We came pretty close to chucking up city life and buying a smallholding 23 years ago. We had the offer to purchase papers in hand, pens hovering over the space for the our signatures. The plan was to buy a beautiful, treed plot near Millwood in the hills behind Knysna, and grow carrots. Or was it radishes - I forget. There was no electricity, no water on tap - just vast expanses of fertile land, a dam and a river and the peacefulness that isolation in the back of beyond offers.
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| The plot that got away... |
We hesitated long enough to see that we were really not being sensible, or fair to our son who would either have to spend hours commuting to a school in Knysna or become a child of the forest like in a Dalene Matthee novel.
Millwood is a breathtakingly beautiful area though, and I left a little bit of my heart there. We have visited it on and off my whole life, as it is near Sedgefield where my family spent our holidays. It is also a very interesting area for two reasons. Firstly, the indigenous forests had been home to elephants. Sadly now only one is known to be living wild, the herd having been hunted and frightened by urban creep. Secondly the area is well known because in the 1876, there was a short lived gold rush. Millwood was the name given to the settlement that developed for the hopefuls. The gold yield was not enough to keep the mining going, and the tin homes and shops and taverns were abandoned. One or two have been restored, and some of the mining equipment and caves are still there for exploration. Jubilee Creek is an excellent spot for a visit and picnic and a wander in a stream. It is well worth the time when you are next visiting the Garden Route.
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| Overgrown mining equipment at Millwood |
A lot of South Africa's wealth - and a large chunk of its misery - has been built on gold. Gold threads are woven into our history since it's first discovery in the mid 1800s. In 1967, the South African government decided to mint a gold coin to allow citizens to buy and own some of the wealth of the land. So it said. And Andrew's parents decided to invest in 3 Kruger Rands (named after Paul Kruger - the President of the Boer Republic where gold was first discovered), one for each of their children.
Andrew remembers being given his. His parents traditionally pushed coins into the steamed Christmas pudding, and when he was 18, his slice of pud contained this generous gift covered in brandy sauce. It was a rainy day investment, and one which needed to be kept safe. After we married, and moved into our tiny fixer-upper home, we chose a cunning hiding spot to fool any would be intruders (and we did have a couple of those who helped themselves to our worldly goods.) When we put some extra electrical plugs in the house, we hid the Kruger Rand in the wall socket and screwed on the plug coverplate. Brilliant hiding spot, don't you think?
So good in fact that when we moved 8 years later, in the chaos that packing up one's life entails, we forgot.
It plagued us for a long time. Perhaps we had hidden it so well that it was still there, and we could retrieve it. It felt like unfinished business, something that needed a resolution. The house had passed through a couple of families before we plucked up the courage to give it a go. Armed with photographs of us (looking so young!) and our house renovations to prove we were the legitimate owners of the coin, Andrew rang the doorbell. The new owners were charming, and obliging, although they said, they had had electricians in to create double plugs, but Andrew was welcome to look. Screwdriver in hand he removed the coverplate. Obviously the treasure was gone.
It had been a fool's errand and yet it was an important one. We no longer wondered if the investment was there waiting to be found. We could make peace with the fact that we had made an expensive mistake and there was nothing we could do about it. We could - finally - let it go. In fact we could even hope that the coin was a windfall that the finder truly needed and somehow we had inadvertently put some good back into the world. (That is just a fantasy - new found gains can also be destructive.)
Also, I realised, I tend to hang on to past mistakes for far too long, hoping to go back and see if by magic I can undo them. I can't. But it is good to get resolution and not always be wondering "what if." Let it go, Wendy, let it go.
Besides I have unminted wealth that can't be locked away in hiding places. And I am pretty sure my children are grateful I didn't send them out elephant hunting or panning for gold in Jubilee Creek in their formative years. One day I will ask them.
