Clocolan

Welcome to the coldest town in South Africa! Clocolan, established in 1906, is a small town in the Free State province of South Africa. The Basotho called the place Hlohlolwane (Hlohla-o-lwane, “get up and fight”). New inhabitants mispronounced the name and called it Clocolan. (Wikipedia)

Work on three stoves has summoned us to this part of the world, where we have to endure grinding cast iron in sub-zero temperatures, risking the loss of fingers and other body parts, because we just can’t feel them. To top off the list of uncomfortables, Clocolan has no water, except for that from the odd borehole. Our accommodation has two three types of water in the shower, – none, scaldingly hot or ice cold. Absolutely no happy medium, which led to rather too few showers for our liking!

Nevertheless, as is well known, it’s the people that make the place and we had great fun with the three different stove owners. The one in particular had a very humourous cockerel who goes by the name of Hitler. When you watch the video below – you will see why!