How the railway bus brought life to the Tankwa.
On a road trip through the Tankwa my passenger, (my mom-in-law) suddenly instructed me to stop, nothing unusual in itself especially driving along the R355, this time however it was time for a field trip on foot. At the side of the road was a rusty pole lying next to what I had previously assumed, was a game trail. Little did I know this was actually a footpath to abandoned labourer’s houses less than 200m from the road. This was where she had lived after marrying my father-in-law. She then continued to tell the following story.
Many moons ago traveling around the country was a lot more interesting (read complicated) than it is now. Cars were the domain of the wealthy (School Principals, Bank Managers and Dominees) and roads outside the main centres were mostly gravel. Those who did not own cars were reliant on bicycles, trains, animals or the infamous SAR&H bus.
This experience was common for most people living and working in the Tankwa during the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. This is one of the tales retold by my mother-in-law during one of our many outings into the Tankwa. She had lived in the Tankwa from 1936 and only moved to Ceres many years later. She spent her time on a farm on the R355 roughly halfway between Ceres and Calvinia.
At the time getting even the most basic supplies was no easy feat, you couldn’t simply walk to the corner store, not that there were any, these were the days before the Tankwa Padstal, hard as that might be to imagine.
Traveling to the nearest towns took some serious planning. Your choices were limited to a donkey cart, bicycle or the SAR&H bus service.
The SAR&H bus service ran to every corner of the country and I don’t think there was anywhere they didn’t go. There was one small problem with this service and when you live in the Tankwa you were absolutely at the mercy of their odd timetable.
The bus would reach their closest stop on the R355 at about 2a.m., traveling from Ceres and arrive in Calvinia at around 6a.m. This would leave her with plenty of time for shopping for the week’s supplies before the bus departed Calvinia at 4p.m. heading back towards Ceres.
Image courtesy of – Aaron Martin W. Messelaar via Facebook
When I first heard these travel plans simply to go shopping I had so many questions. Why would you travel to Calvinia and not Ceres? Ceres at the time was a much bigger town than Calvinia with a larger selection of stores and being closer to Cape Town this also meant cheaper goods.
My mom-in-law in her quiet, sage old way answered:
“If I went to Ceres to shop, I’d be away from home for two days. I would’ve arrived in Ceres in the dead of night and had to wait for the stores to open later in the morning. The bus from Ceres to Calvinia only departed at 9p.m., which meant I would get back home after 2a.m. the next morning. That would have been two long days”.
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