We had no accommodation booked in Grahamstown, as usual. Roger was of the opinion that we could just park in a parking lot if there was no other option. Surprise, surprise!
Fortunately it did not come to that. We managed, thanks to a very helpful and friendly lady called Lolly at the Makana Municipal campsite office, to secure 2 nights on site 13, followed by another 2 nights on site 4 and finally 2 nights on no-man’s land, getting power from site 1. The camp was unique in that each site had an exclusive use ablution consisting of a shower, separate toilet, washing up area and built-in braai. Not too shabby for a municipal campsite!
Neither of us had been to Grahamstown before so, with one and a half days to go before the Arts Festival started, we set out to explore. The first stop was the 1820 Settlers’ monument where we collected all the tickets for the shows I had booked online. The main ticket office looked very well organised and I was instructed to put my credit card into a slot on a small printer. The next moment it started churning out a long string of tickets – ours. It was most impressive.
Then we drove through town and familiarised ourselves with all the venues for the shows we had booked. These were saved on the Garmin and I assure you this was a great idea; it prevented a lot of stress when time was limited between performances, even though you can drive anywhere in the town in 5 minutes flat. That is before the festival of course; during the festival is quite another story!
Next we went to the Coelacanth display at the SA Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. Since I read JLB Smith’s book called ‘Old Four Legs’ many years ago I have been fascinated by the discovery of this ancient fish which was thought to be extinct. Being divers ourselves, the account of the discovery and subsequent filming of live Coelacanths in Jesser Canyon at Sodwana Bay added to the fascination. Sodwana Bay is seen as a discovery site, whereas the other locations (Comoros, etc.) were not newly discovered; local fishermen always knew they were there, it was only new to the scientists.
Grahamstown is steeped in history and of course the architecture that goes with it. We did not visit all the historic sites but maybe next time…
On Friday evening John and Gillian Readman, our friends from Empangeni, joined us for dinner and a catch up at the Long Table Restaurant. During the Festival a hall in town is transformed into a rather unique and popular restaurant by two enterprising ladies. Five long tables with chairs run the length of the hall with the food on display on tables below the stage. On entering the hall near the stage you join a queue, make a selection of food from a chalk board menu, pay, and wait for it to be dished up before finding a place to sit at one of the ‘long’ tables. The food is great and the place is a hive of activity.
When we got back to camp we noticed that the neighbours on site 5 were busy whacking in tent pegs in the dark, so Roger went over to offer a light. After a few minutes Roger realised the guy he was chatting to was familiar. Andrew Hart and Roger matriculated at Jeppe together! He and his family now live in Cove Rock, East London. The same place where Roger stayed between flights when he worked for Speed Services. What a small world it is! There was a lot of catching up for the next hour or so – over a glass of red wine of course.
Then there was the National Arts Festival, the main reason for being here – in winter! But speaking of winter, we were lucky to again have berg wind conditions which meant that the first four days of our stay were very warm and pleasant. The last two, however, were absolutely freezing, with the temperature inside Ufudu reading 3 degrees C in the morning!
We went to 15 shows and a few art exhibitions in between. Of the shows we attended there were at most three that were mediocre, the rest were all excellent. It was a wonderful experience and now that we know what it is all about I am sure we will be back.
After six nights in Grahamstown we were ready to move on but were still considering staying for an extra day to go to more shows. The urge to move on won the day. We are no longer accustomed to all the hectic traffic and activity!