Cyclists And Greyton – Let’s Have That Chat

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We have been looking for a place to holiday over Easter for some time.

It usually rains in the Cape during this season, and I have found that most beach houses aren’t well set up for the cold and rain.  Also, while the idea of sitting by a fire with a glass of red and staring at the sea horses rolling in on a grey sea holds some idealistic appeal, it doesn’t mix well with a background soundtrack of three kids under ten, high on easter eggs and cooped up in a small house with heightened acoustics.

Particularly not on day two, after the first day with the red wine.

Greyton is one of the most beautiful villages in the country. We have been here quite often.  I half recall listening to a choir singing Handel’s Requiem in the Genadendal Moravian Church after a long afternoon at the Craft Brewery during the Classical Music Festival.

We have also attended the Rose Fair a few times – a wander through English-themed gardens and then a cup of tea.  One almost expected the Vicar to arrive with a plate of ginger biscuits.  And then there have been a couple of Guinea fowl shoots to raise money for the local Dominee.  Well, they were Guinea fowl shoots for the others.

I just tramped through wet fields of wheat holding a shotgun and occasionally squeezed through highly strung barbed wire fences while watching the others blaze away at the birds that seemed to be flying over everyone else but me.

I could have tried harder and volunteered for more walking, but I wasn’t quite sure what I would say to my son when he asked me if I had killed one.  The Dominee’s return on bird shot in my case is infinite.  It isn’t surprising he keeps inviting me back.

Back to Greyton, in Easter. It seemed like a good option, so we rented a house for a few days and here we are. And how pleased we are that we did.

It has been a rough first quarter, and spending time in the garden in the Autumn sun, watching the leaves float down from the elongated Poplar trees in the breeze while a Hoopoe swoops from one tree to the next in a gentle parabola provides a salve from the politics and the greed.  Cape Robins mine the flower beds for bugs while the Weavers and the LBJs flitter in and out of view.

A raptor will come in to view occasionally, scanning for dassies and hares.  They are bored of snatching stoepkakertjies from clipped village lawns.  It is no longer sporting.

The Plain Trees that line the streets are starting to turn into oranges, khaki, and the peculiar mix of purple and auburn that some ladies in Pretoria like to colour their hair. Horses wander and graze the verges along the leiwater which irrigates the town collectively.

It is beginning to get chilly in the evenings, although not cold enough to keep us from braaing outside.  The mountains loom politely in the background and provide a silent reminder of the cold that will arrive in a few months when the locals don beards and beanies and carry on with the business of small village existence.

Mountain biking is big here. I am sure the local sawbones makes a decent living out of resetting the collar bones that are sacrificed by lunatics who get their thrills out of flying down mountains on expensive carbon fibre.  There is plenty of spandex on the high street, stretched tightly over battered crutches and perineum long since devoid of active nervous systems.

These creatures gather in coffee shops spattered with mud and humming with sweat.  I am certain many of them account for a living, and if they don’t still do so in a formal capacity, they must have done so once, in a serious way. Both activities require masochism, fascination with detail, and savage natural defences against boredom.

We bike in a more civilized fashion – nothing too high or narrow – on dirt roads or jeep tracks, and at a pace that allows a full appreciation of the environment.  Greyton is surrounded by farmlands, and the bucolic scenes we have cycled past here come straight out of The Famous Five.  Enid must have spent time here back in the day staring at the clouds and imagining an ideal youth.  Perhaps after chewing on some of the local psilocybin.

Friesian cows graze in pastures of ryegrass and sheep hang in small groups plotting the demise of lamb lovers. We passed an occasional dairy reeking of dung and cleaning chemicals. There were falls and tears, particularly at the start of the holiday, a lot of shouting and even some blood.  But every ride ended with a gleam in young Bruin’s eyes, alive with Dopamine.  We have ridden everywhere now.  To the Brewery, towards Krige and Riviersonderend, the shop and on a tour of the streets – but not up a mountain.  Never up a mountain.

Hiking is also encouraged.  There is something for everyone.  We sampled the green routes, up a deep ravine covered in ferns with Old Man’s Beard hanging from damp branches and some red orchids showing off from the red kranse above.  The wife walked ahead, happily rattling off the names of every Protea, Erica and tree in the good Lord’s creation. She is an effortless botanist who would beat the pants off the self-proclaimed Polymaths in our circle who will know who they are. The brackish stream gushes steadily past, forming a small dam at a weir in which swimming is prohibited.  The locals prefer their drinking water un-chlorinated.

At the business end of the gorge, where the path stops and the water falls, the cliffs rise up on either side of the stream forceing the sky into a narrow slit. It feels like an ancient place.  If Big Foot still exists, he will be discovered here. Pale and eating a raw fish with his bare hands among the Cycads and the moss.  Having done this walk previously and felt the eerie presence of our forefathers in this kloof, I was paranoid and well prepared to be sprung upon.  I had a pen knife on me.  And a high-powered paintball gun, and some pepper spray in case he was immune to being painted.

Greyton is changing though. The mountain biking has brought the asset managers to town, and they like what they see.  Covid has also convinced a growing number of people who can work anywhere that moving out of the city is the way forward. Quaint cottages occupied by little old ladies who drove boxy cars with sewing machine engines are being demolished as they are herded into retirement homes.

They are being replaced by ‘cottages’ worth a dozen big ones and occupied by lean, hungry-looking City folk, dripping in brands and inflated by ego.

All this demolition has brought gangs of builders to town.  Builders, Plumbers, electricians, and thatchers.  The menacing appraisal these gangs availed of us as we cycled passed suggested that these artisans have a sideline business in thievery. It also suggested a general malcontent with their lot compared to the largesse increasingly on display here. And who can blame them for lifting a cast-aside iPhone from a spoiled millennial, or a featherlight Specialized?

Greyton and Genadendal need to come up with a better system of coexistence than currently exists between the haves and the have-nots if they are to exist happily side by side.

The ageing PHDs occupying these professorial lanes should apply their big minds to this burning platform during the next series of ‘Greyton talks’ rather than pontificate about Anthropology or the optimum depth to plant a Queen Elizabeth Rose. And everyone else better listen to the more socialist solution they will undoubtedly present us with. The more Christian solution (NGK or Anglican), Muslim solution, Buddhist solution, and moral solution that those big brains spout forth. And then start shelling out.

Evolution must extend beyond soup kitchens and education projects into something that looks a lot more like sharing.

Otherwise, we will be reminiscing about the swooping Hoopoe in years to come on a virtual teams call from boiling Sydney and freezing Toronto whenever the hell it is that their time zones overlap at a civilized hour.