yesterday struck out with the car to visit a museum in another town and to see the tea plantation. The route there was fairly confusing as there seem to be several ways to get anywhere from any place else, so you can sometimes see two signs, side-by-side, both reading “To ‘A’ and ‘B'”, but pointing in opposite directions. *That* really threw me, let me tell ya!!
Then I got to the town and had considerable trouble finding the museum – which was great, by the way – and then had to find the tourist info so I could get directions to the tea plantation.
Anyway, it was about 3 p.m. before I got to the plantation, and it wasn’t enough that I was driving through these 2 lane, corkscrew mountain roads, (check out R71 sometime, MT) but the driveway up to the plantation was probably 5 km and was so much hairier, I can’t tell you. Wasn’t even a regulation 2 lane width and had sheer cliff going up on one side of you, and sheer cliff going down on the other with sometimes a couple inches of grass between you and the abyss.
Well, going up was a breeze compared to coming down, since going up I was on the inside. Curves were mostly blind, and I held my breath a goodly number of times. Let’s just say that my cup of tea and very large piece of melktart were very much needed and appreciated. The view was spectacular, and the peace and quiet was so soothing – at least until the monkeys started trying to chase me away from my tart so they could have it.
Going down this cliff was a white-knuckle nightmare. I was on the outside, someone was following me, though to give him credit, he didn’t tailgate, and not only were the curves blind still, but each switchback would put my face to the glare of the sunset for a period of time, and despite my sunglasses and the fact that my visor was down I’d still be blinded.
I just sat at the bottom and sweated bullets for a few minutes and got my breath back. Then onwards on the highway, which is pretty hairy all on it’s own, though seemed tame after the ‘driveway’ experience. AND it was work-leaving time, so I constantly had a pile of impatient locals behind me. I’d pull over whenever I could and just let the build up pass. They have very wide paved breakdown lanes here on many of the secondary roads and all the national highways, and people here are very generous about pulling into those if they are slow and letting others rush by. They pass in some – um – unusual places though, I’ve gotta say.
Anyway, I got through that just as it got dark, then had to stop and get directions from Polokwane to the highway. Going through Polokwane was the long (long) way home, but I knew I’d get irretrievably lost if I took the short route that I took to get there.
Anyway, gotta go as office is closing and will finish this asap..