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Why Limpopo? The Great Unknown

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Why on earth head for the province furthest from Cape Town and the Western Cape?  Well, apart from seeing a really special friend, it was the great unknown – the area between Pretoria and South Africa’s border with Zimbabwe.

What had captured my imagination, though, was a thorough make-over that occured around 2002.  Northern Province became Limpopo, and most important towns changed names too.

Now no-one can argue that the province’s new name is a vast improvement, but name changes for towns, districts, rivers, etc, are a more emotional issue when they are politically motivated (in the name of nation-building), as well as being a costly change.  How long before the body of public knowledge (and maps) catches up?  Microsoft’s Virtual Earth hasn’t even started reflecting the changes.

Limpopo’s branding, website (www.golimpopo.com) and marketing have positioned the province very well – South Africa’s preferred eco-tourism destination – but needs to do much more.  The brand may be known to those close to the province, but it’s still a new brand and means little to international tourists.

The three strongest elements of the destination brand are Kruger National Park (most of which lies in Limpopo), “Big Five” and “bushveld”.

Limpopo’s capital is Polokwane (Pietersburg), a city who’s only claim to brand fame is the ANC’s 2008 Polokwane Conference, the catalyst for the splintering of the ANC ahead of 2009’s general elections.  Few towns in the province stand out as strong destination brands.

My only point of reference here are the towns of the Western Cape – Cape Town (with Table Mountain, a leading global brand), Stellenbosch and the winelands, Hermanus and its whale-watching, Gansbaai – the Great White Shark capital of the world, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route… and all the other towns that have differentiated themselves with unique branding propositions.  Brands are all about experiences.

Limpopo’s towns, once I’ve learnt their names, don’t immediately differentiate themselves in my mind by virtue of memorable scenic attractions or activities that set the towns apart.

So that’s what I’m going to have to find out for myself.  And I have the feeling that it’s not – in most cases – going to be the towns that emerge as destinations but rather specific areas.

The province is divided in six districts (with main centres in brackets) – Waterberg (Modimolle), Vhembe (Thohoyandou), Mopani (Giyani), Sekhukhune (Groblersdal) and Capricorn (Polokwane) – which, apart from Waterberg, give no clue to their attractions.

The Waterberg Biosphere is the first region in the northern part of South Africa to be named as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, and covers and area of 15,000 square kilometres.  The latest Biosphere in the province is the Limpopo Transfrontier Park.

Context is always important so it’s useful recording some important statistics here, for reference, even if they are a little outdated (about 2003/4).

Province	Capital	Population (millions)	Area (km2)	GRP (billions)	Per capita GRP
Eastern Cape	Bhisho	7.1	169,580	R101.1	R13,755
Free State	Bloemfontein	2.9	129,480	R69.1	R23,819
Gauteng	Johannesburg	8.8	17,010	R413.6	R43,111
KwaZulu-Natal	Pietermaritzburg	9.7	92,100	R206.8	R19,478
Limpopo	Polokwane	5.5	123,910	R81.3	R13,691
Mpumalanga	Nelspruit	3.2	79,490	R87.5	R25,108
North West	Mafikeng	3.8	116,320	R81.4	R19,870
Northern Cape	Kimberley	0.9	361,830	R29.6	R28,183
Western Cape	Cape Town	4.6	129,386	R181,1	R35,475

So Limpopo is South Africa’s poorest province.  Now that surprised me because I had thought that the Eastern Cape or Northern Cape would occupy that position.

But Limpopo has SA’s fastest-growing economy at 6.8%, more than double the national average of 2.8%.  Nevertheless, it’s unemployment rate of 36.1% is also the highest in South Africa.

And that’s something that’s set to get worse given Limpopo’s reliance on mining, where the global slowdown is affecting the mines.  Tourism is more resilient than mining, and can absorb economic swings more easily.

Economic sector	% contribution to GRP
Other services	31.1
Mining	21.8
Government services	18.2
Trade & tourism	11.8
Transport & communication	8.6
Manufacturing	3.8
Agriculture & forestry	2.5
Construction	2.1

When the rebuilding of Zimbabwe starts in earnest and peace returns to that once prosperous land, Limpopo along with Botswana and Mozambique will all benefit from increased trade and tourism.  But from what I’ve seen and read so far, it has all the attributes to be a winning South African province.

