Sunday Crank Through the Mielie Fields
Some unexpected twists & turns
It was a crisp Sunday morning in January, the kind where the air still carries the night’s memory but promises the heat of the day ahead. I rose before 6 a.m. and made my way to George & Sal’s home in the sleepy town of Henley on Klip which was still dead to the world. eddy, my faithful bike, was ready, his frame the vibrant yellow of sun-ripened mielies, wheels pumped to a solid bar, gleaming under the faint light of the rising sun. I loaded him into the car with the quiet efficiency of habit, careful not to wake anyone in the house as I left Douglasdale.
By the time I launched from the Herbert’s driveway in Henley on Klip, the town was utterly still, not a soul stirring. The roads there are pocked with rather rude slowdown bumps. The first one caught me off guard, smashing my nuts. I cursed, a sharp expletive echoing in the empty streets. Lucky for me, no one was awake to hear it.
As I rolled out of town, the landscape opened up into the first mielie fields, their green stalks swaying gently, already heavy with emerging seeds and pods. I breathed deep, inhaling that fresh, leafy scent, earthy & alive, the essence of the Highveld in summer. It invigorated me, chasing away the remnants of sleep.
I was in a thinking mood as I’m a morning person. The questions from the Jerries about kwaSizabantu swirled around in my head. The shunning & abandonment by them of their own flesh & blood weighed on me. I also recalled some other unrelated emails I had come across over time (one from the previous day) and even my boss at Investec. All that behaviour crystallized in awareness on some random spot of tar outside the town. I finally understood what gaslighting meant. That is why eddy is better than any shrink’s couch.
I turned down Blommendal Road, passing the towering Sentech radio masts, silent sentinels from some bygone era of transmissions. I hadn’t a clue if they were still active, but they stood there imposingly against the dawn sky. The road was deserted, not a car in sight, save for the endless parade of birds perched on the power lines running parallel. They eyed me as I cycled past, heads cocked like spectators at Centre Court Wimbledon, judging my form with avian indifference.
Just beyond the towers, I stumbled upon a serene pond flanked by graceful willow trees. It was teeming with life: red bishops and weavers darting about, their calls a symphony of chirps and whistles. I pulled over and watched for a good ten minutes, mesmerized by the flurry of color and sound. But reality tugged at me, there were still 35 kilometers to crank. I saddled up and pressed on.
The road ahead led toward the distant silhouette of Suikerbosrand, its hills a hazy promise on the horizon. Unbeknownst to me, I’d timed my ride with the Fast One cycle race, and suddenly I was swept into the pack, a huffing, puffing crowd of riders clipping along at a brisk pace. For the next 15 kilometers, the solitude of my solo adventure gave way to camaraderie. I chatted with a bloke on a Trek from 1990, a relic even older than eddy, its frame bearing the scars of countless miles. Then there was the lady on a sleek purple machine, an exorbitantly expensive Italian job that screamed precision engineering. I’d love to ride that, I thought, admiring its lines as we pedaled side by side. Well, truth be told the whole package was good & I’m not talking about the bike. Say no more.
Eventually, the race veered north, and I had to deviate back towards Henley on Klip. The route took me through the dairy farms of Randvaal, where even on a Sunday, the tractors hummed in the fields and cows milled about the feed pens, lowing softly. Milk trucks lumbered out from the farms, merging onto the roads with the hiss of releasing air brakes, the only sounds piercing the quiet, alongside eddy’s rumbling wheels on the tar and the wind whispering over my helmet.
Crossing the bridge over the Klip River into the Randvaal dorp, I spotted a shoeless girl in a yellow dress standing on the railing, arms flung high, screaming and crying downstream. Her anguish cut through the morning calm. I hesitated, my pedals slowing for a moment. But it wasn’t my problem, or so I told myself, & I pushed on.
Randvaal’s roads were a minefield of potholes, demanding constant vigilance as I dodged and weaved. I passed the local shops: a bottle store already open for business, a butcher with its shutters up, & a convenience store called the House Wife, whose goods spilled out onto makeshift shelves on the pavement. The people here wore their poverty plainly in threadbare clothes, converging on the shops with purposeful strides. Outside the bottle store, an old, weathered man sat in a wheelchair, swigging brandy straight from the bottle. Beside him, under the shade of a gnarly tree, a group of men in dirty overalls nursed tins of Castle beer, their laughter rough and resigned. It wasn’t even mid morning yet but I assume someone had seen a Boeing. I thought I’d seen it all, but then I had to swerve around a lady cruising down the middle of the road on one of those sit-on electric karts meant for the elderly or impaired, there was no pavement to speak of. At the corner, as I turned onto the road back to Henley, there stood an Assembly of God church, its service in full swing. Outside, a lineup of vintage cars gleamed in the sun: Ford Cortinas, Datsun ZZZ models & a herd of Hiluxes, bliksem, what a sight.
The final stretch wheeled me alongside the railway tracks, with a mine on the near side, its dumps of gravel rising like artificial hills. Occasionally, I’d glimpse railway trucks piled high with the stuff,. Back in Henley, I hit an unexpected detour, a work crew clearing a massive fallen gum tree that blocked the main road. On the alternate path, I spotted a shop called Durban Delicious and made a mental note to swing by on my way home for some bunny chow. It lived up to its name later that day.
Wheels down back at George & Sal’s, I savored a banana and a steaming cup of tea, the simple rewards of effort. We had a long chat about Grey College. I told them about the Wit Olifant incident, the water hydrant fiasco but ran out of time for the whole shebang. That 50-kilometer loop had been excellent, raw, real, & full of the unexpected rhythms of a South African Sunday.
