Barrydale is a drinking town with a farming problem.
So says Theo Nel, owner of the Barrydale Karoo Hotel, the destination of our very rock and roll, rather epic road trip.
Barrydale is one of the smaller towns on the now famous Route 62, which once linked Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and the Garden Route before the N2 was built, and it’s a good way to get to Oudtshoorn, where they keep the Cango Caves and many ostriches.
We weren’t going that far this time, however; just an overnighter to Barrydale where our friend Dave Ferguson was booked to play a gig. We like to say it was the Karoo leg of his international tour (he lives in Italy now) which began in London at the end of October and finishes tonight in Kalk Bay.
The bigger and maybe better known towns on Route 62 include Worcester, Robertson, Montagu and McGregor, all worthy destinations in their own right, and close enough to Cape Town to justify a day trip. Barrydale is about two-and-a- half to three hours drive from the city, depending on how many times you stop to pick up sun-bleached skulls on the side of the road, buy another six pack of beer (for the musician in the back seat, not the driver) and metre of droe wors, or shake like a leaf after nearly killing a small child who darted into the road. This was the low point and high drama of the trip, and should emphasise the importance of driving carefully and looking out for all manner of unexpected hazards.
The most direct way to Route 62 is through the Huguenot Tunnel on the N1, but like the dealer calls the shots in poker, so too does the driver on a road trip. So we went up on the N2 and turned left at Swellendam. It’s slightly longer but it’s very pretty, and my logic, which could not be argued with, was that we would go home on the N1, thus seeing more of the country.
We played a mixture of country music and rockabilly and sang along loudly to Dolly Parton and Bobby Bare, and Dave kept us entertained with an apparently endless catalogue of jokes, witticisms and one-liners. There was a pile of junk food, cool drinks, cigarettes, good ol’ fashioned paper maps and beer; the car was packed with musician paraphernalia, massive girly overnight bags and best friends. In other words, all the elements for a successful road trip.
That’s the journey; the destination is also part of it. I’ve been through Barrydale before, but not down the “other” road to the hotel. I love small Karoo towns… they are peaceful and quaint, or so they seem. We arrived at the sundowner hour and I had a lot of catching up to do on the beer front. Plus I needed something for my nerves after the child incident. Theo had arranged us accommodation at the Katidale self-catering B&B around the corner, where we dumped our bags before coming back to the hotel for dinner.
Well, not the hotel exactly, but the adjoining restaurant, which is called Mez. It serves mostly Mediterranean-style dishes and we fell upon the platters of real hummus with chunks of chickpeas, feta, olives, cold meats and felafel like ravenous wolves.
The wine flowed. And flowed. Dave played to a packed bar – the largest crowd the hotel has seen since Theo took it over in April. There was dancing. And other friends from Cape Town who had come up for the night. And the breast-grabbing episode… there I was, minding my own business, when a bloke who looked as old as God sat down next to me put his arm around me and, well, groped me – all in one fluid movement. I am not ashamed to say I shrieked like a girl.
The next morning, feeling somewhat worse for wear and knowing that in small towns like this, everyone remembers you and what you did the night before, we slunk off for breakfast at the hotel. They make a marvellous thing called the Moordenaarskaroo breakfast. The reference is to the old days when murderers and the like used to flee into the deepest Karoo where the law could not reach them. Anyway. The breakfast has everything you could possibly want for a hangover – eggs, bacon, wors, steak, chips, mushroom, tomato, toast and here’s the best part – a Bloody Mary (vodka, virgin or tequila for the brave), two headache pills and a sachet of rehydrating powder. If only it came with a nap.
But it was back in the dusty car and off to Ronnie’s Sex Shop, about 20 minutes drive the other side of Barrydale. It’s world famous but if you’ve not heard of it, it’s not really a sex shop. According to local stories, Ronnie once went away on holiday and left someone else in charge of his bar, which is in the middle of nowhere. Bored, this person painted the word “SEX” between Ronnie’s and Shop, and put it on the map. Apparently Ronnie – and there really is a Ronnie, we have the picture to prove it – was quite cross for a while but I think he’s over it now. It is the coolest spot in the Karoo, and you really have to drink a brandy and Coke when you visit.
I reckon we sure shook up that town a little, but it was just a warm-up for New Year’s Eve. The Barrydale Karoo Hotel is planning a massive opskop with rockabilly trio Them Tornados, which should make our party look like a church bazaar. For info and to book, call 028 572 1226. - Cape Times