We previously posted about Doug’s close encounter with a Cape Cobra and how it is not child’s play out here. We asked you all to please make a Danger Donations to the One Gear cause. Well things have picked up on the side of menace. To elaborate on my previous post “Ghosts and a relentless easterly” and more specifically what got Doug and I so freaked out, let me tell you more about the little town of Fraserberg.
We arrived here yesterday after a really long and mentally challenging ride and fell into the absolute comfort of Kliphuis BnB. The place is a haven in an otherwise small and seemingly strange town. The entire town consists of 2 rows of houses that line each side of the “main” road. There are some quaint places but without curtains and many don’t seem occupied. There are a few odd looking people skulking around at any given time but mostly it is deadly quiet. We chatted for ages trying to work this town out – we just cant get our heads around it; what do people do here and how do they survive?
Our hypothesis moved surprisingly swiftly onto ones more sinister in nature as we struggled to find plausible explanations for how this place functions or even exists. At Kliphuis, the decor is unbelievably tasteful and clearly put together by someone with a real eye for what works out here in Karoo. While both our mockery and the charming ornamental farm implements decorating the walls at the BnB and wonderful creaky wooden floor boards are benign during the day, things change very quickly when the sun sets here. I needed to get something from the car outside last night and as I walked out I realised it was pitch black; I literally could not see my hand in front of my face. The windmill and the decorative tin cups hanging from a chain that soothingly clang away during the day suddenly sounded very ominous. I went back to get a torch but even with a path in front of me now illuminated the darkness in my peripheral vision still flooded in and the constant threat of the town folk, now in their Dusk til Dawn zombie states, about to manhandle me, made me turn around. I am not embarrassed to say that I went back and got Doug to come with me. The only thing we managed to achieve as a very manly duo was to talk each other into very unmanly puddles of wet fear through recollections of Karoo Ghost stories and Robert Rodriguez Zombie films – we never made it to the car.
It is proper dangerous out here, illustrated by the “innocent” implements below, and we need you to make another danger donation:
Pointy sharp bits
Clangy Cups
Not a precision surgical instrument
Danger Donation