Fromtheold

Yes, South Africa is the land of the free, the free criminals that is. While the government sits with their fat asses and decides who’s the next president and what they can screw up next the robbers take their loot.

A 55 year old Potgietersrus farmer was shot because he was on a public road.

Piet de la Rey was hit twice by shots fired from a car of armed robbers, who had tried to blow up a Fidelity Security Services armoured vehicle transporting cash to Kimberley. The incident happened about 20km from Petrusberg and led to a traffic standstill for several kilometres. The road was closed by emergency personnel for most of the day and traffic was re-routed.

Now that’s some messed up stuff.

Read the rest here.

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Strange stuff, sounds like something out of a movie. The guy that gave the info died when he drove off the road last year. Reports said his alcohol level was 7 times over the limit while his friends claim he stopped drinking.

I wonder what really happened. But it really sounds suspicious.

Here is a extract from News24.

Killed in car accident

A few weeks after Madaka spoke to risk analysts about the allegation, he was killed on August 21 when his car veered off the road near the Brakfontein off-ramp on the N1.

There is evidence that he was speeding and that his blood alcohol level was seven times over the legal limit. But some of his friends told the Mail and Guardian that he had given up alcohol, although another said he had started drinking again before the accident.

Madaka was friends with Vusi Mavimbela, who was director general of the NIA and Gibson Njenje, who was forced out as NIA deputy director general by Mbeki in the so-called hoax e-mail saga that saw director general Billy Masetlha loose his job. Madaka was also the brother-in-law of Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mphahlwa.

The Presidency has denied the allegations on several occasions.

“The Presidency categorically rejects all allegations made in the so-called report. The Presidency denies categorically that the president facilitated any money,” Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad told a media briefing in Pretoria earlier this week.

“In the Presidency we have decided to take legal advice and once the legal advice is given the president will take the necessary steps,” he said.

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This is part of the road trip series

So we were heading to the Drakensberg. The big famous mountain region I have not seen, in fact at this point I have not even set foot in Kwazulu Natal. So leaving Colesberg on what we thought was the N2 i wanted to take a different route to get to the N2 but it seems we took the road that does not meet up with the N2. No we were on the way to a place called Philipolis. We did not know it at the time but we soon realised that the road was quite empty and it was not taking us to the n2, we did not care, with a sense of adventure we drove into the barren lands of the Karoo, more like the Orange Freestate.

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This is part of the road trip series

After we woke up and seen the information centre and a bit of Colesberg we had to decide where to go next. My parents live in Johannesburg or Alberton and decided to go visit them. But before that we had to see the Drakensberg. I did not tell my wife that is what i was thinking but I am sure she thought the same thing. I am not sure if this is the point where we decided but somewhere along the line we did decide.

The Drakensberg was about 700 km from the place we were at so we decided just to drive in that direction.

This is part of the road trip series

As I wrote in the previous post, this photo was on the inside of the Coleberg information centre. Its a photograph of Colesberg how it looked in 1880 more than 120 years back.

This is part of the road trip series

The day after staying awake for two days and we had some sleep we went around to the Colesberg information centre. I was surprised to see that this information centre was much more than just a information centre. They are preparing the Colesberg information centre to be much more than just a information centre.

They people that work there are quite friendly and they gave me a preview of how it looked. I did not want to push my luck and take to much photos but I will share them in the next posts.

On the outside of the Colesberg is this memorial or stone. It says:

14 (Cole’s Kop) Battery Royal Artillery

This memorial is in remembrance of the bravery and resourcefulness of the 14th (Cole’s Kop) Battery Royal Artillery who, in January 1900 as 4th Battery Royal Field Artillery, conducted operations in the area of Colesberg, Cole’s Kop, the 800ft flat - topped hill overlooking the Boer positions, gave an ideal vantage point to the British forces.

Assisted by the Royal Engineers and the Essex Regiment, a 15 pounder was borne to the summit and brought into action. At dawn on 12 January 1900 the solitary gun opened fire causing confusion and forcing a withdrawal of the opposition out of range. A second gun was subsequently taken to the top. In all 3383 rounds were fired between 6 Jan and 12 Feb 1900.

Major Butcher, the Battery commander, was awarded the distinguished service order.

In 1928 14 Battery Commander, was granted the Honour Title COLE’S KOP which retains to this day.

This is part of the road trip series

This is right before we booked into the small but beautiful Karoo Hotel in Colesberg. What the name of that hotel is I still dont know.

There are amazing views of the sunset. Especially when you drive out into the fields. This is one of those sunsets.

With almost purple skies you cant imagine the Karoo being one of the driest places in South Africa. But the Karoo still remains one of the most beautiful places in South Africa.

This is part of the roadtrip series

There is some wild drivers in South Africa and just before entering Colesberg we got this photo of two trucks passing each other. Probably on their way from Johannesburg to Cape Town.

But this scene you wont see at night, well you might but I think its safer to drive at night.

The scary part is sometimes these trucks pass on both sides of the road at the same time oncoming each other.

Anyway, driving for 10 hours through the night you’re greeted by these things in the morning.

This is part of the roadtrip series.

So driving at night is preferred even though many people say otherwise. If you are awake, drive. The road to Colesberg well that was not where we intended to go, actually we just drove, without plans, without direction hoping to find something interesting and wonderful.

As I was saying, we drove from Helderberg to the place where the plot is. Now on the pictures the lady did not tell us that its located just across the road from a squater camp. We had the idea that the plot was located in the middle of the Karoo, we had the idea it was a small town with a bunch of artists. And so we were wrong.

When we got to the town it was empty, it looked like a ghost town. No houses were standing up straight. It really looked desolated. The only life in the forgotten village was the smoke coming from the far reaches of the massive location.

And that was the end of our hopes to buy a plot there.

By that time it