I haul myself out of bed at 06:00 and, eyes still heavy with sleep, weave about the passage toward the bathroom (which, for me, is not en suite) for that arduous (but very necessary) daily ritual of showering and hair-washing. Conville’s plumbing, fittings and fixtures (right down to those funky bell doodads next to the main bed to summon ladies’ maids, à la Downton Abbey!) may be in need of some maintenance, but the whole place has a cosy yet intriguing feel about it, as though its rooms are begging to be explored. To me, a night here could be described as a quintessential stay at grandma’s: wooden floors, high brass beds, interesting antique furniture, piles of books, patterned wallpaper, and old paintings and photographs lining the walls.

There is, however, plenty of hot water on tap, and it is only after a thorough drenching and a cup of coffee that I feel capable of walking without the support of a wall or window sill.

History over Breakfast
Breakfast is at the long table in the rather grand dining room, with another guest couple who are passing through on their way to Sandstone Estates, Fouriesburg and then onto the Kruger National Park.

“Is that Scottish?” asks the lady, on hearing my mother’s accent. I smile and incline my head toward my mother, “Yes, that is Scottish, and that,” now indicating my father, “is South African!” Over yoghurt, cereal and fruit juice, we learn that the original owner of Conville was Scottish. Linda, our amiable hostess, and her husband Anthony, now own and run the farm, but it was Anthony’s grandfather who started it all and built the house for his young bride. Anthony appears, right on cue, and, while we tuck into our fried eggs, bacon, tomato and toast, he recounts some of Conville’s history, including his grandfather’s engineering background, involvement in an irrigation scheme on the Orange River and interactions with Sir Herbert Baker. It was Grandfather Gerrand’s early childhood in a Scottish castle together with the architectural skill of Herbert Baker which resulted in the design of this magnificent home, the construction of which was completed in 1908.

Linda asks what we’re doing in the area, and we explain that we’re hunting for relatives. Dead ones. We recount yesterday’s traumatic experience of searching for Aunt Minnie’s grave in the old cemetery, and Linda nods sympathetically. “We’re constantly fighting with the municipality about it,” she says. “But you should speak to Madeleine at the Aliwal Museum…” We need to track down Mr Wessels before we leave and still get to Grahamstown today, but have a day trip planned to Aliwal North from Burgersdorp later in our itinerary. Linda helpfully takes down details of the family we’re looking for to pass onto Madeleine before our return. Then she leaves the room briefly and returns flicking through a copy of Driehonderd Jaar Nasiebou – Stamouers Van Die Afrikanervolk by Dr D.F. du T. Malherbe . “There are no Wessons,” she says, handing the book to me. I’m almost twitching with anticipation as I quickly search for other surnames in our tree: Becker, Bolton, Meyer, Nelson – all have entries, but I don’t recognise any of the other details. I make notes regardless. Perhaps they’ll come in handy someday…

It only takes us a few minutes to pack our overnight bags back into the car, and then we’re bidding our gracious host and hostess farewell and heading back into town.

A Human Whirlwind
We pull up outside Community Services, just as an official-looking gentleman strides out of the office. I’m not about to let history repeat itself, so I launch myself out of the car and accost him: “Excuse me, Sir. Are you Mr Wessels?” To his credit, if he was surprised by my “attack”, he didn’t show it. A thick Afrikaans accent responds, “No, I’m Blackie Swart. Are you looking for Uri ? Can I help?” I explain that we’re looking for the grave of a relative, and he says, “Ah, no – you will need to speak to Uri, then,” and leads us back into the office building. “Where is Uri?” Mr Swart asks the man who is behind the bars of reception today. “He’s in a meeting,” comes the response. My shoulders start to droop with disappointment already, but we explain that we will be back in town the following week. Mr Swart recommends we make an appointment to see Mr Wessels then, and also suggests we speak to Madeleine Joubert at the museum. We confirm that we already have her in our sights. I’m exchanging details with Mr Receptionist when he suddenly says, “Just hold on. Just hold on. I think the meeting’s finished,” and disappears down a passage to my right. A few seconds later, he pops his head around the corner at the end of the passage and beckons to me. We thank Mr Swart for his help and quickly follow Mr Receptionist, who leads us to a tiny office, indicating that the occupant is Mr Wessels.

