to be a dustroad, a few trees, a dam and a railway
line. Remember the days when it was safe enough
to stop by the side of the road? And when the
roadside stops were clean? Now, you take your life
in your hands – not to mention your health. Quite
recently we stopped at one just outside Graaff-
Reinet and I fear even the most depraved of pigs
would have chosen to eat somewhere else such was
the filth and litter.
nd for
entertainment? No
phones, portable
DVD players,
tablets or music for us. Radio
reception petered out just outside
Joburg and from then it was the
sound of the wheels on the road,
chatter and the odd clip around
the ear. Games were a toss-up
between ‘I spy with my little eye’
(which always degenerated into,
‘Not fair, you couldn’t see an ant’) and ‘Animal,
Vegetable or Mineral’, which never lasted long
because someone always got the categories mixed
up. Then, there was ‘Tease the sibling’ – a cunning
game of subterfuge irritation techniques that
made them look like the guilty party and if you
could get said sibling swotted for ‘carrying on’,
bonus points were scored. The sadness is that
many kids travel barely aware of what is going
on outside the window – an interesting rock
formation, a valley of autumn colours, a cluster
of proud aloes, a river, a horse, or a field of
‘running’ sunflowers. And if kids are to look out
of the window, it’s to see if they can spot a 1-stop
on the horizon.
hen it comes to
new routes, I still
refuse to use a
GPS. Sometimes,
despite themselves, the kids get a
kick out of finding where they are,
the weird name of a town or just to
see ‘how long it is till we get there?’
I know it’s inevitable that things,
including travel, changes as
technology improves. But, for me,
there is a cost when it comes to enjoying the journey.
Yes the roads are bigger and better but we’re all
doing our own thing inside of sitting squashed on
the backseat, as a family, sweating because grandpa
thought it would be a good idea to keep plastic on
the seats!
No
DVD
players.
Just ‘I spy
with my
little eye’
A W
REMEMBER THE
DAYS when it was safe
enough to stop by the
side of the road.
LIGHTER SIDE
56
WINTER | 2014
RCI.co.za
