Port Nolloth Road

Charmain Meier (Heusdens) · August 19, 2007, 06:11:15 AM

Remember the sand road between Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth? How many years did we not wait for it to be tarred? Well, I left Oranjemund and it had not been tarred yet, but I believe it was tarred a couple of years ago. It was a total nightmare when it rained!! On one of our trips we were stuck in water up to window level!!!

Charmain Meier (Heusdens)

Nicky Hodge · August 19, 2007, 06:40:16 AM

Hi Charmain, who could forget that road? The next worst thing after the rain, was the notorious mist. Firstly, one had to negotiate the Port Jollie road, and then in the early days, the Steinkopf road. Over the years, many lives were claimed, not to mention the near misses. It was an adventure all on it's own.

Michael Alexander · August 19, 2007, 08:24:17 AM

Well the road was tarred a good few years back, nice drive, about half way, the road takes a dip, into what is known as the Holgat canyon. About a year and a half ago, there was a cloudburst upstream from this normally dry canyon, the water built up due to the runoff pipe under the road being blocked and also being to small. A lake in the desert resulted... and eventually the road, which was acting as a dam wall at this stage gave way.....this happened on a saturday morning, trapping a few Oranjemunders in Port Nolloth for a few days... Somebody took these pics, not sure who though...... but might be of interest to a few of you....

Michael Alexander · August 19, 2007, 08:32:43 AM

And a few more.....the power of nature!

Delia · August 20, 2007, 11:18:59 AM

the notorious port nolloth road - hitting cape town one weekend (can't remember who all i was with) we got stuck after heavy rains the night before & gary wilson, the charmer that he was, somehow managed to convince us girls to push & he would steer the car out - there we were in our socks up to our ankles in mud pushing like crazy with gary at the wheel shouting the odds.

another incident was kenny aitken, mark laubscher and myself coming back from cape town on sunday night, wrote my very first car off on the port road - not sure exactly what happened, kenny was driving, i was sleeping - i got woken up with my stack of lp's slamming into my gut from the impact.

also had a little red Volksie which succumbed to this stretch of hell - again after heavy rains, the wheels got caught in ruts left by trucks and spun me off the road into the fence.

after all the above and many more minor incidents, i vowed to throw the biggest party at Holgat the day the road got tarred - can't remember if it was tarred when i left in 1993 but alas, no party was thrown.

Speedy · September 06, 2007, 02:09:32 PM

Hi there,

It was in 1983 and I had just turned 19. I was at the Cape Town Technicon and was driving back home to Oranjemund for holidays. I phoned my dad from Port Nolloth village to inform him that I was about to hit the notorious dirt road and would be at the gate in about 2 hours. It started raining and my dad's old Chevrolet Rekord was fully packed all my stuff. After about an hour, I couldn't see more than 10 meters ahead and found myself in a ditch with water up to the 50 cm deep. The car was stuck. Not to worry, I got out of the car through the window, managed to place a rock on the accelerator (automatic gearbox) and then I lifted and pushed as hard I could from the rear end. The car finally spanned out of the ditch and I have to make a very fast dash back in before she skidded away.

I finally made it to the gate after 5 very painful hours and I remember my fa

Speedy · September 06, 2007, 02:15:45 PM

Hi there,

It was in 1983 and I had just turned 19. I was at the Cape Technicon and was driving back home to Oranjemund for holidays. I phoned my dad from Port Nolloth village to inform him that I was about to hit the notorious dirt road and should be at the bridge in, say about 2 hours time.

It started raining and my dad's old Chevrolet Rekord was fully packed all my stuff. After about an hour, I couldn't see more than 10 meters ahead and lost control of the car. I found myself in a ditch with water up to the 50 cm deep. The car was stuck. Not to worry, I got out of the car through the window, managed to place a rock on the accelerator (automatic gearbox) and then I lifted and pushed as hard I could from the rear end. The car finally spanned out of the ditch and I have to make a very fast dash back in before she skidded away.

It was late at night when I finally made it to the bridge and I will always remember my father's face behind gate.

Raymond.

Vikki de Jager (Summers) · September 08, 2007, 02:16:25 PM

I remember my parent's car sliding about in the clay/mud on that road and the deep tracks left by trucks and cars that had already slid around. There was a side road at that stage so you could guess which would be the safest - most people went back and forth between the two as they both generally ended up in a mess. You could easily see if someone had been on that road after some rain as their cars were covered in mud.

