Camperdown to Ugie – 20th February 2016
Saturday dawned bright and we set off early – 7 am to be exact. We have a two oven AGA stove tied down to the trailer for delivery to Middelburg in the Eastern Cape. The road looms long and arduous before us, but as usual we are full of anticipation and hope. The back of the bakkie is packed with tools, suitcases, cooler boxes and whatever else we may have thought of to carry with us for this 6 day journey.
So it’s up the N3 towards Pietermaritzburg and then a turn off to the left to Richmond – we are going to drive to our first destination on the R56 – a road notorious for it’s general decay and twists and turns – not the easiest road to drive.
The landscape is hilly and verdant, fat cattle grazing peacefully and water is sighted at every turn. This is surprising as South Africa is experiencing a drought at the present time.
Our destination is 405,4 km from our starting point and we are carrying nearly 900 kilograms, so the optimistic 5 hours and 7 minutes cited on Google Maps is just a guideline. It will take us 6 hours and 15 minutes give or take a whisker.
We finally arrive at Clarendon Guest House in Main Street in Ugie. This is a fascinating place. In 1918 there was a flu epidemic in South Africa and many parents died, leaving children with no place to go. Some of the African people took these orphaned children into their huts in an attempt to ensure their survival. A Reverend Mattheus Theodorus Reheul (M T R) Smit had the area as his parsonage and he rounded up 12 of the orphans from four families in two days. It is unclear as to why they were only girls, and also how he managed to transport them, as he had ridden to find them on one horse. These girls he left in the care of a husband and wife situated in the town. Nevertheless, by 1924 he had raised sufficient money to build the current building, which housed 120 orphaned or neglected girls, and his wife unveiled a tablet as a tribute to this feat, in December 1924.
It is difficult to imagine the patter of 120 pairs of feet running up and down the beautiful staircase to their rooms upstairs. There is an enormous kitchen upstairs and one can almost smell vegetable soup being made for the evening meal. It also crosses one’s mind as to where the food and general goods came from, and how they could afford to run such a large establishment, and how were the girls educated, and what happened to them. Clarendon Guest House cannot help us with those questions some 92 years later.
Mr Gouws helps Emmie choose some succulents from his garden