Parking and Tsitsikamma

Tuesday 12 February 2013  

Knysna is full of parking men.  They leap out at you whenever you’re in the process of parking a car and start waving their arms importantly.  They make me feel uncomfortable and I do wish they’d go away.  Some of them get much too close behind me when I’m backing up and it’s possible somebody will get run over one of these days.  They also fly to my side when I’m trying to pull out.  One of them rushed across a car park the other day to help me back my car into a large empty space with no other cars in sight.  And they want tips.  I don’t have a problem with handing out tips to people but I’d rather hand over money for a service that I’d wanted in the first place.  Tipping the car parking men is the equivalent of tipping someone for coming and poking you in the eye.

Some of them are bona fide car park attendants who just overdo their job.  There are others Marjorie and I suspect of being chancers  - false parkers  –  more to be found along the road than in the car parks.  A particularly sickly and semi drunk individual is often hanging round outside the mall to try and take over your parking process.   So I was truly delighted yesterday to find that the Mall has made its underground parking free and that even when it isn’t free it’s extremely cheap.  And there’s not a gesticulating man in sight.     

After I’d parked the car and met up with Marjorie in Knysna, we went to Tsitsikamma National Park.  It’s a really beautiful place with long hill, woodland and seashore walks.  There are also all kinds of activities on offer for the more adventurous like abseiling through trees, kayaking great waves, snorkelling or boating.  Like most of the South African places I’ve been so far, it’s not crowded - even with a lot of cars in the car park,  People space themselves about and get on with different things.   I didn’t feel up to hurling myself through trees or across waves but the half hour speed boat ride looked fun so we booked for  the 5.00 o clock one.   

We ate lunch and then climbed to a high point to where Marjorie has placed a commemorative bench to her husband, Mike’s brother, David.   David and Marjorie lived down the road from the Tsitsikamma for years and he liked coming here.

  

Climbing and walking took most of the afternoon but we were still back early for the boat ride.  We were just sitting peacefully at the edge of the restaurant deck drinking tea when a 15 foot blind with a 15 foot iron pole at its base dislodged itself from above and came hurtling down to where we’d just been resting our arms.  I heard a kind of whooshing noise and did a very quick flinch.    Nobody did anything.  One of the waiters stared across at us and said, “That’s very heavy” rebukingly, as though we’d shifted the thing ourselves to spice up our dull afternoon.   We thought they might have offered to forego the bill for the tea, but they didn’t.   And then our boat ride was cancelled because we were the only pair to have booked and they claimed to need at least four people.  But Tsitsikamma Park, itself, is absolutely beautiful.

Because the boat ride was cancelled, we had time to drive into Storms River village.  David and Marjorie built their own house here and lived in it for years and Marjorie doesn’t come back often.  The house was beautiful and overlooked a forest.  When the government decided to raze the forest and build a social housing development there, instead, it was unpleasant, not only for David and Marjorie, but chiefly for the people who were forced to live in the development.  The houses are very small, built close together and mostly consist of one room, kitchen and bathroom – what we’d call a studio in England. Families are being moved into these.   They do have running water and sewage which many of the cottages which the families were forced to vacate did not.  But they do not have space and Marjorie can remember one young woman crying when faced with the move and saying, “But where am I going to put my furniture?”

We visited Marjorie’s old next door neighbours before we drove back to Rheenendal quite late. Tanya said that they’ve had baboons in the garden .  There are quite a few half eaten figs scattered on the table near my bedroom door.  Whatever next?