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Julien’s Journal

An even longer day…

 

  I have driven almost a thousand bloody kilometres today. I can only say it was barely worth it, not because my meeting in Pretoria with this guy, Sylvester wasn’t a success. I’m glad we got to meet because we’re doing the same sort of work and really helped each other. But what I had to put in for it was enormous. 1000 km worth of petrol ain’t cheap, no matter what currency you’re paying for it. Nor are the tolls on the N4 highway, especially when you have to pay twice coming up and down from Pretoria. The fact that the oil meter on my car was freaking out for some unknown bloody reason – I stopped and checked my oil 4 times today – didn’t help my sanity that much. It might be an electrical fault or something but the goddam thing makes a loud beeping noise whenever it reckons I’m out of oil (which was most of the drive today) and I almost suffered a heart attack whenever the bloody thing went off.

 

  Driving through the former homelands of South Africa in the Dark wasn’t a pleasant experience. People on the roads have very little regard for their own lives, let alone yours. I’d almost been driven off the road by the time I made it back to Wits Rural. I’d also become anxious with myself that I’d had some time off and really don’t have that much time to go (I’m about a third of the way through the trip) and the realisation that all the other students had gone, Derick had left and Priya was leaving on a couple of days induced quite a frightening feeling of loneliness. I was also prepared for the fact that the students I’d been staying with this last week would have gone back to Pretoria and I’d be in Bushcamp alone. The only way to deal with it I suppose is to keep busy, which will effectively kill two birds with one stone. It’s the third of February now, which means that in three weeks time I’ll be heading back so I’d better get a move on with what I want to do.

 

  All those negative feelings detracted somewhat from the fantastic scenery that I was lucky enough to drive through. Anyone who has driven from Joburg/Pretoria out to the East will tell you how beautiful the contrast in scenery from the hilly fields of the highveld to descending through the valleys and rocky rivers of the middleveld and then the land dropping all around you to reveal the open floodplain of the lowveld. I got to Nelspruit and headed North to Wits and as the sunset I could see incredible misty forested valleys and by the time I got to Bushbuckridge (which overlooks the lowveld) it was totally dark. I then looked out over the lowveld which I’m so used to driving through during the day and taking it as wilderness. It was lit up like the outer suburbs of Sydney. It’s incredible how populated this area actually is.

 

  So I’m back here now and have to get on with the job. I’ll go back out into the field by Wednesday (hopefully!) and expand on some of the stuff the farmers have given me so far. I’ve actually had a bit of a kick arse weekend, going down to Hectorspruit, enjoying the last night of the trip for the other students here. Getting a massive hangover and seeing them off on Sunday and then staying at a friend of Priya’s in Nelspruit doing the square root of fuck all. So, some days are good, some not.

 

I’ll speak to you soon,

 

Julien