And I rescued a tortoise! He was big – well over a foot high. You’d think he was old enough to know better than to dither about in the middle of the highway. I drove past him and then had a bad feeling he would be squashed. So went back and watched him to see if he would make it across without me picking him up and upsetting him. The big truck on the other side of the road would have missed him but the white Mercedes behind the truck decided to overtake the truck on a corner (bit of an idiot driving) and would have driven straight into Grandpa tortoise. So I retrieved Grandpa from the middle of the road and certain death. The old fart that was overtaking on the corner then had the nerve to hoot at me and gesticulate as if to say “What the hell do you think you are doing messing around in the middle of the road?” Perhaps he thought I put the tortoise in the middle of the road and then snatched it away just for kicks? I’m not sure he even realized what I saved him from. Grandpa was big enough to put a sizeable dent in his car at the speed he was going. And if he’d swerved to miss the tortobstacle he would have gone straight over the edge and down an embankment and likely totaled his car and maybe his wife. Oh well, I don't need his gratitude. I was trying to save the tortoise, not him.
After I rescued Grandpa and put him safely on the side of the road to which he was headed, I took out my laptop and booked myself an air ticket back to CT for Sunday 10 May. (So that I can fetch the other car.) I love technology! How amazing is it that I can book myself an air ticket from the middle of nowhere???
I also stopped and took a couple of photos of the landscape and you, lucky readers, have been treated to two of them!
And who knew that guinea fowl were so stupid? Theymade a habit out of sitting in the middle of the road. Then they watch cars bearing down upon them and they make no effort to get out of the way. They just look slightly uncertain. I’m not going to hit them, I will make sure of it. But they don’t know that. So much for survival of the fittest – they must be prolific breeders or something.
I mean good grief! If I was a bird sitting on the floor and a HUGE white monster with blazing eyes was roaring down upon me as fast as any cheetah can run, making impossibly loud hooting noises, I’d do more than look mildly concerned. I’d fly the heck away!
Ironic – guinea fowl being the latest contenders in the age old game of chicken.
My tortoise rescue and beautiful scenery induced good mood lasted all the way to Kimberley, where it was dark and raining. The problem with rain and darkness in Kimberley is that Kimberley has decided that the best way to direct people through their town to Jhb, is to paint “JHB” and an arrow on the road surface. When it rains, the road gleams madly, and the car headlights reflect off the surface, rendering the “JHB” unreadable. I spent a good 20 minutes trawling up and down the Kimberley main drags, such as they are. The other annoying thing about Kimberley is that there are many informative signs. Many, many, many signs. Sign direct you to the Big Hole, the museums, the legislature, the tourist information centre, the technicon, the university etc. There are so many signs on every corner that you have to drive extremely slowly in order to read them all and ensure that a little sign to Jhb is not hiding in their midst. Not to worry, though - usually there is no little sign to Jhb. Being lost in Kimberley in the rain and the dark when you are hungry, tired and desperate for the loo is rather an unpleasant experience. After finding my way out of the maze of over sign-posted yet somehow under sign-posted streets, my relief was great. The intensity of my relief, however, was tempered by its incredibly short duration. Just after Kimberley I hit the first road works and the “stop and goes.” It seemed like there was more stopping than going. The rain also grew quite fierce. Everyone proceeded to dither along at between 40 and 60 km/h, in the middle of the road nogal, so as to increase overtaking difficulty. Clearly nobody else had to cover 1400km in one day. After the road works I hit a major hail storm, which slowed me down even further. The storm was vicious. It flung the hail straight at me as I drove. Hail was bouncing up from the road and smashing all over my windscreen. It was everywhere. When it caught my headlights as it hurtled towards me it made silver streaks – I felt like I was driving into tracer fire. It was quite exciting though, and bizarrely enough I enjoyed driving through the storm.
After the hail, I hit yet more road works.
With all the delays, the stretch from Kimberley to Jhb was most unpleasant. By the time I pulled into my parents’ driveway it was after 12 and I had been driving for over 17 hours. It was a duzi of a drive. I slept until 9 this morning, which was lovely, but I’m still a little ragged about the edges. And now the Jhb admin must commence!
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