2. An existing Tankwa ‘map’
3. Hike the Cederberg #2
4. Petrus Hanekom’s new book
5. AWOL Blog
6. A brand new beetle!
1. Back to the Tankwa: mapping field research complete
It’s a vast area and the completion of the field-research – driving all the public roads that will fall on the map – is virtually complete, just 4 700 kilometres later. That said, we had every imaginable experience, from the expected shredded tyre to kamikazi meerkats to roasted Karoo lamb at the Lord Milner, nogal. I think the pics can tell most of the story ...
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| People do silly things in the Tankwa ... we call these ‘Hopes and dreams’ because once these hotrods were brand new and shiny, the apples of someones eyes ... my great-granny had a car just like the second one, all shiny black |
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| Some Tankwa signs ... a whimsy, a warning and a wuttle |
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| And some Tunkwa birdies – a Tunkwa bustard and two Numukwaland sandgrouse ... |
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| Fauna and flora ... a gathering of locusts and a pretty aloe |
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| Alas, it is no more! The day before we arrived there (this is an older pic) it was burnt to the ground! We could not photograph it, swarming as it was with Worcester constabulary ... dark rumour has it that the local AWB had something to do with this. Send Hein and Susan Lange your support via contact us on our map website: I don’t want to publish their email online STOP PRESS: this good news just in from Hein and Susan:
The
shop opened again yesterday. It is small but working. We will start to
rebuild again within the next 2 weeks. A new (bigger mall) with less parking.
Regards, Hein &
Susan
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| Only in the Tankwa could you find a place with a lekker name like that ... it simply means ‘elsewhere’! The other is more prosaically-named Saaiplaas, but it’s a great looking guesthouse on the Komsberg Pass road [recommended]. Nearby a family of stok-stert meerkats ran right under our wheels on the brow of a hill. They all survived, somehow and happily so did we ... |
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| Just to prove that there is rock art in the Tankwa ... and that we really were at the railway museum at Matjiesfontein. It would’ve been classy to have served our loaded plates of roast Karoo lamb in this lovely old dining carriage, but the Lord Milner hasn’t thought of that yet ... |
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| Contrasting states of hospitality in the Tankwa ... it’s somehow comforting to know that the rude ones are only semi-literate [being unable to spell ‘jakkals’] |
2. An existing Tankwa ‘map’
I usually hesitate to comment upon other people’s maps. I know full well how easy it is to leave something out by mistake, or even to portray something incorrectly. No one should ever claim that their map is perfect – besides, every map is out of date the day after it is published [think about it]. However, one of the determinants when contemplating a new map of any area is a good look at what’s available ... and lo! Here’s map of the West Coast and Tankwa that proclaims [amongst other things] right on its cover, in bold capitals, that it is a ‘High detail information map’ [I shall henceforth refer to it as the HDIM]. It was published in 2013, so it can’t be badly out of date, and it says that great care was taken in its research and preparation. We decided to road test it, and, if we found it was a good map, to think again about publishing a competitor for it.
We did notice before we set out that the HDIM showed a (fictitious) public road linking Piket-Bo-Berg directly to Goedverwacht, which meant that no one had researched that properly; that no where on the HDIM could you find your way to the famous flowers at Biedouw; and that the name of ‘Tulbagh’ was incorrectly spelt, but none of those places are in the Tankwa, so why let that put us off?
I’ve been doing this mapping thing for 50 years and I think I am reasonably good at reading a map by now, so when I say that the HDIM got us seriously lost – twice – I have no hesitation in saying that this very low information, very inaccurate and carelessly-produced product [it has more than 60 serious errors of fact or omission on it] is an absolute disgrace, a rip-off that misleads, insults and totally disrespects its purchaser, and I am ashamed to think that tourists from here or from overseas might see this rubbish as the best that South African mapping can do ... I am commenting here as a consumer and user of the product, let me emphasize, not as a rival. This thing genuinely let me down twice, and one of them [a badly flooded drift not shown anywhere on the map, not even its river] was potentially dangerous: we had to make a 135 km detour ...
And as a result, we’ll be getting our map of the Tankwa out in 2015, without a doubt.
3. Hike the Cederberg #2
Towards the end of 2015 we’ll be looking at Edition #2 of this map – that’s nearly a year earlier than we expected – so treat this as advance warning that we are going to nag for new info, comments and ideas pretty soon ...
4. Petrus Hanekom’s new book
Good news for Cederbergiana fans (how’s that for a dreadful word-coinage!) is that Rudolf Andrag is assisting Petrus Hanekom with the publication of a new book of his tales and reminiscences of the Cederberg, especially around Algeria. Look out for it, hopefully it will be published quite soon.
5. AWOL Blog
This man got inveigled into answering some questions about mapping by AWOL Tours ... you can read about it [and see extraordinary old pics] here
6. A brand new beetle!
An off-shoot of researching ants for the Ant Atlasing project has been looking for ant-mimics – beetles, spiders and other goggas that for various nefarious reasons pretend to be ants. I’ve been using iSpot a lot in this work [if you’re not an iSpot person you should be – www.ispot.org.za]. I recently posted a sketch of a myrmecomorph [lekker word, means ant mimic, or ant-fraud if you prefer] that I found running around my garden, looking just like an ant.
It got the Beetle fundis all shook up, I can tell you. Turns out it’s probably a previously-undescribed genus [that’s genus, not a mere species hey]. What’s more, this afternoon I found another one, which from its colouring is probably the opposite sex.
They’re both safely in my freezer, pending transfer to the National Collection of Insects for further investigation ... there’s a couple of prominent politicians who could probably do with the same treatment.
Until next time ...
Kaartman October 2014
