10 January 2024, Chrissiesmeer, 37.29km
Teen die Meer R400

This is Patience. She runs three businesses from her shop beside a garage in Carolina. She is a hairdresser, a tailor, and a vetkoek chef. She also lives in the shop. Patience gets up at 0300 every morning to deep-fry vetkoek, beginning with the small ones, progressing to the larger version. She sells around 200 vetkoek a day. We bought two large vetkoek at R2 each. They were selected from the bucket, handled through and presented in individual transparent plastic baggies. They were still warm and were absolutely delicious.
Patience, you rock!
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While replacing a punctured tube on the edge of town, we fell into conversation with a man who told us to take care of our goods as he had recently been pepper sprayed in the street and had had his cell phone stolen.
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Before we could escape Carolina, we had to wait at a crossing for the coal train to pass, the engineer blaring a warning as he approached the unprotected intersection.
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Did you know that South Africa has a lake district?
Getaway magazine*: "With SA’s largest natural body of freshwater, and another 270 smaller pans in a 20-kilometre radius, it’s easy to see why this Mpumalanga dorpie [Chrissiesmeer] markets itself as a ‘lake district’."
Both the dorpie and the largest lake are named Chrissiesmeer.
We are staying in a small cabin on the west shore of the lake, having cycled a little over 30 pleasant kms from Carolina on a country road under cool cloud.
Chrissiesmeer is shallow, with a maximum depth of about 6 metres; it is 9km long and 3km wide.
Every year nearly 20,000 flamingo come into the area to breed.
There are also 13 species if frog here. Getaway: "This area is known as Matotoland, which means ‘land of the frogs’ in siSwati."
Wikipedia: "ǁXegwi (pronounced ZEH-gwee), also known as Batwa, is an extinct ǃKwi language that was spoken at Lake Chrissie, near the Swazi border. The last known speaker, Jopi Mabinda, was murdered in 1988. [However, a reporter for the Mail & Guardian reports that ǁXegwi may still be spoken in the district.]"
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Cyclists
On the edge of Carolina we were accosted by Matthew, who has a farm in Swaziland and a business in Ohrigstad. He has cycle-toured in Canada and Australia and is off to Italy for a supported cycle tour later this year.
Alida, our host at Teen Die Meer camping and accommodation, is a keen cyclist who has recently switched to an electric bike. Her family members do mad adventure cycling including the Munga Mountain Bike Race, a non-stop 1000km off-road race from Bloemfontein to Wellington. Her brother won the race one year, sleeping a very specific 19 minutes only. Apparently anything longer than that drops you into deep sleep.
Sannie is the caretaker at Teen Die Meer. Her husband Buks was with the airforce, stationed in Hoedspruit. They both were long distance runners, then cyclists, in the airforce club. Buks was diagnosed with cancer and given three months to live. He decided to spend his last months doing a cycle tour. That was 24 years ago!
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For more on the history of Chrissiesmeer, including Mr Jack and Mr Simmer, read Getaway: https://www.getaway.co.za/things-to-do/dorps/chrissiesmeer-flamingos-flower-and-frogs/