Day twenty two - Griquatown,
24th October 2007

A quiet day today as tomorrow I have about 800k to travel - including a book launch at the Trevor Barlow Library at 10am in Bloemfontein. This means I have to be up by 5am and on the road by 5.30am - at least I will see the sunrise over the Karoo!

I went to the stone polishing works in Griquatown and purchased a polished stone as  gift before setting off to the Galgboom or "hanging tree". This time I put the noose around my neck as Johannes Waterboer gleefully took my photo. While there a young S African couple who were selling defece aids like pepper spray joined me on the short trip to Mrs Kramer's grave - the first white woman to be buried north of the Orange river (1812).

I dropped them off in my car in Griquatown and went on to the tiger's eye (or Griquatown gold) mine - just three small groups were working today. I soon found out why. They get paid just ZAR12 per kilo of tiger's eye... that's about Au$2! In a good month they might earn ZAR800 or about Au$160 after hours of back breaking work to dig out just a small piece of the prized precious stone. I was told that the sone is very hard to find and there were no pieces for sale - and even the stone factory had no pieces like the two I bought last year for ZAR100.

I then returned to Jim and Karien de Viller's home to catch up with paperwork...

Return to Scott Balson's 2007 book tour