Winter hits

The small cold front that hit us as we were moving was a teaser.  It was a tickle.  It was an inconvenience. Nothing more than that.


And it was nothing compared to what lay ahead.


We woke up last Friday morning (to quote, Derek Van Damm, our local weather forecaster) to a "substantial cold front".  Which deposited loads of snow on the mountains.  In July????!  It even closed national roads in the Karroo - and that seldom happens!

Snow on the mountains - peeping out below
the clouds

Building work on the garage, naturally, came to a standstill, which meant that that first morning RMan and I could take the time to lie in bed and look at the snow through the lounge window - warmly snuggled beneath the duvets with hot tea and coffee clutched in our cold hands.

Not just the mountain in front of us, but every
mountain top in sight was liberally sprinkled with snow 

Snow in winter has been known to fall in this country.  But not often.  Not every year.  And I think this year it is a little early.  We normally get it at the end of winter, in August / September - and even October.  And it does not normally fall within reach.  So, a snowfall literally becomes a national holiday here LOL  We decided that we would take a trip up the Tradouw Pass and see if we couldn't carefully 4X4 our way to it.  It looked like it was lying low enough on the mountains - low enough to reach out and touch it...

Could we reach it...?

The drive up the Tradouw Pass is spectacular, and even more so when such snowy excitement is in the air.

The view down the valley on the Tradouw Pass

This time even I learnt something.  I didn't know that Tradouw is a Khoisan word for 'the women's path" - and I wonder which path the men used?

I'm always amazed at how such mountain passes
were built using the antiquated tools of
yesteryear.

Unfortunately, the snow was too high, and I wasn't keen to damage the flora by driving along mountain sides to get to it.  If it had been in reach of the tar road, or there had been a firebreak road which we could have driven along - well, that would have been a bonus.  But veering off the road - that's not my thing.  I have too much respect for what Mother Nature has created.

Buffeljags River - in full flow

We decided to drive through to the closest village of Buffeljags (trans. Buffalo Hunts). Driving over the bridge we saw that that river, normally a boulder strewn trickle in the ground, was full to capacity. 

A road towards the village of Buffeljags - underwater
from a rain formed dam to the right of the road

And, veering off the N2 down a side road, the road was submerged - rain water was forming puddles of water everywhere.  There is an old wooden railway bridge on that road which has seen too many floods, and which has been replaced with a new, higher, steel bridge.  But the road remains at ground level.  You would not believe the flood of water rushing over the road.

The older wooden bridge on the right,
and the newer steel bridge on the left,
with the "road" in the centre.

There is a movie (I can't remember the name of it) where two guys stand at the end of a runway and scream as a plane takes off.  The noise produced by these flood waters created just such a noise.  And I couldn't resist a good hearty scream myself.  You couldn't hear me above the noise.  Very therapeutic :)

A wonderful scene - the perfect end to a brilliant day :)

As we drove home along the muddy track we call a road, we came across a local herdsman moving sheep.  Big smiles all round - I guess even they were enjoying the bracing cold, and the magnificent views of the snow capped mountains.