Mr Wessels, who is having a very loud, demonstrative exchange with a colleague, ushers us in with a “Kom in! Kom in!” before flinging a pile of papers into an in-tray, still muttering as his co-worker leaves the room. “Sit,” he says and I sit, as someone thoughtfully brings in a chair for my mother. Once again, we explain ourselves and, to my surprise, Mr Wessels picks up a note on his desk with the details we had given the receptionist yesterday. “O, ja – hierdie een,” and he jumps up, dashes to a steel cabinet which seems to be bursting at the seams, flings open the door, burrows around and emerges with a printout which he triumphantly drops on the corner of his desk and furiously starts paging through. “Wesson… Wesson… Wesson… Hier’s sy!” It is an alphabetical list of graves in the old cemetery and, sure enough, there is Aunt Minnie’s name. Mr Wessels scribbles the grave number on a piece of paper: 419009. Apparently, this means plot 4, row 19 and grave 9. He grabs his keys and says he’ll show us the grave. In the same breath, he puts his keys down again and spins round to rummage in the embankments of paper that have built up around his desk, mumbling something about “my ander boek”. Then he finds it and holds it aloft – an A4 exercise book. Snatching up his keys once more, he heads out the office at breakneck speed. The whole meeting has probably taken less than five minutes. Outside, we discover that my father has vanished, doubtless to buy a newspaper. We phone him to let him know that Mr Wessels is going to show us the grave, when Mr Wessels gets a phonecall. Apparently, someone has been digging somewhere and unearthed what appear to be human bones which apparently makes it Mr Wessels’ problem. Completely unphased, he’s not to be thrown off his current mission, but is clearly in a massive hurry, so we decide that I will drive to the cemetery with him while my mother waits for my Dad to return.

Mr Wessels is talking non-stop as his bakkie bounces obediently over and through the potholes which he barely seems to notice. As he careers around the left hand bend toward the graves, I say a quick prayer of gratitude for my seatbelt, without which I may have been flung straight out the drivers’ side window. He pulls to a stop at the same dejected-looking stone pillars we had seen the day before. It’s almost as if they themselves are somehow ashamed of the state of this that they are presiding over. Mr Wessels is out of the vehicle almost before I’ve managed to undo that seatbelt. He marches down the overgrown pathway in his boots, still talking ceaselessly, as I trot gingerly behind in my billowing skirt and flip-flops, camera swinging from my arm. He comes to an abrupt halt opposite a round, black sign with a large number 1 painted on it in white and points out a similar sign across the pathway with a large number 3 on it, before confirming with me in an easy English-Afrikaans mix that we’re looking for plot 4. I reply in the affirmative, and he continues talking at high speed (as much to himself as to me), deducing that plot 4 must be off to our left. And then he shoots off again, exercise book now open, ploughing through the knee-high grass, while I try to keep up and avoid broken beer bottles at the same time. He’s counting now, the row numbers in the plot, which, curiously, start at 9. How he manages to make any sense of the seemingly haphazard arrangement of overgrown graves, I’ll never know, but then I hear him say “neentien” and see him bolt off into the undergrowth on the right. He’s counting again, this time from 1. He squeezes between a large grave and a bright green shrub, before clambering over the corner of another grave and finally pausing to ask me who we’re looking for again. I remind him of the surname and he starts reading the graves: “Thomas?” “Nee,” I say, and he steps into the next row, muttering that perhaps it is one of the several broken graves in the vicinity, or one of those whose headstone has fallen, facedown into the dirt. I start losing hope – again. What are the chances that Great Great Aunt Minnie’s grave is still intact in all this mess?

Part 2

Part 1

End of an illusion
Roughly half an hour later, we cross the Orange River into the Eastern Cape and Aliwal North, where we will spend the night. It is, however, still a little too early to check into our lodging, so we decide to try our hand at finding the old cemetery, for it is there that a recently “discovered” family member (more about that another time!), Great Great Aunt Minnie Florence Wesson née Bolton, ought to have been buried. Thanks to the eGGSA Photo Project, I have the coordinates on my laptop, so I boot it up and wake up the GPS at the same time (note to self: next time, have holiday & genealogy docs on Google Drive!). I punch in the latitude and longitude and Madam GPS (later christened Maggie by my father) thinks a little and then, in her clipped, efficient way, commands us to turn right. We obey. “Turn right,” she says again. And we obey, again.

Now it’s important to understand that we had, somehow, formed a rather naïve, romanticised impression of searching for the graves of family members. It seems almost laughable now, but, to an extent, I think we may have been picturing clearly defined plots separated by well-maintained pathways nestled in neatly manicured gardens. And so, with great anticipation, we are now eagerly straining for signs of Aunt Minnie’s resting place…

Madam GPS issues her next instruction, to turn left this time. Instantaneously, our illusion begins to crumble. There, ahead of us and to our right, sandwiched between the road we are on and the Orange River itself, lies the cemetery. A couple of tired gate posts hint at what must once have been an entrance. Above the rampant bushes and veld grass, a few of the taller gravestones are just visible. We slowly pull to a stop, processing the scene before us.

