49. The Rainbow Nation.

Crossing the Karoo.

From Ladybrand, my surroundings shifted, the details gradually falling away to leave behind nothing but the alopecic dusting of scrub that comprises the desolate, borderless, undefined wasteland of the Karoo. The landscape lay derobed, naked and ugly, its crude folds bearing closer resemblance to the skin of a hairless cat than the delicate curves of a Renaissance nude. The horizon sprawled unbroken but for the skeletal spires of ancient windpumps—once responsible for tapping life-sustaining aquifers but which now spun redundant, their fanned blades creaking gently in the breeze.

Lonely roads—scarcely travelled—scored the surface, and for a week I churned along them, knitting together stretches of tarmac with broad farm roads of washboard gravel. Usually, the day’s climax came in the form of a single T-junction; any more, and I considered it a spell of particularly complex navigation. The next horizon would arrive—a new frame slipping into the stereoscopic carousel of barren vistas, each slightly different but all bleeding together into a single, coherent, and rather bleak solid in memory.

To spice up the directional monogamy, I resorted to profligate aural polygamy. Dropping my self-imposed limitations on headphone use, each day I plugged in from the off, flicking through a library of podcasts that tackled everything from the looming dangers of AI, and the horseshoe effect of the world’s political extremes, to the 80s’ aesthetic phenomena of Kibbe-typing and colour analysis.

Yet out here, with nothing gracing my periphery besides the occasional ostrich, it felt hard to believe that I shared the same atmosphere as any of these existential threats—be it Meta, Musk, or the misclassification of a Spring Gamine. With barely a vehicle in sight, any threats to my own existence had all but evaporated into the vast nothingness of the desert; and the only orange exhibitionist to cross my daily bulletin was the African daisy, out in full bloom to offer an occasional break from the drab tapestry of greens, greys and browns.

But one’s external and internal environments often move to opposing rhythms. Whatever calm might have blessed the world around me, the void offered a playground through which my mind could run wild. During unstimulated moments, I found myself tangled in coils of fruitless thought, reflecting on times of acute embarrassment; on opportunities missed; on people I’d disappointed, alienated or let down. Bizarrely—at the conclusion of a twelve-thousand-mile bike ride across twenty-three countries—I managed to land at the immutable conclusion that I wasn’t quite making the most of my life.

Luckily, Sue was quick to set the record straight. She was one of a handful of characters that crossed my horizon during that solitary stretch, each offering a punctuating flash of colour to texturise the otherwise murky haze around me. She lived in a self-built cob house on the outskirts of Smithfield—a small, tired town standing in harsh relief to some of the more prosperous farming settlements of the region. The house, which she’d wryly named Mud Manna, was a world away from the sobriety of the landscape around it. A hundred windows sat recessed within its thick, bulbous walls. Frozen within their stained panes, iridescent lilac-breasted rollers and canary-yellow bokmakieries stood on parade—a geometric parody of the dustbowl reality.

Within, the Manna was no less flamboyant. Fanning out from the central staircase, the house wound round and up like the inside of a shell. Anything that could be painted, was. A lilac door led into a kitchen with lime-green walls and a mosaic worktop. Mobiles dangled from a high ceiling above an open lounge, whose walls hung heavy with eccentric portraiture—paintings and plaster both shaped by the same hand. The artist and architect stood in the middle of her trove of curiosities, carrying a tray of hot tea.

Sue was once a teacher and her home had now become something of a utopia for local children and tired parents. Hers was a brand of play that glorified the making of mess. She despised cleaning up and so spent most of her time living amongst the wreckage of an explosion of crayons and potions. In defiance of the security-obsessed majority of White South Africans, Sue left the Manna unlocked. Once, she’d arrived home to a spotless kitchen and a sign blu-tacked above the sink—go relax, no dishes—written in the careful scrawl of one particularly diligent eight-year-old, who was well aware of her proclivities.

Sue had a strong faith and had helped several people along the path to ordination, though it was one she’d avoided herself due to all the rules. She was thrilled by the chance connection of my cave-dwelling ancestor with Mantsopa—a name Sue knew well—particularly given his unorthodox approach to spreading the Good Word. She was so thrilled, in fact, that I was made to repeat the tale verbatim, complete with names, dates and subsequent family trees, so that it could be transcribed in pencil in her notebook. She didn’t want to forget it, and she refused to type.

With our tea still steaming, Sue cut right to the conversational core. About my girlfriend: are you planning to marry her? About my trip: who were you when you started; who are you now? And about God: we have some great conversations, he’s quite a good listener. It felt a rare treat to open up so readily to a stranger; to have someone with the common sense, quick wit and penetrative curiosity to tease out the kinks of a lonely, meandering mind. I went to bed feeling immensely grateful for Sue, who understood life, and seemed to exist to help other people get the hang of it too.

