I always, without fail, regret booking a camping site ahead of time. But, I also always, without fail, regret not booking somewhere and ending up wild camping in the Free State. Well, it only happened once, but it will hopefully only happen once. And so I booked ahead to stay at a campsite in Mashishing, after leaving the Kruger Park. I wanted to stay in Mashishing mostly (completely) because of the sound of the town name (Ma-shee-shing), because I love the sound of it and I want to be able to say Mashishing many, many times still, going forward. Mashishing used to be called Lydenburg but I think Mashishing sounds way better. What do you guys think of the name Mashishing?
The problem with booking at Mashishing though, was that it's a 4 hour drive away and I still wanted to visit the Sudwala caves, but I needed to get to my campsite in Mash.... ok I'll stop saying it now (but just for a while). I needed to get to my campsite by 5pm so it was cutting it fine, because I'd stayed too long at the waterhole watching the waterbuck and hippos, and then I'd taken the backroad (if you can call it that) out of the Kruger which was a much longer route, and so all of my super-chillness of the day had eaten into my time, more than I'd realised. But drifting is drifting and clock-watching is weird. So no regrets (until later that day). It did mean though that I had to hotfoot it across the mountains to the caves, to quickly go on a tour, and then race off again for another 2 hours of driving. I'd forgotten that nothing happens quickly in the sticks, and definitely not in the Mpumalanga sticks.
When I got to the Caves I was pretty horrified to see that I needed to hike up a very steep hill to the cave entrance, which took my unfit self a loooong time to do. I huffed and puffed all the way up, bought my ticket, then huffed and puffed (as quietly as I could) along the 600m cave tour route, as Simphiwe described the most fascinating history and geology of the caves. It was just me on the tour again (the same thing had happened at the Cango Caves in 2021), and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to ask all of my questions freely. Also, it was quiet, which was truly special when we came to a pool, deep in the cave, with the most still water I have ever seen. It was a mirror reflecting the rocks and crystals in such a way that my brain just could not make any sense of what my eyes were seeing. I love it when my brain gets that confused and starts bending around herself, looking for a sensory memory hook. But there was none to be found. It was just random beautiful upside down (maybe) reflected images of right way up (maybe) crystals and I couldn't tell one from the other. Perfectly frozen reflections of pure wonder. That was the best my brain could come up with, in the stillness and the quiet of the cave.
There are three stalagmites called the "praying nuns", with a fourth "nun" lying in front of them, in the Praying Cave. I may not have heard the story correctly but, apparently the fourth nun drank all the wine and passed out and the other three have been left praying for the past five million years (I presume they're praying for more wine?) which I think shows a tremendous perseverance / need for AA. It reminds me a bit of all of us Mzansi inmates during lockdown. I'm grateful at least that I didn't turn to stone back then. So, in the Praying Cave you can make a wish, any wish you like, and apparently the wish will come true. I, of course, prayed for world peace. Of course I did. Well, I should have... but actually, I didn't. That can't surely be a surprise, because... is there world peace? Nope. Aah, now I feel bad. Damn. Next time. I promise. In the meantime, I hope my prayer that the nuns get their wine helps them a bit, because five million years of prayer (and being nuns) deserves something. I was also given a chance to send a warning to my tribe about imminent danger, by banging on a rock that makes a loud gong sound ("gong" is also a pretty cool sounding word), but nobody came to attack me or rescue me, so it was a false alarm in the end.
I loved my caves tour so much that I forgot about my urgent need to be not drifting but racing, on the day. Luckily it was downhill to my car. I arrived at my Mashishing campsite in time, but I honestly didn't think I would make it there in one piece. I'm sorry to go on and on, but the potholes go on and on, and so I mention them a lot. A lot! And there were the biggest potholes I've seen (so far on my trip) outside of Mashishing. At one point I just parked Zukes in front of one, without a clue how to navigate this huge hole in the ground. The locals were hooting at me but I wasn't going to hurt Zukes just to avoid a fist fight with a 4x4 driving, unsympathetic Mashishinger. I managed to make it through/across/into/out of that pothole, and the next gazillion, but it took forever, so it was a miracle that I arrived in time. Maybe the nuns sent a prayer for me.
It was worth it though! What a beautiful spot. I camped alongside the dam and the ducks came to welcome me immediately. So friendly. The only other campers also came to welcome me, and after getting over their disappointment that I don't drink, they made me a lovely cup of coffee and we sat and kuiered for a while outside their caravan. I was so happy to be in this paradise, I decided to stay for another four days. A day later I packed up to leave. It wasn't that paradise wasn't still paradise, it was just that a large group of campers arrived to have a fishing weekend and, although they weren't noisy, it felt like too much people energy.
Actually they were a tiny bit noisy. They woke me up with their chatting at the crack of a very misty morning and, because fisherpeople do early mornings and I definitely do not, I decided to leave. But, as we know, the Universe likes to tease me endlessly, so as I started to pack my tent and tarp away the wind came up again, and again I had to jump through the comical hoops of folding a tarp as it flaps in the wind above my head. At least this time I had an audience. I have a system now though. It involves using rocks to weight the tarp down and then I fold it up in sections. It works. Us GenXers always find a MacGyver plan for everything. So, eventually I had my tarp all neatly folded up. Success. I just had to pack it away. But... It was really heavy and I was confused. That's when I realised I'd folded one of the rocks up inside of my tarp, and it was right in the very middle of the fold. I had to start again. Aaaargghhh. No! After lots of muttering under my breath to the Universe (there were ears listening so I was behaving much better this time) I finally had everything packed up and off I drove, away from Mashishing and Mpumalanga, back to Jozi and the comfort of a brick tent again. And more people adventures.