To help us learn more about the soul of the province, CapeInfo has opened a new blog – Myths & Memories – where the public can add their favourite stories and legends, or capture oral history for posterity.

Tags: Limpopo, tourism, Waterberg Biosphere
Posted in Limpopo, Travels | No Comments »

Five of SA's nine provinces in one day!

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Today’s plan is to drive until I’ve had enough – and I’m not accustomed to long drives.  That does mean hourly stops for the animals’ piepie breaks and walks, and those are rarely short because Akela loves sniffing and there are so many strange smells.  She can spend 10 minutes smelling a single leaf – I’d love to know what she can tell.

The day started off spectacularly – our early morning long walk was under a blanket of bright stars.  I seem to have grown more appreciative of the Karoo landscape too – the varying vegetation and always the spectacular mountain ranges, like those above on the road to Beaufort West.

The telephone poles alongside the road tell the story of changes in information technology – a once busy telephone pole now only carries two strands of wire.

I’m starting to get used to the Sony A200 DSLR camera and it seems impossible to take a bad photograph with it.  I’ve only been using the Auto setting and must still explore the manual overrides.  I love the way it starts focussing as you bring it to your eye and the speed of taking the pic and saving it.  No lag at all!

I tried the SatNav on my Blackberry cellphone for the first time and was surprised to see the distance to Mokopane was about 1,500km.  I thought it was more… could it be reached in one day?

Beaufort West really surprised me… it has character!  I remember it from 20 years ago as a rather dusty and easily-forgettable town.  If this wasn’t a drive north with a mission I would have stopped to explore.  Another time.

Breakfast was beckoning and the Shell UltraCity before Three Sisters proved to be the perfect stop.  It was, without doubt, the best National Road service station I encountered in the trip north.  (The worst was a BP stop on the outskirts of Bloemfontein.)  Staff made eye-contact when they spoke to you, they were outgoing and very friendly.  And of course nothing beats a toasted bacon and egg sandwich.

There was a great playground for kids (no pets please!) and an equally great place to walk and water pets.

The last time I drove this route I remember being bored out of my mind.  I must have changed because I appreciated the scenery far more than before.  But then I remember looking at Hermanus’ mountains in 2004 and thinking, “Strange that I never noticed how beautiful they are are before.”

In the past 20 years I’ve driven more national roads in France and the USA than I have in SA, and ours leave much to be desired.  I wondered if a better legacy project for 2010 shouldn’t have been a proper freeway between Cape Town and Johannesburg.  Now that would generate a lot of jobs!

As one drove out of the Western Cape, traffic police patrolling the N1 were replaced by traffic police hiding alongside their speed traps, while large, articulated trucks drove in convoys of six, making overtaking a slow and dangerous business.

The approaches to Bloemfontein arrived with a proper freeway system but enjoying the decent road wasn’t to last for long, and was replaced by the most irritating feature of road travel in the Free State, Gauteng and Limpopo – toll roads!

If these were engineering wonders, or spectacular roads along scenic routes, they might be justified.  But all the toll roads I experienced fall far short of freeway status and most were plagued by road works.

The whole of the Western Cape has two toll roads – the Huguenot Tunnel on the N1 between Paarl and Worcester, and Chapman’s Peak Drive.  All other national roads are free.  I lost count of the number of toll plazas between Bloemfontein and Mokopane, and the cost must have been around R200.  It’s iniquitous and a sign of public sector incompetence.  A cop out!

Imagine if the Western Cape had to levy a special tourist tax for visitors from these provinces, to level the playing field.

As dusk and Johannesburg approached, Blackberry’s SatNav – or Vodafone’s SatNav to be more accurate – really came into it’s own.  Using it chews up the cellphone’s battery but luckily, with no car charger, I kept the battery going by charging the phone from my laptop.

One learns to rely on SatNav so quickly… at the expense of all inner sense of direction, even glossing over road directional signs in favour of Blackberry’s directions and instructions.  And this was how I found myself on the M1 South at about 7pm on a Friday.

The outbound lane was crawling at a snails pace as a result of a rather gruesome accident.  The speed limit (due to construction work) on my side was 80km/h; I was doing 100km/h and was – by far – the slowest vehicle in sight.