I felt half tempted to take another rest day and push back my arrival in Cape Town. Lately, I’d been stuck in a creative mire and I hadn’t written anything in weeks. Everything that had come to mind had felt padded and aloof and remained unwritten, neatly stacked like blocks of marble in a sculptor’s studio, waiting to be carved. I felt time at the Manna might help to chip away at these thoughts. I could learn a lot from Sue. Her own observations, captured on canvas, drew more than just a striking resemblance to their subjects, they bore down to their very essence. In art, just as in life, she wasted no time with small talk.

But now, just ten days from the finish, I was compelled to press on. I’d taken to pre-booking each night’s stay, since the distances required to link up the Karoo’s sparse settlements threatened regular brushes with dusk. Keen to avoid wandering unlit streets to be greeted by nothing but a glower of shuttered doors and locked gates, I’d managed to stack my coming stays rather neatly. Adjustments would risk a headache.

I woke at dawn and, with permission, raided scraps from Sue’s fridge—an egg, a cut of smoked bacon, and a wedge of cheese, all crammed between two heels of white bread. As the breakfast spat in the pan, I fixed my first puncture of the morning, a slow flat that had busied itself overnight. By 10am, I was still in Smithfield, scowling outside a pie shop at my sixth, while grinding away at a second breakfast. I’d been invited to spend the coming night on a secure patch of lawn at a farmstay in Steynsburg. This was an offer I was reluctant to pass up, given that the only other settlement in the hundred-and-ninety kilometres between us seemed home to little besides a rural hospital and a butcher's shop—a slightly alarming double act.

Now, with just eight daylight hours remaining, the prospect of a night on the slab seemed likelier by the minute. Fortunately, the next tube held, but not before I’d made a petulant phone call to my mother to declare my patience expired and my bike retired. I’d be taking a bus down to Cape Town, thank you very much. Even with less than a fortnight to go, towel-throwing fantasies still lurked, never far from the surface.

Luckily, there’s nothing like a tantrum to pass some hours in the saddle. By the time I’d stopped cursing, I was two hours closer to Steynsburg; and by the time I’d decided that I may, after all, continue down to Cape Town unassisted, I’d all but arrived. Several more punctures filled the space in between, but these only sparked further frissons of frustration, fuelling me ever forwards.

I arrived on the promised lawn at dusk and was welcomed with a stiff drink—a very welcome welcome, given the circumstances. The whisky soaked straight into the lacerated fibres of my legs and by the end of the first dram I was already reflecting on my day with the fondness of a bygone epic, any discomfort long forgotten. The bottle’s owner was another of the farmstay’s guests—a wonderfully outspoken woman in the middle of a walking holiday. Besides walking, the designation of holiday seemed contingent on the occasional stiff measure, and the ready availability of hot food and a comfortable bed. She was very clear on her non-negotiables—a position I respected. Once we’d become well acquainted, our host Roz emerged.

Roz had inherited the farm from her parents and, along with her husband Glenn—who remained mostly offstage owing to a bad bout of gout—she’d raised a family there, all of whom had now flown the nest. She was still exceptionally maternal and immediately took me under her wing, piling me with blankets and raising the tempting subject of supper. Food wasn’t usually on offer, but for The Walker, an exception had been made.

Fortunately, The Walker was a good sharer, and wasn’t the least bit disturbed by a stranger muscling in on half of her tray bake. In fact, she seemed rather determined to share her whole estate—room and all—and kindly invited me to use her shower and towels before we sat down to eat. It soon transpired that there might have been motive to this fulsome charity. Earlier that day, The Walker had passed me in her pickup while I’d been swearing at a puncture beside the road. Keen not to rob me of the satisfaction of a challenge overcome, she’d continued on her way, and was now evidently eager to compensate. As a trio, we sank into low chairs and sat, drinking in dusk’s long shadows in fiery pulls—frequently refreshed—while putting the world to rights.

At one point, the only other guests—a couple of a rather straighter disposition, returning from Kruger to their home in the Western Cape—wandered over and weighed in on the current topic of waste management, something that had been in severe decline through the Zuma years. A heated discussion ensued, the semantic crux of which seemed to rest on each party’s choice of pronoun—The Walker favouring we, and The Couple, they. The subject of they, in South Africa, needs little decrypting. In all but name, I’d witnessed the first racial disagreement of my time in the country. Race was never far from the conversational stage, but rarely did I see it tossed so plainly into play. Prejudices often seemed reserved for private conversations, in settings where one’s cards could be laid down with little risk of resistance.

Fortunately, Roz was an excellent mediator and before long the guests parted amicably for bed. It was still winter in South Africa and the air, while thick and warm by day, bore its teeth at night. Seeing my rather pathetic attempts to wrap up in a thin down jacket, some tired shorts, double socks, and Crocs, Roz snuck off to prepare a guest room in the farmhouse. I drained the last of my drink and set about unpacking my tent before being swept inside, rescued from a wriggly night. Pressed against an electric blanket, I dozed off thinking I too might have to consider adopting some non-negotiables.

The next day was short and well-provisioned. After a hearty cooked breakfast, I was sent off with sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and a long list of contacts to visit along the way. My destination was Cradock—a stone’s throw away by Karoo standards, with the journey conveniently bisected by the little town of Hofmeyer. There, I ticked off the first of my catalgoue—a farm shop boasting a decadent array of dairy derivatives—before cruising through the day’s second half, comfortably avoiding extra time.