My super-brave mother is out the car first, and already plunging into the undergrowth. In a skirt and thin-soled flip-flops, I’m a little more tentative, but breathe a quick prayer and pick my way carefully toward some graves. There are no paths that I can see. Broken bottles, cans and litter lie strewn around. Many gravestones are broken; some seem to have been vandalised. The slabs on top of some graves have cracked open. I try hard not to look into the gaping darkness below, but images of coffins and skeletons are already clamouring for attention inside my head. I give myself a stern talking to and move on, taking care not to trip on any of the rubble that may send me sprawling toward one of those cavernous holes. While I have thought of cemetery recording projects as incredibly useful, I now understand their significance first-hand.  I know this burial ground has not been fully photographed, so I whip out my camera and randomly snap a few headstones as I continue my search.  Perhaps they will be of value to someone… Mum is valiantly forging through the brush, almost out of sight now, but it is evident that our random searching is highly unlikely to yield any results. We know Aunt Minnie died in 1911, so we start looking at the dates on the headstones – perhaps certain sections of the cemetery were used at certain times…

I suddenly notice some cardboard and flattened grass behind a grave, and, with a shock, realise someone has been sleeping here. Almost simultaneously, an awful smell hits me, and then I see why – a little way away, in front of another grave, buzzing flies and used toilet paper indicate that someone has been defecating in this place, too. I hurry away, gagging.

My mother is also returning from her search. Even the dates on the graves provide no real clues as to the organisation of the plots. Dejected, and more than a little horrified at the state of the cemetery, we realise that, without help, we have almost no chance of finding Aunt Minnie’s grave. So I haul out the laptop again and look up the address I have saved for the Aliwal North municipality.

Plan B
It’s not far, and we pull up outside the building a minute or so later. Mum and I go in, and the telephonist/receptionist person beckons to us, but seems to be on a phone call and helping someone seated across from him at the same time. He still needs to deal with a couple of people in front of us while juggling a steady stream of telephone calls. He does so efficiently and we are soon asking him whether there are cemetery records which could show us where our family member is buried. He tells us we need to speak to a Mr Wessels at Community Services, which is in a different building. He explains to us how we get there, and we step out into the sunlight again. We find the Community Services department without any hitches but, as we’re parking, a gentleman in a white bakkie is hurriedly pulling out of a parking space. He vanishes in puffs of reddish dust and Dad says, “I bet that’s Mr Wessels!” Sure enough, the lady behind the bars of reception confirms that “he has just left” and she doesn’t know when he’ll be back, but she takes our details and those of Aunt Minnie and says she will pass them onto Mr Wessels for us. We ask her what time they open and inform her that we’ll be back in the morning.

Of food and lodging
By now it is well beyond lunch time and also check-in time, so we drive back through the town, following the map I had printed to Conville Farm, where we will stay tonight. We find it just outside the town on a dirt road. The house is an old, rather imposing structure, designed by Sir Herbert Baker. We amble in through the open front door, but there’s nobody in sight and all is quiet. We take in the wooden floors, pressed ceilings and antique furniture, and then spot a bell on a table in the entrance hall. We ring it. Still nobody appears. After a few awkward minutes, we ring it again – louder – and listen. Ah – footsteps! They’re padding down a carpeted passage toward us. It turns out that they belong to Linda Gerrand, the lady of the house, who shows us to our rooms, each of which has a cute little French door opening onto a patio and semi-enclosed garden.

We unpack our overnight bags and the cooler box before enjoying a quick picnic lunch on the patio: leftover egg and bacon rolls, pork pies and cherry tomatoes. Then there’s time for a nap before getting ready for our evening meal. This we decide to take at the Riverside Lodge’s pub and grill, on the banks of the Orange River. Parking is limited and awkward, but the atmosphere is relaxed and the view in the evening sun is gorgeous. Dad settles on a serious steak – fillet with a cottage cheese and avo topping, Mum goes green with a salad and I choose a pizza. While waiting for our meal, we put a rough plan together for tomorrow and decide on our route to the “City of Saints”. As we look out over the river, we recount bits of our day, and give thanks, for our travels thus far have been safe, filled with family, fun and adventure…