I imagine this to be the perfect setting for a South African horror story – a riverside settlement founded as an inland port operating as the hub of a local trading empire working out of Swellendam; tales of elusive river dolphins, Zambezi bull sharks, an iterant seal popping up on the Breede River shores… a local selkie, perhaps?
The sleepy village of just 20-odd homes, presided over by an ancient stone church built in the early 1800s… is that a graveyard hidden among the koffieklip overgrown with Karoo scrub? Are those apparitions rising from the dirt main road, or mists forming off the Breede River in the cool of evening?
Welcome to Malgas, a settlement time forgot, in the middle of nowhere, seeming to exist only as a home to those who operate the perfect crossing over the mighty Breede River, or a place to forget oneself and your accompanying problems.
The Malgas Pont - a pontoon-style ferry – carries vehicles from one side of the eight-metre deep river to the other. The shiny new yellow one is diesel-powered now, allowing freedom of movement for vessels on either side of the crossing, seeing as the need for cables drawn across the river no longer exists.
But this has brought its own challenges. In the past, the pont operator tells me, he’s seen a dolphin and a seal visiting these parts when the ferry was still cable-drawn. The unlikely pair was some 30km to 40km from the river mouth at Witsand, a fair way away from the salty clear waters of the southern Indian Ocean, and quite a trek up the dark brackish waters of the deep and sullen Breede River.
The sound of the new diesel motor powering the pont has, sadly, driven them away.
River crossing #WittenGetaway pic.twitter.com/oHV2EbHnHH
— Lance Witten (@LanceTheWitten) March 4, 2023
At night, a deathly silence settles over Malgas. It’s almost oppressive. The vast Southern Cape sky above feels more like a ceiling dotted with feint, tiny lights, the atmosphere thick, allowing sound to travel no further than the person you’re talking to.
At the river bank, a small pier bobs off the shore of the Malagas Hotel grounds, the forgotten houseboats longing for occupants roped tightly at their moorings in case the forecast storm rages wilder than expected.
We sit on the gunwale of one of the boats, shouting echoing cries at the cliff across the river from us. The sound echoes once, then falls flat upon the reddish-brown surface of the water, disturbed only by the rich river life below, invisible to us, but for a few swift undercurrents showing evidence of wild movements to capture dinner.
Behind us stands the once-stately Malagas Hotel, tired and worn-out, but kept alive and vibrant by the staff who display the kind of hospitality you only find in the countryside. Across the gravel main road from the hotel are the only two petrol pumps you’ll find for about a 50km radius, where an abandoned Chevy pick-up looks on longingly from beyond the driveway.
The hotel’s main building reminds me of something out of an Agatha Christie novel interpreted for the screen in the mid-to-late 80s.
There’s a classic bar tenanted by classic bar patrons: the white-haired man sipping a three-hour brandy-and-coke; two burly sandal-clad gents wearing rugby team jerseys with large pints of beer; a lady with wispy curls and a long, thin cigarette perched at the end of her wrinkled fingers, peering at playing cards from a face wearing too much make-up; an old black dog wearing the warm, damp smell of Karoo rain; an Englishman with a red nose and a glass of wine laughing too loudly and too heartily at the bar lady’s jokes while she polishes beer mugs with a worn-out tea-towel; a darts board hangs on one end while a flatscreen TV blares out commentary from a sports match; the piped music just barely audible; the feint smell of deep-fried food wafting in from the kitchen; the feeling that at any moment, if all of them froze and looked at you, it immediately becomes a scene from your worst nightmare, but failing that, you would have the most incredible conversations with people who may never have greeted you had you passed them on a busy metropolitan street. You get the picture.
We spent three nights in the Malagas Hotel, using it as a home base to explore the surrounding region – Witsand, Buffelsjagsrivier, Swellendam, and Suurbraak - driving the magnificent Volvo XC60 B5 AWD. Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be documenting our journey to the middle of nowhere, where we had an incredible adventure.
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