Heading south from Cradock (Nxuba) on the N10, we pass the intriguingly-named Daggaboer Farm and Padstal, head up into the hills and come to a sign on the right that says ‘Witmos Oxwagon Camp’.
For now, however, we don’t turn in here. Because of foot-and-mouth disease restrictions, access on this dirt road is limited. We drive on about 15km, and follow the next sign to Witmos.
Most people who have never been here before expect a cute little oxwagon camp just off the highway. Wrong! This special place is far from the hubbub of the N10, with its hordes of manganese trucks either heading down fully-laden to Coega, or returning empty to the mines of the far-Northern Cape.
We find ourselves removed from big lorries and tar roads, heading deep into the southern tip of the Sneeuberg mountain massif. We cross a railway line several times and drive within sight of the Great Fish River and its spiderweb of agricultural canals irrigating vast lands of maize via massive centre pivots.
Rain has recently blessed this region, and the herds of dairy cows are fat and frisky. Everywhere is Irish green, with thorny riverine bush and blue-flowering plumbago, candelabras and Cape aloes on the hills, alongside lime-toned spekboom and high cliffs streaked with dassiepis.
The oxwagon camp
Over the rutted roads we go, ascending to the Witmoskloof farmhouse, to meet owners Katrina and Anton Nel, two young entrepreneur-farmers who seem to have extraordinarily busy lives. They lead the way through the bush, crossing gurgling mountain streams, to the encampment of wagons, tucked into the mountain folds.
We first enter an elegant wagon house, with a well-equipped kitchen, where fresh drinking water, warm home-made bread, farm butter, and jam are welcome gifts.
There is a massive yellowwood dining table that seats 14, a lounge and a large fireplace. Winters here are cold, but very cosy inside. Outside is a ‘super-donkey’ wood-burning geyser, designed and built by a modern-day version of Cradock’s artisans, Christo Schoeman of Cradock Wrought Iron.
This is by no means a hardship camp. On the coffee table lie two landmark books on oxwagons: Erik Holm’s Die Ossewa en Sy Spore and Jose Burman’s Towards the Far Horizon: The story of the Ox-wagon in South Africa. If you have a spare hour or two, it’s really worth diving into these tomes.
Stepping out to the back, we find a circle of seven wagons, with a centre braai area for the evening fire. We look up and see how the mountains ring this place. Dotted on the verdant slopes are thorn trees and shepherd trees, with occasional clumps of grazing springbok and mountain reedbuck.
Historical eyes
By looking around through the lens of history, a fuller picture of this place emerges.
Not far away, on a broad-shouldered mountain called Buffelskop, lies South Africa’s first novelist, Olive Schreiner, buried in a sarcophagus alongside her baby, her dog Nita, and her husband Cron.
Working as a governess on a number of farms in this area, Schreiner also wrote The Story of an African Farm and a number of other novels in her spare time. The harsh but beautiful environment made up many of the landscape settings in her works.
Olive and Cron stayed on nearby Krantzplaas Farm for five months, during which time she fell in love with the views from Buffelskop.
“We must be buried here, you and I, Cron. I shall buy one morgen of this mountain top, and we must be buried here,” she told her husband.
Olive died in Cape Town in December 1920. Upon his return from a trip to Europe, Cron had her exhumed from the Maitland cemetery. He travelled north with her body, picking up the coffins of ‘Baby’ and the dog at De Aar en route.
By then, the stone crypt on Buffelskop had been built, and thus began the arduous trek for Cron and his friends, to carry the three coffins up to their final resting place. Cron was later interred here with his family. Buffelskop is a literary landmark nowadays, and is regularly visited by Schreiner fans.
Francois and Narina
Just south of where we are travelling is Kokskraal Farm, where a jaunty young French adventurer and naturalist called Francois le Vaillant courted a ‘fair Gonaqua maid’ called Narina. He loved her so much he named a bird after her, the Narina Trogon.
His sojourn in this area lasted from October to December 1782, as he camped with his three wagons full of food, brandy, fancy outfits and specimen drawers. During that time, he studied the various indigenous clans of Khoi and Xhosa, and wrote extensively in his journals about how they lived, how they raised their children, what they ate, and armed themselves with.
The way of wagons
Cradock, our home town up the road, was where northbound adventurers and prospectors stopped over to gather supplies and have their wagons serviced by the many wheelwrights living in Market Street in their artisans’ cottages.
Those wagon menders’ cottages were rescued in later years by Sandra Antrobus, a visionary farmer’s wife who restored more than 30 of them, as well as the Victorian-era hotel on the corner.
This was to become Die Tuishuise and Victoria Manor Hotel, a deep tribute to the wagon train pioneers of the 1800s.
Bear in mind that, for more than 200 years, the wagon in its various forms ruled the roads of South Africa. At one stage, more than 100 000 wagons were in service across the country, making their manufacture the major national industry.