Roz was particularly keen that ‘her cycling boy’ should stay with a friend of hers in Cradock who, by all accounts—and particularly those of Roz’ Garden Club—was something of a local celebrity. This friend ran a restaurant—an ode to authentic Karoo cooking whose recipes had propelled her to the semi-finals of My Kitchen Rules South Africa, and to suburban stardom in the process. When I arrived, The Friend was busy entertaining, so I was passed on to The Husband—a traditionally-built, ruddy-cheeked, plaid-shirted, blue-jeaned, and brown-booted Afrikaner who spent an hour filling me in on the business of Big Game hunting while working his way steadily through a packet of red-strength cigarettes.

When The Friend eventually reappeared, she seemed a little confused as to who exactly had sent me her way—the Steynsburg Garden Club appearing, at that moment, to merge into a single, vague nebula in her mind. This was a shame as I felt that if anyone deserved to be remembered, it was someone like Roz, who was about as generous as a person can be. Still, regardless of my origin story, I was briefly ushered into the inner sanctum and paraded around her group of visiting admirers, who asked if I was an influencer. I left the following morning bolstered by Karoo cooking, which was well-deserving of all accolades.

My next memorable interaction came a day and a half later, three hundred kilometres closer to Cape Town. I’d pulled up for lunch in Steytlerville, a town that struck me first and foremost as incredibly white—architecturally, that is, not demographically. Every single building shone incandescent in the midday sun. The place had a glacial quality—something that was reinforced on a different level by the crests of the town’s founding families heralded from the stems of the central streetlights. The lights themselves felt rather redundant.

In the town’s only cafe, I ate lunch with the owners, a couple who had retired from Cape Town to devote themselves to the rescue of the Karoo’s native fauna, which often tangled with the distinctly non-native vehicles that sped periodically along the arrow-straight rat-run roads. Their garden was now a sanctuary for recovering roadkill that hadn’t quite lived up to its name. Aardvarks existed in peaceful harmony alongside Cape and bat-eared foxes. A porcupine might have also been resident, and an owl upped the class diversity.

Over toasted sandwiches, however, conversation soon moved away from conservation and onto segregation. The man, an ex-cop on the Capetonian police force, held challenging views. Whatever the rules for his garden’s residents, when it came to those of his country, he believed in strict classification. Apartheid, he maintained, was an act of cultural preservation; Mandela, a terrorist. Facts bubbled up into great clouds of conspiracy that hung, heavy and noxious, above us.

I couldn’t profess to know more about this man’s country than he did, puncturing these proclamations with precise factual ammunition. I didn’t have any. But I couldn’t leave them unchallenged; neutrality in situations of injustice, in Archbishop Tutu’s wisdom, being a positive choice to side with the oppressor. So, encouraged by Roz’ shrewd mediation in Steynsburg, I accepted that the man’s cards were laid down, and dealt out a hand of my own. This was a round I’d choose to call, not fold.

An hour passed, and when the time came to remount Madonna and press on, we parted ways understanding a little more about one another, having been able to sit at the same table, share the same meal, honestly exchanging our radically different perspectives. He gave me his number and asked me to call if I saw any animals beside the road—they’d drive straight out if there was any chance to save them.

That evening I arrived in Willowmore, a frontier town on the westernmost reaches of the Eastern Cape, having come to the end of a week-long, thousand-kilometre traverse of the country’s second largest province. I’d spent forty-three hours in the saddle; a full-time job—albeit a rather lonely one—that, in its solitude, had given me the space to engage wholly with the few who’d revealed themselves: a marbled slice of South Africa.

The last of these was Lisa, my host for the night—a biker, hearty and gregarious, whose deep, husky voice mingled seamlessly with the smoke of an open fire as we shared braai-blackened brisket and black-label beer long into the evening. Around us, motorbikes lay in various stages of assembly and tools mingled freely in the space—part bar, part workshop, part kitchen—spanners and spatulas cohabiting happily on the brushed metal worktops. Above the fireplace hung a sign, carved in Afrikaans—I’d rather be full of wine than full of shit. Lisa was certainly a straight shooter and I had the pleasure of yet another evening of instant and nourishing connection.

On the road, you can’t choose the characters who cross your path. You can’t easily slip behind social filters, sifting out those you don’t agree with, or seeking out those you do. Your wheels cut a series of cultural cross-sections—some more representative than others—revealing a subset of potential connections. All that remains is a choice; engage, or retreat.

Through the Karoo, my cross-section was a narrow one. Each major exchange happened to involve White South Africans—a group representing less than ten percent of the population. So much remained unseen. But what was glimpsed—through colourful flashes of surprise connection—revealed a smorgasbord of unique perspectives, thinly veiled by restrictive labels. In a country so often dichotomised, it took a muted and constant backdrop to allow each character to stand out in relief—unrepresentative in some ways, perhaps, but undoubtedly illustrative of the kaleidoscope of colour that ripples beneath the surface of the Rainbow Nation.