And then there was another realisation – Joburg’s motorways have no street lighting and rarely have road verges where you can pull over!  I had arrived in the Wild West and darkest Africa in one fell swoop.  Eskom must love Joburg Municipality!

The M1 North to Pretoria offered more delays caused by accidents and drivers pushing their luck when they saw a gap.  French taxi drivers would be at home here.  The Great North Road (N1) is littered with toll plazas and, given the heavy traffic on the road, seems to be way under specification.

The solution seems easy to me.  Let Jacob Zuma pay his own legal bills and transfer what’s saved there as well as the budget for politicians’ protection units to road building.  Those cool dudes in their dark glasses and hearing aids could be redeployed…

“That was a long drive!” Kenya just crashed.

Enough of those flights of fancy… the reality is I drove over 1,500km in a day, I saw five of South Africa’s nine provinces in one day.  I had arrived in Mokopane/Potgieterusrus in Limpopo Province.  Who would ever have thought that I would visit Potties!

It’s not that onerous a journey, even driven alone, and it does give one a unique perspective of South Africa’s incredible landscape.

Tags: Beaufort West, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Limpopo, Mokopane/Potgietersrus, N1, Sony A200 DSLR
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The Road to Prince Albert

Friday, February 13th, 2009

The plan was not to dally in the Western Cape, where so much is already familiar, but head for Mokopane in Limpopo – SA’s northernmost province and the furthest from Cape Town – as quickly as possible.  I’ve never been there and, of SA’s nine provinces, know least about it.  But the first stop is Prince Albert, a Karoo town that has always fascinated me but never visited.

But first, Akela must go to the vet.  In 10 years, she’s only been ill once before but she’s limping slightly as though she has pulled a ligament.  A thorough investigation by the vet found nothing wrong, but it’s still worrying because she is obviously uncomfortable.

The route from Elgin to Worcester along the R321 takes one across the huge Theewaterskloof dam, which has a perimeter of 82 kilometres, and through the town of Villiersdorp.  (The R45 takes one over Franschhoek Pass and is part of the Three Passes route that all visitors to Cape Town should explore.  The other passes are Helshoogte outside Stellenbosch and Sir Lowry’s Pass above Somerset West.)

Theewaterskloof Dam with Villiersdorp in the top righthand corner

This route enters Worcester at its back door.  And the initial impression of a third world town!  Thank goodness we needed to stop to buy a media card and USB connection or card reader for the camera, otherwise we would never have seen anything of Worcester.

I haven’t been in Worcester for 20 years and it’s certainly no third world town!  A quick look at CapeInfo’s population page shows that it’s the third most populous municipal area in the Western Cape with shopping to match.

What surprised most though were the streets lined with beautifully preserved historical buildings away from the main street.  When we do return to the Western Cape, this will be one town worth exploring in more detail.

And for one used to the grandeur of Table Mountain, I was surprised by the awesome mountain ranges surrounding Worcester.  It was already a hot and hazy midday, but I can imagine them in the early morning and evenings, when their colours will change in the crisp light, or snow-capped in winter in the even crisper light.

Thinking of winter always reminds me of the first time I met Otto Stehlik (Protea Hotels’ chairman) some 30 years ago.  He bemoaned the way Capetonians complain about weather… “winter in the Cape provides many days which can only be described as Champagne Weather.”  So true!

Leaving Worcester surrounded by it mountain peaks, the road north impresses with mountains that almost seem to be lying on their sides.  All the mountains of the southwestern Cape were formed by the folding of the old Richtersveld mountains (north of Cape Town and no longer existing) which were formed 800 million years ago.  Table Mountain was formed between 250–540 million years ago but its present shape is about 60 million years old.  (Mount Everest was formed 40 million years ago; the Alps in Europe ‘only’ 32 million years ago.)

Isn’t this place just too amazing?

Next is a compulsory stop at Matjiesfontein just before Laingsburg – it is a step into another world.

The brainchild of a Scottish immigrant, James Logan, Matjiesfontein Village with the Milner Hotel opened in 1889.  The Cape Railways had extended as far as Kimberley, and travellers needed somewhere to eat and refresh – dining cars did not exist.

