Dunn’s Castle Guest House
Piketberg, Western Cape, South Africa
May 12, 2005
We careened off the plateau of the Northern Cape and Namaqualand, over an enormous escarpment, and plunged down into a lush new world. Behind us lay the stark, semi-arid, spectacularly harsh regions of the Oranje River valley. Flat for as far as the eye can see: salt pans, desert sands, wildflowers and the ever distinct quiver tree (or Kokerbooms) make up the otherworldly scenery. Cape Spitting Cobra’s, a dazzling orange, lounge on the hard pan of the desert roads soaking in the warmth. In front of us, as we dropped over the escarpment, lay the rugged, castellated Cederberg Mountains and the picturesque town of Citrusdal with its numerous, namesake orange groves. Vineyards and farms stretched for miles with the dramatic mountains as a backdrop. The sign demarcating the administrative boundary between the Western Cape and the Northern Cape regions could not be more appropriately placed.
Earlier on our first night outside of Welkom we were confronted with the possibility of sleeping in our car; a flimsy, dusty Nissan Almera jammed to the hilt with computer gear, luggage, spent water bottles and biltong wrappers. We drove all day to get to Upington and there was not a room to be had in any establishment. Darkness had descended and sleeping in the car was becoming more and more of a possibility; how exactly it would work, spatially speaking, was another matter. We finally found Magde at the Affinity guesthouse who phoned a friend from another guest house. Alice it turned out was kind enough, showing typical South African hospitality, to drive over at nine in the evening so that we could follow her back to her Bed and Breakfast. She had two basement rooms that had recently been flooded and were in need of serious renovation. Her young son ran around bringing clean towels, fresh juice, and TV remote controls for us, even with a lack of any serviceable channels as we discovered later. It was a touch of incredible grace and kindness shown to us without a hint of annoyance to two total strangers from very far away in the middle of the night.
We departed Upington early the next morning and heading due north on the R360; a stretch of road so remote, so hot, so flat, and so straight and fast that BMW and Mercedes-Benz ship prototype cars from Germany to be tested out here. They just can not resist the temptation for speed that this particular road fosters. Our little four banger Nissan would have to do. After about ninety minutes or so pegged at 160kph through a featureless environment we approached the southern reaches of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park which is, amazingly, one of the largest pieces of conservation land in all of Africa. The road into this portion of the park was in terrible shape so we retreated to the Molopo Kalahari Lodge sitting just up the R31. This lodge is a real African bush marvel featuring rondavel huts and thatched roof rooms surrounded by incredibly remote, lonely stretches of semi-desert. We had cold Castle beer on the porch sprawled in Zebra skinned chairs and I could almost see the likes of Richard Burton and John Speke hatching outrageous schemes of exploration into just such country.
It seems like a different world now only a few days later, but here I am in the Dunn’s Castle guesthouse. How we got here is somewhat random: closest place on the map to stop because it was time to stop. After inquiring with Clyde, the old curmudgeon caretaker at the Piket Manor – an old world hotel right out of a Clint Eastwood western – I found out about the ‘Castile’. His directions were good and we climbed a little dirt road up to an old stone building in the mountains with an incredible view of the surrounding farmlands. This place was built in 1892 by an ailing Englishman Sir Herbert Baker, who was told to go to South Africa to ease his failing lungs. He came here and built this castle (and also the Union Building in Pretoria among other things), hewing bricks from stone by hand…work that is no longer done these days. He built it as a home and then later turned it into a sort of clinic for lung diseases; now however it has become a guesthouse under the tutelage of Rod the owner and Arthur the caretaker. The floors are made of Oregon pine; a section of one of the passageway floors goes uphill in order to avoid a large stone that they could not move out of the way, so they just built around it. I love that. Old gramophones lie in the drawing room. Kudu heads and antlers adorn the mantle; walking sticks and walking hats are available near the door. Each room is decorated in different themes, but all exude a sense of falling into the 1930’s: claw-footed tubs, quilts, ancient unknown family portraits; everything seems an antique. All the latches on doors and windows are the original pieces. Even Cecil Rhodes stayed here, maybe in this very room. The self-proclaimed ruler of his own personal fiefdom that included what is now Botswana and Zimbabwe; he defied and eventually embarrassed the mighty British throne. He ruled Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony for the British; and because of his knack for finding diamonds he started the De Beers Consolidated Mining group and started building his empire. He eventually clashed with Paul Kruger and his pastoral Boers who were camped out on the vast reef of gold along the Witwatersrand in Gauteng. Not only were they in the way of prime gold, but they were also in the way of his dream of the Cape Town to Cairo rail through British territory the whole way. This man also believed the US could be brought back under British control. He died in 1902 from a lung ailment that ironically brought him here like Sir Herbert, but not before the Rhodes scholarship was created.
John and I each have a room, no one else is here, and at night with everything quiet it seems the walls, floors and the very fixtures of this place want to tell me stories of the past. It is a mysterious place perched up here in the mountains. What was Cecil doing when he stayed here? Looking for more diamonds, or planning his railway to the Sinai? If only the walls could talk.
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