Last month my mom attended and photographed the FASX Airshow in Swellendam, and last week she went back up to do a photographic slideshow presentation and talk for some of the organisers and people involved. We used to visit Swellendam a lot during school holidays so I was keen to come with and see how the place had changed since 2002…

We stopped at the Worcester One Stop on the way up and met some friendly Swedes (with fantastically stereotypical Swedish names) on 2 pink busses. I have a bit of an obsession with all things Scandinavian (and Swedish in particular) so this random meeting was an instant weekend highlight for me. One day when I have large amounts of excess cash, I’ll seriously consider taking a European tour with the Pink Busses.

We then passed this crazy pumpkin place…

And in Ashton, we saw an awesome old cash register in a butchery and this rocking discotheque discotique…

We were kindly given accommodation in Swellendam by Jill, who’s also involved with flying, at her house, which contains a really interesting assortment of things (except for the cat – he lives outside)…

It was cold and rainy but we headed out nevertheless. The main road seemed 4 times longer than I remembered, and was a mess of detours and roadworks, so we took a backroad out of the town centre towards the Marloth Nature Reserve and the mountain cabins where we’d stayed so often back in the day, stopping at this quiet farm on the way…

The Marloth Reserve was really surreal…the last time we’d been there was around 2002 and it had really changed. We’d visited quite frequently and became quite friendly with the family that ran the cabins, but we stopped going for whatever reason…then we heard that there had been all these problems and basically they’d sold the cabins and had moved on.  We kept in touch and later heard that the new management wasn’t doing a great job and people weren’t keen on going to the cabins anymore.

We knew all this beforehand, but the eerie, seemingly abandoned campsite that greeted us still came as a surprise. I kept expecting to hear the Twin Peaks theme tune floating in the wind…

There was no-one around and it all looked pretty run-down, over-grown and neglected…

By way of comparison, here are a few photos from 2002:

Fast forward 9 years:

We later spoke to the manager of the municipal campsite who assured us that the cabins were still operational, but it really didn’t look or feel that way while we were wandering around. It was all really weird, kinda spooky and rather sad considering all my fond memories of that place…

It had been raining most of the afternoon and was pretty cold when it came time to head to the Swellengrebel Flying Club, but there were multiple fires and braais and plenty of food, drink and entertaining people to make up for it.

The skies were clear on Sunday; we took a drive out over the Tradouw pass and ended up having lunch in Barrydale.

Then headed back through Suurbraak, stopping for a swim in the (freezing) Buffeljags River.

Last stop before leaving Swellendam was the Municipal Campsite, where we’d stayed 3 or 4 times before discovering the Marloth Cabins. Happily it didn’t seem to have changed at all and looked the same as ever, so much so that I almost felt like I was 12 again…nostalgia’s a weird thing…

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Check out my mom’s photos, of aircraft and other stuff, on her website and Facebook page.

Swellendam is the 3rd oldest town in the Cape area and well worth a visit if you like pretty, sleepy, little towns.