Klipfontein 30 years on

I WAS at Klipfontein Dam over the  weekend, and it occurred to me that  it was more or less this time 30 years ago that cyclone Domoina slammed into northern KwaZulu Natal. At the beginning of 1984, Klipfontein Dam was a newly completed but basically empty reservoir. There was a greenish puddle up near the dam wall, and I seem to remember that the estimate was that it would take three years of average rainfall to fill the dam.

Meanwhile that January, off the north-east coast of Madagascar, a cyclone was forming to which meteorologists gave the name Domoina. This cyclone set off in a southwesterly direction, smacked into and across Madagascar, gathered strength in the Mozambique channel before she whacked southern Mozambique, pulverised Swaziland and then drenched northern KZN. I don’t know if it’s true or meteorologically correct, but it seems to me that Domoina then met the Drakensberg escarpment and was deflected back over the Indian Ocean, but that’s where she petered out.

During the five days Domoina was over northern KZN, she dropped a total of 475mm of rain on Vryheid. On January 29, 1984, Vryheid received 100mm, on January 30, 84mm, on January 31, 123mm, on February 1, 162mm, and on February 2, just 6mm. Rainfall was measured from 8:00am to 8:00am, so the 162mm fell during the day and night of January 31, and up to 8:00am on February 1. Incidentally, on that January 31, Hlobane received 269mm and Gluckstadt 315mm.

I’ve seen an isohyet map of the rainfall delivered to northern KZN by Domoina, and the Kambula area got more than Vryheid. The Wit Umfolozi rises in the Kambula area, flows under the bridge at Stilwater, and into Klipfontein Dam. Domoina dropped enough rain in the five days to completely fill the new but empty dam.

An odd meteorological fact pertaining to Vryheid’s rainfall, is that the 162mm that fell on that one day in January 1984 during Domoina, is not Vryheid’s highest rainfall figure recorded for one day. In the middle of winter, on July 3, 1963, from out of the blue it would seem, Vryheid had 170mm of rain dumped on it, which must have come as a hell of a surprise. And third in the rain dumping records for Vryheid was on November 17, 1953, when Vryheid was drenched with 142mm.

Anyway, Klipfontein was filled in February 1984 and there has been a lot of water over the spillway since then, quite a lot of it mine. I’ve got lazier as I’ve got older, but there was a time when Klipfontein Dam, and more precisely, Camp Site No 1, was like a second home. Ol’ Ray Scannel from the then Natal Parks Board was in charge of the dam and its facilities, and he ran a tight ship did ol’ Ray. We can thank him for the trees that are now beginning to provide some shade.

Things worked then. There was always water for the toilets which worked and were not vandalised. There was even hot water in the showers at the camp site, and a line of thatched shelters and plough-disc braais, all in good condition. Can you believe it, to begin with, at the gate into Klipfontein Dam, there was even a small curio shop. Yeah, in that building that on Sunday looked like it had been abandoned after being occupied by particularly needy squatters.

Man, I don’t know how many fish I’ve caught over the years in Klipfontein, how many braais I’ve fired up, how many tons of charcoal I’ve used up, how many beers I’ve swigged down and how many times I’ve waded into the dam up to my belly button to have a pee. I’m not sure I’d do that now after that crocodile was discovered there a couple of years ago. I can just see me standing there with a stoopid “you fool no one” grin on my dial, and you know that, I dunno, warm feeling you get when you’re peeing in your pants in the dam, there’s a certain pleasure to that feeling, and I don’t want that feeling interfered with by a shout from the bank saying, “Pasop, there’s a croc!” Crocodilus interruptus.

It’s never been satisfactorily explained to me where that reptile came from. Seriously, that creature wasn’t a juvenile, that wasn’t a newly hatched crocling, and still quite a cute miniature, you know, something to keep in a fish tank. Something to amuse the kids. That thing would have eaten a paddling child, no problem, let alone an old man’s willy as he stood peeing in the shallows, beer in hand and sunblok on nose, swapping jokes with his mates on the bank.

And the thing is, if you’re standing in the shallows having a pee, and everyone on the bank round the braai knows what you’re doing, if you suddenly grab your crotch and shout, “Stone me” or words to that effect “something’s grabbed my wossname”, all the people I know would laugh and say something like, “Yeah, yeah, you wish! You wish it was Pamela Anderson!”

“No!” I’d yell back, “This thing’s got an ugly snout, knobbly skin and sharp teeth.”

“Relax, mate,” would be the reply, “it’s probably Jimmy’s mother-in-law, Check for a snorkel.”

Nah, Klipfonten is still a very nice dam, but I’m staying out the water. I’m not convinced that Jaws doesn’t have a cousin.