From firesides to farm graveyards: A journey through Cradock's enigmatic winter landscape

Daily Maverick

08-05-2025

Prepping for a hard Karoo winter means hauling out the warm stuff – and getting ready for backroad adventures in the snow.
The changes always seem to begin some time in July.
Our home town of Nxuba (previously Cradock) in the Karoo Heartland becomes the set of the old Northern Exposure TV series, described by production notes as: 'People of different backgrounds and experiences clash but ultimately strive to accept their differences and co-exist.'
It's suddenly so hard to escape the clutches of the down duvet on chilly mornings, the dogs grow werewolf pelts, the hunters drive into town in their camoed bakkies and every neighbour seems to have some part of a kudu cooking away in the pot.
The firewood salesmen and their chainsaw teams (they call themselves Die Hout Goggas – The Wood Bugs) are hard at it, cutting down enough right-sized Karoo sweet thorn logs for every fireplace in town. As bleak as it is out there, the homes of Nxuba become warm havens, with no shortage of red wine, roaring fires and hearty food.
The local shelter, along with various churches and women's groups, is working hard, feeding the poor and destitute as much as they can during this time, when it's no fun living rough.
Out on the farms, the Aga stove is the warm heart of the homestead. A Karoo farm kitchen in the cold season is a popular place to be, for cooks and kids and collies alike. In the evenings, the ever-looming satellite TV with its many channels has taken over from the lovely old custom of games, musical soirees and stories by the fireplace.
It's snowtime, folks!
But all this is just a prelude to the main event: the snowfalls of midwinter in the Karoo. Some years back, our friend Ryno Ferreira bought an old Land Rover Defender and, with the help of an expert crew in Graaff-Reinet, turned it into a road warrior that could probably have churned its way up through Africa, even in the rainy season. It weighed more than two tons and ran on a new set of chunky mud terrain tyres.
This monster Landy and its owner were itching for an adventure, so on a day in July, with the promise of snow in the air, we set off on the backroads outside Graaff-Reinet.
My wife Julie had supplied a modest care package, just in case we found ourselves stuck in snow drifts. One standout item I remember was a pack of Lighthouse candles.
'To keep you warm inside while you wait for rescuers,' she said. Ryno, to his credit, did not even allow an eyebrow to lift.
Toilets built for two
It was a clear day, we could see snow on the mountain peaks all about us and evidence of a mini-blizzard the night before on the ground.
That day, however, the hero of the story turned out to be the half-forgotten farmsteads we passed and occasionally sniffled about in with our cameras. We found lovely old stone sheds, huge mansions where only the bats held sway, ever-creaking windpumps churning away in memory of former residents, a discarded boot here and a pile of scrapped cars there.
At one farm, we came across an outhouse that sported twin seats. That kept us speculating for a while.
In the park
We chugged on through slush and past sunset sheep, over a broken railway track that simply ended in the veld like a sentence that ceases in mid-air. We hit the tar and drove home in the evening light, the cheerful chirrup of the Wapadsberg blue cranes ringing in our ears.
Less than a week later, the snow arrived in full force. You could just look out of your window and see the mountain ranges around Nxuba with their white ridges. Ryno fired up the Defender and we drove off to the nearby Mountain Zebra National Park, one of my top three favourite national parks in South Africa.
Crunching along on the icy road, the Defender was the perfect vehicle for the job. It took us deep into a black-and-white Japanese line drawing of a landscape. I jumped out and let Ryno drive on, so I could take a shot of the Defender in this setting. There was utter quiet in these mountains, and the snow had brought something spiritual to the party.
I don't normally dwell on these matters, so I shot my photographs and we carried on, this time to another side road off the Wapadsberg Pass, one that would eventually lead us to Middelburg.
The sad gravestone
The sun came out and lit the landscape for us. It made the small rivers sparkle, it added colour to the old sheds we passed and silky texture to the mountain slopes in the distance. It was nothing short of elegant, which is normally not a word used to describe things in the Karoo.
We stopped at a farm graveyard where one particular stone had caught Ryno's eye. It spoke of an HJ van Heerden, 'shot dead without a hearing' near this spot on 2 March 1901. Another sad tale from the South African War — you often find these kinds of reminders on farms all over the Karoo.
We drove up out of a valley on our return and saw a local farmer, dressed in warm camouflage gear, holding his hunting rifle. We asked him what he was looking for today, and he replied rather laconically: 'Oh, just about anything. Mainly jackals, though.'
And then, as an afterthought, he added: 'I watched you guys down in the cemetery. I saw you clearly through my telescopic sights.'
It fast became clear to me that the chill I had felt running down my spine as I stood at the late Mr van Heerden's grave had had nothing to do with ghosts or winter snows. Thank goodness I look nothing like a jackal on the hunt… DM