Do
I know Rodney2.doc
Words
1112 PO Box 833
05-07-2015 Underberg, 3257
DO I KNOW RODNEY?
By Brian Malgo (pen name for R J Stayt.
I
was asked by my friend, Rodney’s daughter if I write a little bit about our
friendship and, perhaps an anecdote or two for his 70th
birthday. So I sat down and bashed out
the following missive.
Do
I know Rodney? Well I’ll have to admit
knowing Rodney otherwise I’d be branded a liar. Am I expected to reminisce about Rodney? Do I make up nice stories or do I tell the
truth? Truth being stranger than
fiction as Rodney is strange, pretty much like myself. So the truth doth
follow.
Anecdotes? There are plenty, but I won’t bore the world
with page upon page of laughter and adventure.
One
day I was minding my own business at Eland Valley when this bakkie pulled up in
a cloud of dust and a scattering of peacocks.
Rodney had arrived!
(more)
Now
this old guy climbs out of the bakkie and wanders up to the office and
announces, “I am Rodney”. You could
have fooled me; I thought he was a labour inspector. “ I thought I’d just pop over and introduce myself to you folks.”
He announced and that was the beginning of an incredible friendship between two
families in the remote Drakensberg Mountains.
Peacocks? We referred to them as Peer Corks. We had a
high wind one evening and one of our peacocks got blown over the hill to Lake
Naverone where Rodney was the resort manager.
I got a snappy fax the next morning saying, “Accommodation, R50-00
PPPN.” PPPN meaning “Per peacock per
night!”
Lake
Naverone has a 1000 metre landing strip and a “donation landing fee” was called
for. One afternoon a plane was due to land with a couple of weekenders. The
aircraft arrived and lined up with the runway. The approach was perfect but the
pilot flared out the plane just a little low and bounced once, twice, three and
four times. Rod, of course, counted the bounces as landings and told the pilot
he had to pay two hundred Rand landing fees for four landings. Never mind, rod
laughed it of and we all smiled and the guests’ weekend began. They had a
(more)
wonderful
two days and vowed to return “as long as the landing fees were reasonable”.
Speaking
of adventure, Rod and I were the founder members of the Drakensberg Gardens
Geriatric Hiking Club; a world-renowned organisation, we liked to think. We had
a vast membership of just the two of us.
We organised hikes into the mountains on a good few occasions. Now these little hikes, little because we
were getting on in years and the walks got shorter and shorter, were all
unique. I remember (Rod, here comes an
expose of your navigation skills) when we decided to wander up to Engagement
Cave abovr the Garden Castle Parks Board office. We slogged along the pathway into the mountains eager to partake
in the adventures of the mountain range.
Rod, in the lead as always, claimed to be the expert and knows his
stuff. Hmm…… We followed the path and he announced, “ I know this area well.
I’ve been here before and we won’t get lost.”
Hmm…… Now the pathways were not
all that distinct but on we plodded.
The pathway started to get steeper.
We came to a division in the path and Rod announced, “We’ll go this
way”. We went left. Onwards and upwards
and it got more difficult as we scrambled ahead. We came to a spot where we actually had
(more)
to
climb the roots and branches of bushes to get on up. Eventually Rod said in a somewhat quiet and abashed way, “I think
we are lost!” as we contemplated the wall of shear rock ahead of us, “lets go
back and take another
look.” Well we eventually did get to our
destination,
well,
not all of us. I ran out of steam about two hundred metres away from our
target. How we, or should I say, I got
home was quite a feat in itself but I did survive.
Driving
along the road to Underberg one day we spotted a young but large lady walking
with a backpack on her back. Rod
suddenly announced, “There’s a double breasted mattress thrasher!” Rod loved the bird life of the mountains. That started a trend in naming obscure
birds, which I won’t go into now.
We
all went on leave and Rod took us on an adventurous trip for two weeks. We went off to Crystal Springs and spent
some time at the village of Pilgrim’s Rest, which of course we renamed “Pill’s Grim Rest.” What a wonderful holiday it was. We visited the Kruger National Park and came
across a lion busy, erm, shall we say, mating with his lioness. So now I can tell the grandkids about the
“Birds, Bee’s and Lions!”
(more)
We
travelled the area and saw wonderful things. We travelled on to Sun City where
we met and spent time with Neville and Moira, Rod’s sister and brother in law.
We gambling away our great fortunes in the Casino. I was really lucky winning R18-00 and so I called it quits. We all enjoyed a week of fun and laughter,
games and gambling. Rod and I actually
found the lost city and promptly lost it again.
The
climax of the holiday was when we arrived at Glen Afric. What a wonderful place. We met John and Jenny, Rod’s good friends
from way back when and enjoyed the wild for two days. We met Hamley the baby (seven metre BABY) giraffe who thought he
was one of us and took to licking Liz’s hair.
We met the Lions, the Zebras, the Hippos, the Elephants and their two
babies and just gloried in the sounds of the wild. John toured us around the establishment and we wandered through
the film set farmhouse of the TV series “Wild at Heart” and explored the tented
camp. What a wonderful adventure.
Rodney
and Barbara’s time was up at Lake Naverone and they were moving on to the
Cape. Rod and I sat around
(more)
the
braai with drinks clutched in our paws planning a huge project. Now this
project entailed a massive pipeline from Hermanus to Underberg. This great
venture was to deliver a good quality wine to the Berg. We have finally got to
stage three where we are still talking about the planning stage. And, as Rod
says, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”.
There
are so many more stories I could tell about this man but…….
And
so, my good friend, Rod, I lift my glass to mark your 70th birthday
and drink a toast to you for the friendship and care you gave us, never to be
forgotten. In fact mate, I’m gonna
lifst my glash zeveral ter… ter… timesh andz zrinked dooo yoooz me oldz buddzy!
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