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The Valley of Desolation, just outside Graaff-Reinet, is a monument to time's relentless passing. The layers of soft sediment have disappeared, leaving precariously leaning pillars of volcanic rock. Up to 120 metres high, these crumbling islands are a record of the ancient surface of the earth. The balancing columns of rock march down the rubble-strewn valley towards the plains. Way below, baboons pick their way over pieces of our mutual past. Fifty kilometres north of Graaff-Reinet, tucked away among the foothills of the Sneeuberg is a more recent relic of the Karoo's extraordinary past, this time crafted by human hands. The dusty road bends into a blue bowl of hills and kopjes and suddenly in a hollow lined in yellowing poplar trees and willows, the geese have the right of way. The sleepy village of Nieu Bethesda has seen its population grow from seventeen permanent town residents to fifty in the last nine years since Athold Fugard, the South African playwright, immortalised Miss Helen in his Road to Mecca and a modern day pilgrimage to the Owl House has revitalised the town. The tragic and enigmatic figure of Helen Martins still haunts her astonishing creation, born from a potent mix of religious fervour, sex and death, Omar Khayyam and William Blake. The Owl House is an eerie and evocative example of Outsider Art - driven individuals who are compelled to express their intense personal vision with whatever comes to hand. Miss Helen chose crushed glass and concrete. Ashen women with beer bottle skirts lean forward in welcome, their fingers pointing east. Pallid mermaids beckon from sun-dried pools, directing attention towards the pilgrimage behind them. Wise men and camels and buddhas and sphinxes, owls and peacocks and lotus-legged potentates face towards EAST in frozen adoration. The word is picked out on the wire fence somewhere near the rising sun. Thus far and no further beyond the old frontier. There are roads now, of sorts, into the lonely interior but they necessitate travelling light. So, we turn our taillights on the Great Karoo and backtrack south, heading for the hills. Rivers of grass, swollen with summer seed, sweep by my window, yellow daisies speckle the verges and water glints in seasonal water sources called Dry River 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Thunder rolls in from the Plains of Camdeboo. |
