#3: [24-Nov-04]

#1: [24-Nov-01] (incomplete)

27-Oct-2002 -- On our way back from the Rhodes mountain bike race Ferdi Schenck and I planned to follow 27E most of the way and try and visit 31S 27E, 30S 27E, 28S 27E and 27S 27E along the way - four Confluences in one day.

After doing 28S 27E, we continued through Kroonstad and Viljoenskroon towards the Confluence at 27S 27E. The Confluence had been visited before, but I had my doubts about whether the previous visitors had been at the correct point. Their photographs show them at a trig beacon, and it would have been quite a coincidence if the trig beacon had been placed exactly on the Confluence. Actually, these visitors had made a similar mistake at 26S 27E, where they had visited a trig beacon about three kilometres from the actual confluence point. This error was discovered when I visited that Confluence earlier in the year. I had been waiting for an opportunity to also go and check 27S 27E.

We approached the farm at about 16h30 with several typical Highveld thunderstorms around. We found a turn-off onto a farm that looked like it might get us close. We asked two woman workers at the gate the way to the farm house. They said that the farmer did not live on the farm anymore, but that we could go and ask at the farm house behind a clump of trees. Nobody seemed to be home though, so we took a chance and proceeded to the Confluence, which was now just about a kilometre away. We managed to drive to the exact spot in the rain and thunder, too scared to get out of the vehicle. The first visit photos shows a beautiful green landscape, but now the farm had been ravaged by a veld fire and everything seemed in disrepair.

After taking our photographs from inside the bakkie, we looked around and spotted the trig beacon in question. We then drove up to it and discovered that it was actually 390 meter from the Confluence. We took a set of photos here as well, and later matched them to the photos the first visitors had taken.

This concluded a tiring day, visiting four Confluences on the trot. All that remained was the last 200 km home, struggling to stay awake. We eventually made it home at 19h30.