Splashy Fen Music Festival 2003

Our road trip began shortly after work on Wednesday, 23 April 2003. We - Myself, Justine, Ryan and Gill - left Cape Town on the N1 at around 6:30pm, and arrived in Beaufort West four hours later, where we spent the night in 5-star* luxury accommodation at their F1 hotel. Four hours later at 4am, we were back on the road again, flying GTI, on our way to the 14th Annual Splashy Fen Music Festival.

On route to our destination we travelled through the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, in the Maluti Mountains of the north-eastern Free State, definately one of the most scenic parts of our trip. After driving for 14 hours, only stopping for food and petrol, we arrived at the Splashy Fen farm, in the Underberg region of the Drakensberg, just after sunset. We found a suitable camping location not far from the action, latched onto our new neighbours in true parasite-like fashion, started a fire, cooked some dinner and the rest - in my mind - is history.

We woke up on the Friday morning to find ourselves slightly embaressed by our choice of camping location, and relocated further down where we could make loud noise and be vampire-like without disturbing those around us. Although as time passed, the area surrounding us quickly filled up and it became clear the festival had begun. For the rest of the weekend, we spent our days down at the river (of sub-zero temperature) and our nights in the nipple (aka Blunt) tent watching the bands, and around our own camp site where we continued to impress those in range with our brilliant* fire-building skills and healthy* living conditions.

Splashy Fen turned out to be the biggest, most awesome and memorable jol I've had in a long time. The performances of Sons of Trout and Tree63 (listen to their 'No Words' acoustic mp3) were undoubtedly my biggest highlights. And who could forget the butternut soup in a roll - our staple diet every night.

After Splashy we took a trip down into the Eastern Cape, through Umtata, to Coffee Bay - simply because it sounded like a nice place to be. This small community on the KZN Wild Coast turned out to be one of South Africa's paradises - it's also the former Transkei Homeland, which was an independent territory during the years of Apartheid. We ended up staying for three nights: first with Aunty Lynn at Four Winds Lodge and Backpackers, then at the Ocean View Hotel and lastly at the lush camping site right on the beach. A two-hour walk from Coffee Bay is the Hole in the Wall - where nature has created an extremely unusual rock formation: a giant slab of rock with a hole right through it. You can jump off this wall, although we preferred to spend our time eating and lazing around on the beach.

From Coffee Bay, we continued down the coast until we reached Jeffrey's Bay - home of the South African surf culture and the perfect wave. We spent two nights here, in a self-catering apartment block right on the beachfront. Ryan and I joined the Century Club on Thursday night, and we celebrated Gill's birthday on the Friday night.

We left JBay on Saturday morning and made a suprise stop at the Stramrood's house in the Breede River Valley for the night, before returning home on Sunday afternoon.

Our road trip lasted over 10 days, took us across 3626 km's (at an average speed of 99 km/h) and through 4 of South Africa's 9 provinces.

* exaggerated sarcasm

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