At Sutherland in the Komsberge, the air is so thin and the sky is so clear that you think that you can almost touch the moon.
Here they communicate with the stars gazing into deep space through their Large Telescope. You can see the South African Large Telescope (SALT) from about five kilometers out on the Matjiesfontein side of the R354 from the N1.
I chose a more roundabout route after leaving Cape Town with the windshield wipers flipping flapping under a rain-drenched sky.
I drove first to Wellington, then up in the mist and over the Bains Kloof pass and on to Ceres from where the R46, which takes you to Calvinia, is hard and dusty and flat.
You get your first idea of the Karoo as you descend the long undulating Theronsberg pass, the last bit of tar save for a short section over a vlei about half-way to the turn off to Sutherland. Then a right turn onto the Matjiesfontein Road takes you to the spot just this side of Sutherland where you can see a smaller version of SALT which I though they may want to call “baby SALT” or simply “Saltie’.
The real thing is about 20kms along the R356 to Frazerburg, which leaves to the right about half-way through Sutherland.
The dome gleams in the sun like a temple to the Gods polished daily by pilgrims. And I wondered, as I drove by in a small cloud of dust, if its only at night that they communicate with stars or can they see beyond our atmosphere through the rays of the sun? Was it Pink Floyd who asked, “Hello – is there anyone out there ?”
At the other end of Sutherland is the Oppie Punt Kaffee. It takes up just over half of a frozen shed. Inside on a cold concrete floor are tables bedecked with faded floral tablecloths and against the walls display cabinets half full with bric-a-brac of small town life: chunky glass tumblers, braai tongs, candles, little dolls, some dressed in beads and the compulsory wire-shelf stacks of crisps.
I was already frozen to the bone thanks to the wind chill, so took my coffee to “go” and drove headlong into the wide open space.
And when I sang to myself, “Hello, is there anybody out there?” on a quiet Sunday afternoon in the Karoo the answer was much the same as they hear at SALT, silence and space.
“To judge distance here,” said Richard, who owns a farm on the Calvinia side of Ceres “take an estimate and double it”. To drive from Sutherland to Beaufort West take as far as your eye can see and triple it and I’ll bet that’s not even half way there.
Thanks to a tip from a fellow traveler, I left the back windows of the canopy on the Isuzu, slightly open and how pleasant it was to decant from the bakkie into a friendly B&B in the Camdeboo Conservancy on the Aberdeen side of Graaf Reniet without having to mine my belongings from under a layer of fine Karoo dust.
And what heaven to sit close to a log fire warm inside while the frost gathered on lawn in the dark outside.
Thanks to Reeds for their service of the Isuzu diesel bakkie before I left Cape Town to join the runners of the Cross Karoo Challenge — an off road journey from Durban to Velddrift which begins with the up run of the Comrades Marathon from Durban to Pietermaritzburg and endsat the finish of the Berg River Canoe Marathon at Velddrift on the Cape West Coast.