The wind blew, gusted & blasted the whole way through the night and into the morning. I have been to Karoo National Park a number of times and never experienced the wind like this. It was cause for a restless night and a very cold morning. We had originally decided to do a quick loop in Karoo NP but over breakfast we ditched that idea and instead decided to rather venture off the main road and spend some time on a road less traveled to get to our destination. There definitely wasn’t going to be any further birding happening in Karoo NP as even the birds would be taking shelter from the wind.
We were heading north to Bloemfontein. For those of you who don’t know, Bloemfontein (or Bloem for short) is one of the 3 capitals in South Africa. However, it is not a place people go to holiday. People do what we are doing and spend a night there on the way to somewhere better. It is in the heart of Free State which is the heartland of farmland in SA. The usual route is to the take the major national road (N1) north from Karoo NP to Bloemfontein. We did that until we got to Colesberg. Colesberg is another one of those places that people stay at on their way to somewhere else. While some may believe it is named after the temperature of the place, it is actually named after a governor of the Cape (Cole) after being promoted from the governor of Mauritius in 1833. I bet he would have preferred to remain the governor of Mauritius!
We had lunch at Colesberg and then took the road less traveled (R717) rather than the national road (N1). While the condition of the road wasn’t great at all times (some potholes), for most of the road it was fine. The scenery was much more attractive though (the cloud formations definitely helped) and we hardly came across another car on the road. Definitely worth doing again at some point and I definitely preferred it to dodging trucks on the N1. It came with the added bonus as my bird book told me that it was a great road to see a Blue Korhaan. While I have seen many Korhaan’s in my life, a Blue Korhaan had still eluded me so if we could add that to the life list it would be a good road and a good day. The good thing is that we managed to do exactly that. H & I saw one on the side of the road which the other two cars missed but B spotted some others in a field and so everyone managed to add this to their life lists.
The R717 takes you through the towns of Phillippolis and Trompsburg with populations of 3600 and 5500 respectively. I can with certainty say that Philippolis was definitely a first time visit. Besides the impressive NG Kerk (built in 1871), I can say nothing else struck me except that I wondered where the other 3598 people were because we only saw 2 of them when passing through. Trompsburg looked a little more vibrant with at least a PEP store, FNB and Capitec Banks and a U-Save (U-save everyday is their motto) supermarket.
At Trompsburg we rejoined the N1 and after passing the 45th truck inside 30 minutes I realised why I much preferred the off-the-beaten track road. When two cars did the Moyles Maneuver (named after the last road trip when someone passed me up the left hand side admittedly on a potholed road while we were doing about 30km’h) on the N1 at 120 km/h, I was again reminded how stupid drivers are in SA. A said the official passing move is called the undertaker – that is an apt name. Another reason why the R717 was so much more pleasant.
We did arrive safely in Bloemfontein at around 4pm and checked into our accommodation for the night called Liedjiesbos (https://liedjiesbos.co.za/). We have stayed here before during Covid when travel had re-opened and we did a road trip and visit to Kruger for my 50th birthday. We enjoyed the experience then so we decided to repeat it. It is on a small holding slightly outside of Bloemfontein. After a short walk around the property. where we added a few birds to our trip list, we had a late afternoon drink and then into a dinner prepared by them (platter with meat, salad and cheese souffle).
Until tomorrow …
P, H, B (slips down 2 positions for some wayward driving which I never witnessed but taking it on the word of S, A & O), A (for suggesting I drive faster than the speed limit on the R717), O & S (no change to their positions but they did just sit in the passenger seats today)