It was first used by Capetonians, then by hunters chasing the vast herds of the interior, then trekboers heading up-country, followed by missionaries opening up new congregational grounds, then settled farmers.
Later the Groot Trek wagon trains followed, then both sides during the Anglo-Boer War. It was only in the early 20th century that the steam train and the motor vehicle took their place.
On most farms of the Karoo, if you nose about the homestead, you will still find the remains of the old family oxwagon, gently rotting under a bluegum tree.
The evening braai
On our first night at Witmos, the Nels bring a juicy ‘hanging rib’, light the big fire and we all settle in with a dram of whisky to hear their story.
Katrina comes from Alicedale village, where her parents, Elsa and Jan-Paul Barnard, turned mohair into fine blankets, carpets, curtains and clothing. “I literally grew up in a textile factory.”
Katrina, by now a fashion designer, joined the business in 2012. Ten years later, she took over her mother’s company, Elsa Barnard Mohair Carpets.
Anton Nel grew up on Witmoskloof Farm, and became a Springbok equestrian American Saddler. He was in the national team for six years and then went across to the US for six months, working in New Mexico and travelling around the country. He then returned to take over the family farm.
As we’re chatting, we hear the approaching sound of farm horses, the thud of their hooves and their nickering giving their presence away.
“I must have left the gate open,” says Anton, turning the sizzling lamb ribs at the fire. “They’ve come for the delicious blue buffalo grass here in the camp.”
Anton and Katrina were childhood sweethearts from their schooldays at Gill College in Somerset East (now KwaNojoli), and, in keeping with the relatively tough conditions of modern-day farming, are constantly working on income streams and different enterprises, mostly all linked to central agri-activities on Witmoskloof.
Katrina now owns a mohair shop at Rosehill Mall in Port Alfred called Sunday Child, Anton farms Angora goats, sheep and cattle, they sell freshly packed lamb in a box direct to urban clients, and they run the Oxwagon Camp.
“I realised one of the big problems that we as farmers have is that we are not marketers. We are brilliant production-wise. We can make food out of nothing and plant crops in the middle of the desert. But then we wait for somebody to take the stuff. Now I’m doing things like Facebook reels and social media just to build the brand,” says Anton.
How it began
“Back in 1999, we started thinking about providing some form of accommodation on the farm, first for hunters and then for tourists. My mother came up with the idea of an oxwagon camp,” explains Anton.
“She went off with my dad to a farm auction and bought an old wagon. At first, they didn’t know how to get it back to Witmoskloof, but then an old farmworker showed them how easy it was to take one of these wagons apart.”
Len Nel, Anton’s stepfather, began to develop a passion for restoring oxwagons. The seven (six of them are transport wagons, and the other one is a smaller mule wagon) in the present-day camp all come from within a 300km radius of the farm.
In 2019, the wagons were given an expensive makeover, the wagon house was upgraded and the young Nels, who had taken over the project, were seriously into the oxwagon tourism business.
Nowadays, rough-riding vehicle clubs like the Jimny crowd, the Land Cruiser mob, family groups, and hiking groups looking for mountain trails book into the Witmos Oxwagon Camp.
They ordinarily spend time there for days at a stretch, hiking the hills, birdwatching, swimming in the farm dam, partying around the firepit at night, and simply chilling out in the middle of a bushy mountain nowhere.
Bedding down
After the braai, once the Nels head for home, we have a hot shower, watch bats flitting overhead and finally snuggle into our wagon, on a large and comfortable bed.
We fall asleep to the song of the fiery-necked nightjar, ‘Good Lord, deliver us’.
As a six-year-old, Olive Schreiner spent 21 days in an oxwagon, travelling through the Eastern Cape.
She never forgot the campfires, snorting of cattle and the “frightening, star-filled nights” that made her long for the dawn.
In the morning after a deep sleep while horses contentedly munched their precious grass nearby, we fling open the canopy of the oxwagon cocoon.
We look out on a glorious dawning world, a scene of total solitude and sounds of nature, with not another soul in sight.
With a cup of coffee to hand, we sit on the steps of the wagon and realise what a birdwatcher’s haven this is.
A mountain wheatear (bergwagter) whistles a clear, plaintive song, a pair of resident Verreaux’s eagles can be seen hunting on the cliffs above, and a short-toed rock thrush inspects the braai area for remains of last night’s meaty feast. And we are convinced that we caught a glimpse of a rare black harrier.
The day stretches out before us, offering all sorts of choices. What next? Do we take a brisk walk, maybe climb a hill?
Or do we just have some breakfast and keep scanning the ridges for a birding ‘twitch’ or two?
Maybe we should just brew up another cup of coffee and then decide what to do with this day of splendid isolation spent in a time bubble of pioneering history deep in the Sneeuberg mountains.
For more information phone Katrina Nel on 073 880 0263, or Anton Nel on 083 686 9075. Email [email protected], or visit oxwagoncamp.co.za.