Matjiesfontein became a fashionable watering place, attracting those who could afford to seek relief for chest complaints in its clear, dry air, and entertained many distinguished visitors. Lord Randolph Churchill is still remembered for “borrowing” a hunting dog which he never returned.

Olive Schreiner lived in there own cottage here for five years, writing “Story of an African Farm”. Today her small cottage is a landmark in the village. Rudyard Kipling, on his first call at the Cape, made a special journey inland specifically to visit her.

No doubt, the Anglo-Boer War boosted Logan’s fortunes when it supported a base hospital and 12,000 troops were garrisoned there.

In the late 1960s, David Rawdon, hotelier best known for Lanzerac Hotel in Stellenbosch and the Marine Hotel in Hermanus, purchased the whole Village. After extensive renovations, Rawdon re-opened the property in 1970 and renamed it The Lord Milner Hotel.

Matjiesfontein - Lord Milner Hotel and a village caught in a 1900's time warp

The road north opposite the Matjiesfontein turnoff leads to Sutherland – SA’s coldest town and home to the giant telescopes that gaze into space.  Now that’s somewhere else I still want to visit.

And then on to Prince Albert Road – a railway station that also marks the turnoff to this typical Karoo town about 30 minutes from the N1.  Then it’s another mountain range – the Swartberg – that imposingly lines the horizon as one approaches the town nestled in its valley.

Approaching Prince Albert I had a sense of deja vu – there is a gap in the mountain range behind the town, with more mountains behind the gap.  There is a village in the spectacular Gorge de Verdun (Europe’s largest canyon) in southern France with an almost identical setting… I just cannot remember the name.  (Would someone like to help?)  There, a large cross is suspended in the gap, giving the village almost pilgrimage status.

The first stop was the info office, where there was some confusion about where we were going to stay.  The tourism officer was away and the office was staffed by a newbie.  A local who popped in helped with a few numbers to call – and cautioned me not to mention that one of the animals was a wolf!

Ten minutes later we were following Merle to a house she thought would be ideal – Elle editor Jackie Burger’s house, for R170 the night.  Now this promised to be something special – Jackie is one of those rare people who combines great depth with style.  Grounded.  Other houses I’ve loved staying in were two in Arniston belonging to architect/professor Ron & Davina Kirby and artist Alice Goldin.

Kanniedood, Jackie Burger's charming and so-appropriate Karoo getaway.

Kanniedood (can’t die) – which takes its name from an indigenous aloe – is set in a large indigenous garden.  It’s a simple yet very comfortable Karoo cottage – perfect to absorb a little bit of Prince Albert’s charm. This is just an overnight stop but the stoep did beckon as a place to while away time, contemplating the engraved tablet fixed to the wall or the stars which fill the sky so brightly at night.

But no time to enjoy it now, in 90 minutes I’m meeting a really great friend I haven’t seen for 20 years, Elaine Hurford – property agent, author, house restorer and one of the brightest sparks I know – and I still needed to explore a bit of the town.

And Prince Albert did exceed expectations.  It made me think of a more authentic, less pretentious version of Franschhoek, an oasis in a much harsher environment. It also reminded me of Stanford’s dedication to maintaining its built heritage (click here).

Prince Albert has one of the prettiest main streets in the Western Cape

Elaine couldn’t believe that I would make Prince Albert just an overnight stop, but it was a stop that convinced me to return and discover more.  Maybe the Olive Festival at the beginning of May?

She made a very valid point about Capetonians lack of enthusiasm (or is it awareness) for the Karoo – they will happily drive the 5-6 hours to Knysna and Plett for a weekend, but rarely consider 3.5 hour trip to Prince Albert.  Maybe that’s what has kept the town special.

Although I hadn’t seen Elaine for about 20 years, it felt like catching up with a friend I’d seen just a few weeks previously – except for all the catch-up.  She moved to Prince Albert after a brief visit returning to Cape Town from Grahamstown.  She restored a delapidated old farm house on the edge of town and turned it into a much sought-after guest house and acclaimed national monument. And today she’s the Pam Golding property agent in the town.

Now that’s what makes a visit special – discovering a new destination and an old friend.

For more on Prince Albert, click here.

Tags: Akela, Matjiesfontein, Prince Albert, Sutherland, Swartberg, Theewaterskloof Dam, Worcester
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