DURING our all-weather wanderings with a tent I have discovered that you can be remarkably cosy and warm under canvas, even when the mercury drops below zero.
It is a question of being prepared. If you are not equipped to deal with the cold there is nothing more miserable than camping in bad weather. Bill and I go overboard with warm clothes and bedding because we really don’t like being cold and miserable. With the right gear, though, cold weather camping can actually be fun.
Some of the coldest nights we have spent on our travels have been in Lesotho. I remember one night in particular, when we stayed at one of those little lodges you find in the middle of no-where.
It was the first night of our holiday and we were heading through Lesotho on our way to the Free State then the Northern Cape. We actually didn’t camp that night but would probably have been warmer in a tent than in that big, windy, barn-like building where we slept. It was one of those icy, crystal-clear nights with glittering stars and a big fat full moon lighting up the mountains; but, oh, it was so very cold. I even wore my gloves, scarf and beanie to bed. To add insult to injury when Bill hopped into the gas-heated shower the next morning, he discovered, after much adjustment of the taps spitting out freezing water at him, that the gas bottle was empty. There was no chance of a nice hot shower so we packed up quickly and hopped into our Landrover Tdi, immediately turning on the heater.
But our diesel Landy didn’t seem to be interested in going anywhere that day. Bill tried not to look too alarmed as he used low range to climb a tiny hill. It wasn’t an auspicious start to our long journey. We were calling in at Mokhotlong so we stopped for a cup of coffee, leaving the reluctant Landy in a nice patch of sun. A very relieved Bill noticed that Landy’s sunbathing session had sorted her out. Only later when he thought about it did he realise that the Landy’s diesel must have frozen during the night. That meant the temperature must have dropped to below minus 15.
Quite recently we were at the Mountain Zebra National Park early in the spring. The mornings were decidedly chilly and on one morning it seemed particularly hard to get up and out of our lovely warm tent. Bill lured me outside with a cup of coffee and we joined the other campers on a patch of frosty lawn where the first rays of sunshine had just managed to reach.
“Cold this morning, isn’t it,” said one of our fellow campers. Another camper strolled over to his campsite. He had a thermometer in his vehicle which he consulted. Much to all our surprise, the mercury was hovering at around minus five in the shade. No wonder we’d all made a beeline for the patch of lovely sunshine.
Another place that provided us with a frosty reception was the charming little town of Rhodes in the Eastern Cape. Heading there during an Eastern Cape trip a few years ago, we misjudged our travelling time and had to complete the Naude’s Nek section, through snow-covered mountains, along slippery, icy roads, in the dark. We were very pleased to see the lights of Rhodes that night.
After a quick stop at one of Rhodes’s cosy hostelries, we drove to the charming little camping ground next to the commonage, in the centre of the town. The supper we’d prepared was still a bit icy as we’d forgotten to turn up the temperature of our camping fridge/freezer. Still, we washed it down with coffee and went straight to bed in our rooftop tent.
It did seem a bit chilly but in the morning we were surprised to find ourselves in a snowy campsite, in the middle of the snow-covered town. It was all so pretty but, oh so cold.
Probably one of the coldest nights we have ever spent under canvas was in Zastron in the Free State, many years ago, on our way home from the Northern Cape. We only had a 2×4 bakkie at the time but this didn’t deter Bill from deciding to take a short cut home along an unknown route, from Zastron, into Lesotho and back into South Africa via Ongeluksnek and its border post.
When we got to Zastron it was late afternoon and we drove to the little municipal camping ground. The woman who booked us in was amazed that we were even thinking of camping that night and refused to charge us anything. We set up camp then enjoyed a delicious supper at a convivial little pub in town. It was a bit disconcerting to hear the locals predicting a particularly cold night that night.
And cold it was, although with piles of bedding and layered outfits of almost everything clean in our clothing bags, we did manage to keep reasonably warm. It was getting out of bed early next morning that was really hard. Because we didn’t know the route we planned to take we wanted to make an early start and to get to the Lesotho border by the time it opened at 6am.
At least that was the plan. It was a freezing cold morning and we were packed up and ready to leave in record time. We reached the border at 6am – only to find out that it only opened at 8am. A guard, sitting by a charcoal brazier next to the gate, ignored us completely and so did various officials we saw wandering over to the offices a little later. The border opened at 8am and no-one was going to let us through any earlier.
We decided to have a light breakfast and some coffee while we waited. The wind was numbingly cold as we stood outside polishing off bowls of yoghurt and waiting for the kettle to boil. I made the coffee and quickly swilled out our empty breakfast bowls, leaving them on the tailgate to dry while we drank our coffee in the bakkie’s cab. A few minutes later when I went to put the bowls away, they had frozen onto the tailgate.
Eventually we were allowed through the border and into wintry Lesotho. In a 2×4, driving down Ongeluksnek – more a donga than a road – was an adventure, to say the least, but what a beautiful route it was through the snow-covered mountains. If we were fair weather campers who never braved the cold just think of all the magical winter landscapes we would miss.