The only good thing about the Port Nolloth dirt road was that there was the potential to delay the buses transporting Oranjemund Boarding School kids back to school. We also used to wish for rain or at least heavy mist when we had to fly back to school. I remember the occassional flight being delayed due to the heavy mist. The delays just prolonged the inevitable stress of parting from parents and friends so it probably made it worse, but every half hour felt like a victory !

Ann Gander (nee Greenway) · September 09, 2007, 01:37:27 PM

I can remember in 1964 (!) going on holiday to Durban via Cape Town. The road from Oranjemund to CapeTown was only tarred half way down (about 300 miles from Oranjemund) - can't remember where the tarmac started (think it might have been somewhere around Garies?) but I know we were all very pleased to see it because it was mud all the way! A real white-knuckle ride as you would say! ;D

Malcolm Bertoni · November 07, 2007, 09:59:49 AM

Hi

What about the sandstorms along the Port Nolloth road? I remember going on leave in 1971 or 72 and a sand storm blew up just after leaving Dunvlei. Couldnt see more than 5-10 meteres even with the lights on and it took about 2 hours to hit the tar on the other side of Port Nolloth.

By the time I got to Cape Town the duco had been stripped from the front of the car and the windscreen was a write-off. Had to get a new windscreen and a repaint job....

Malcolm

Julie Vice (Willson) · November 08, 2007, 01:32:16 PM

Hi Dee, I remember the red vollie. :emot186: got that for my 21st and sold it onto you.

I remember the first time we drove on the Port Nolloth road in 1973 in a Renault 5 from Natal. Mom, Dad, 4 kids, fully grown Alsatian and a trunk on the roof. That was the longest drive in my life and poor Mom kept say "not long now just over the next hill". We must have looked a sight arriving at the bridge.

Hi to all
Mike if you see Paula give her a slap from me :)
Julie

Delia · November 08, 2007, 02:10:09 PM

Hi Julie - aah, that red volla - had some magic times with it. i remember one time, i lent it to Jacques Laubscher for the day (i was working - he was on night shift and wanted to go down to the beach) - he said he would park it back in it's spot and leave the keys in the ignition (where have those days gone when u could do that).......anyway, when it was home time and i got into the car, he had "decorated" the inside with dead crabs - in the visors, all over the dashboard, the seats, every inch of the inside was covered in dead crabs - there must've been a walkout of these crabs on the beach for him to have collected so many.......could only be Jacques............

Julie Vice (Willson) · November 08, 2007, 02:37:54 PM

Hows this one..... the volla was having starting problems and someone told me it was the cold weather that was causing it, Theo Weyers I think. Anyway, he suggested I put a small towel over the engine at night, I bet you he did this after telling me that :emot19: So I did. The next morning, late for work...just for a change, dashed out, got into the car and off to work, down 8th Ave to the Bank.
Got to the round about and the car was screaming......only than did I remembered the towel keeping the engine warm. When I opened her up to have a look the towel had been pulled around the engine with the help of the fan belt. Martin van Staden had to cut the towel out of the engine.

georgswa (Georg Ruf) (RIP) · November 08, 2007, 04:12:23 PM

Quote from: Julie on November 08, 2007, 01:32:16 PM
Hi Dee, I remember the red vollie. :emot186: got that for my 21st and sold it onto you.

I remember the first time we drove on the Port Nolloth road in 1973 in a Renault 5 from Natal. Mom, Dad, 4 kids, fully grown Alsatian and a trunk on the roof. That was the longest drive in my life and poor Mom kept say "not long now just over the next hill". We must have looked a sight arriving at the bridge.

Hi to all
Mike if you see Paula give her a slap from me :)
Julie

That almost sounds like our trip also in 1973 May from PE to O-mund

VW Kombi,3 kids, Roof loaded, car filled. alsation dog was killed on the way up by an Oranjemunder Car speeding and never stopped, i recognized the guy later..

We came from PE, took 5 days

Arrived over the bridge, they had to call the large CDM bus to transport my goods.....

Does anyone remember my VW Bus, looked terrible but was perfect for us to go places and camp

Here on the canyon

http://www.dersofaladen.de/georg/html/canyon.html

Georg

Barbara Eia (Brownless) · November 08, 2007, 04:50:26 PM

I remember our trip to oranjemund when we left Tsumeb. My folks had a VW which had to be towed to oranjemund from tsumeb. David and i sat in the VW and it was fine untill we hit the dirt raod and had to go over the pass. We had sand everywhere. Couldn't speak as moth was full of it and VW looked like it had been through a sand storm inside. It was a nightmare going over that pass, didn't look wide enough for a car to go over it. We all though what hell hole are we going to.

Barbara