Twas the long weekend. A last minute decision, Mr 747 and I hopped in the car and fucked off to Machadodorp, Mpumalanga to join The Ant and The Gilb in the 'bush'.
The brochure, however, obviously had some fine print we all missed:
a) we'd be staying in the middle of the town, two farts away from the NG Kerk. The impressive sound of exotic wildlife was the gentle hum of the N4 highway;
b) our neighbours lived in a mobile home and had a massive dog with orange eyes;
c) we'd be subjected to a small town dorp experience like in Huisgenoot. In actual fact, we holidayed in Bonnie Doone. (Watch The Castle, that was us.)
Twenty metres down the road, the local pub. One always gets the once over from the locals when one walks into a pub where tourists aren't a usual thing, but this was something else altogether. We had drunk a fair amount of gin and tonic around the fire, but hell, we were uitstekende Engelse tourists.
Worse than when I walked into the Wimpy in Nylstroom that one time.
“Out Of Towners” really doesn't give us credit. Even after ordering a round of Klippies & Coke, they didn't love us lank, hey. We didn't get ice in our drinks and they called last rounds after 30 minutes of us being there.
I did get one marriage proposal though, from a dude the size of a small townhouse complex, and 747 made mates with a guy with the most insane set of chompers I've ever seen – but other than that, the phrase 'welcome mat' wasn't one used around these parts much.
So we punished them by wheelspinning around the block a few times, whilst pumping Reactivate 9 at maximum volume.
We found a dam, shimmering like a mirage in the hot lowveld sun. “Ah, excellent,” we thought. A day swimming, catching some rays and drinking in the beautiful surrounding scenery.
Not exactly. 'Surrounding scenery':
1)construction site
2)clusters of shiny power lines
3)monolithic stretches of mud
4)large piles of steaming cow dung, expelled from random mangey bovines lurking nearby
5)signs that screamed, “BILHARZIA”
6)mobile homes
7)people with three eyes
We didn't swim, nor did we catch any rays, because the wind was howling so hectically, we huddled on the side of the Land Rover pretending to enjoy ourselves.
But there was one thing. Serenidy.
Despite the odd roar of a two stroke engine and a howling dog.
But what really made the weekend a treat, was the sound of a yodeling Muslim over a loudspeaker from a mosque at 3:00 o clock each morning.
However, one must remember: although we won't be going back to Machadodorp in a hurry, you can't undermine experience. Sure, none of our mates will ever go there/have been there/want to go there, and maybe it's not favoured by Getaway as A la Destination Splendide, but there's one thing we all agreed on: it sure beat staying in Joburg for the weekend.
And it was great to chill out, talk shit and catch up with The Ant whom I'm miss terribly.
We buggered around in Bonnie Doone. You can't buy that. You'd be drayming if you could.
