we stopped for lunch, we had driven the
distance from Eastbourne to Birmingham
and were only half way to our overnight
destination, the Royal Hotel, in a one
horse dorp called Bethulie in the Orange
Free State.
I should say at this stage that the entire
expedition was very much a step into
the unknown; apart from Kenton on Sea
– our first ‘proper’ stop for a few days
on the Eastern Cape coast – neither
Paul nor Carol (and certainly not me)
had been to any of the towns we were
destined to stay at, let alone the hotels.
My brother had, with a bit of vague
advice from friends and a helping hand
from Booking.Com, managed to cobble
together various locations which – on
paper at least – looked OK, but we were
in unchartered territory, as we were
about to find out.
The first thing we discovered about
the Royal Hotel was that it didn’t seem
to exist. We drove up and down the
designated street in Bethulie (not a long
journey!) but could find no sign – literally
– of it. Carol then pointed to a building
that she said looked more or less like the
one portrayed on the town’s web site,
so we pulled up. Paul noticed a door
flapping open, and we walked in.
“
What happened
next was like
something out of
a Stephen King
novel;
“
What happened next was like something
out of a Stephen King novel; the place
was a ghost hotel, fully furnished, but
totally empty. A few dining tables were
laid, but the bar had been stripped
down to the optic holders, glasses
removed. Bedroom doors swung open
as we walked down the corridor, and
all the beds were made up, but not a
sound anywhere apart from our echoing
footsteps. The three of us looked at
each other, and could see we all thinking
the same thing; some places are best
left alone. We got back into the car
and went in search of less frightening
accommodation.
Considering the area around Bethulie
and the Gariep Dam is meant to be a
tourist spot, hostelries are somewhat
few and far between, but after an hour or
so we found a place that looked almost
reasonable although we were really
too hot and tired to care; “It’s licenced,”
68
said my brother, “that’s good enough for
me.” It turned out to be a very pleasant
B & B run by friendly Afrikaaner couple,
and after a couple of frosties any
reservations I had started to fade, until
Paul nudged me and said “Check out
the view above you.” Looking up, I saw
a huge Swastika flag pinned across the
ceiling. South African politics are still as
diverse as ever, it seems…
Following “Dinner with Nazis” we
arrived in Kenton on Sea the following
day at lunch time, and settled in to a
Hospitality – Mosel Bay style
really stunning holiday house lent to
Paul by a colleague. High up on the
hill, it commanded beautiful views of
the coastline and the Bushman’s River
mouth; the weather, although typically
windy in true Eastern Cape fashion,
was kind to us overall and we spent four
glorious days either chilling out, walking
along the beach for miles, or visiting
nearby Port Alfred, where an old friend
of Carol’s owns a micro brewery. The
scenery in the Grahamstown/Port Alfred
area is rather English, reminiscent of the
Sussex downs, and you can imagine the