As I Like It: South Africa Sojourn in the shadow of the Blue Train 27th and 28th Jan

Helen could not eat on Wednesday night and her sleep was regularly disturbed by involuntary visits to the wee room but not for a wee. We had a somewhat daunting drive next day that would take about seven hours without stops. We were carrying a supply of imodium from the UK and also some left over from our Turkish experience. Unlike Lily the pink's, none of the medicinal compounds were effectatious in any case. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Scaffold, they didn't work.
Our over night hotel in J'burg was the Aerotropolis which we reached with timely stops and without mishap. Next morning brought dawn but no improvement.
Chantelle, the hotel manager offered to lead us to the rental return, then take us to the Gautrain. You would have thought that 2 hours was plenty of time to get to the central station but you would have reckoned without Chantelle's "help". The booking information told us to be there an hour before departure and the gate closes 15 minutes before. I bought the tickets at 12-16 for the 12-30 train. We then had to sprint to platform 16 to see if they would let us get on, if it was still there. They did, it was.
Had we missed the train, the next one is same time next week,and probably fully booked by now. Phew! Not best for Helen's problem which was to continue for the 28 hours of the journey.
The Blue Train also does the same journey. It is acknowledged as the most luxurious 5 star hotel on wheels in the world. Tickets are about a grand per head. That is about a pound a mile and includes the Havanas and Moet.

The Shosholoza Meyl train, the one that we travelled on at about 4 pence per mile.

The distance was about a thousand miles which we travelled at an average speed of 30 mph. We stopped at a lot of red signals which was surprising because we only encountered two other trains, both coming towards us, both freight. Allow me to give you a little geo/historical background. Cape Town was the first port that the imperial Europeans used in the C17 because it was a good natural harbour on the right side for western Europe. Inland transport from there was difficult for two reasons. Firstly the Cape Fold Mountains presented an immediate and challenging barrier then the Great Karoo which is an immense area of semi desert stretching hundreds of kilometres up to the savanna grasslands. Towards the end of the C19 both gold and diamonds were discovered around Kimberly so it became paramount to build a railway line so that the wealth could be exported back to Europe, or rather now mainly Britain.

The Cape Fold Mountain range

The Great Karoo

Railway engineers considered that the mountains could only be successfully breached with a narrow gauge track. They plumped for 3ft 6ins and the result is that became the standard throughout the country and is still today. This is also the reason why the coaches we travelled on have rather narrow corridors and the compartments are a bit of a squeeze compared to the 4ft 8.5ins gauge ones that we are used to over most of the rest of the world. In 1989 the Hex River tunnels were completed and No. 4 is nearly 9 miles long and takes half an hour to get through.

In the bowels of the earth (with apologies to Helen) That is not the light at the end of the tunnel, but signals and nearer to us an escape alcove.

Touws River, formally an important railway centre for banking engines. Extra engines to assist in pushing the trains up the hills.

South Africa's railway system does now seem very run down as indeed is a lot of the other industries, agriculture and razor wire manufacturing being the exceptions.