With the long weekend looming my father, Jen, BJ and myself headed up to Vrederus for the weekend. Vrederus is a farm owned by Donie and Juan-Marie Naude, situated near the base of Naude’s Nek pass near Rhodes and Maclear. We had an early start, 3:50 to be exact. With a brief pit stop for diesel in Matatiele we headed out to find the turn off that would lead us up a mountain pass to the farm. With glimpses of the Luzi river and the sheer beauty of the surroundings it took us about an hour and a half to reach the farm. The Naude’s were in Bloemfontein till Sunday so “Pots” the builder showed us to our cottage. And what a cottage!!!
We have stayed at numerous establishments before, but I can safely say this was by far the best. I said to Juan-Marie on Sunday that the only thing that was missing were oven gloves and she promptly giggled and pointed them out to me hanging on the rack above the stove. Shows you I didnt spend much time in the kitchen…
We did a bit of exploring the first afternoon and went looking for Oom John, who was going to explain to us where we could fish. We met up with him along the road and later he took us to the source waters of the Swift. Here BJ landed 2 small rainbows whilst my dad and I had a good chat in the car.
The next morning saw BJ landing a monster of a brown trout on the corner of the dam wall. I ran across to get a photo and he managed to succesfully release it. See the pic on the photos page.
Saturday morning we headed to Oom John’s farm to fish the Swift. The Swift is a small source mountain stream situated in a deep gorge. BJ and I were on the back of the 4×4 and Jen up front with OJ. It was freezing down at the river and we were all dressed up, beenies, scarfs and jackets. After about 4 hours BJ and I both had landed 4 small rainbows each when it started to snow. We had images of getting stranded down there, so we headed back to the pick up point. Jen was carrying the 2 way radio, that we could use to ask the farmer to come fetch us again.
Whilst walking back and fishing I took a heavy fall on the rocks, hitting my shoulder and forehead. I was a bit dazed and am still suffering from a sore shoulder and neck a week later. Off to physio this morning!!!
Later we were collected by Oom John and taken back to the farmhouse where Oom John’s wife, Amanda had coffee, sandwiches and lots of choclate cookies waiting for us. After about an hour with them we headed back to Vrederus.
I suffered for the next 2 days barely able to move my neck. BJ fished with Rob and Tom, the people staying in the other cottage and they had quite a trip getting down to the Luzi in the 4×4’s. BJ said it was an experience of a lifetime and Rob reckoned he wouldnt do it again. They all managed to get some small fish.
My dad only managed to hook one fish in the dam the whole weekend whilst BJ got another nice brown. Soon afterwards BJ’s EXPENSIVE Orvis T3 snapped about 2 feet from the tip. He is now in the process of trying to get it replaced.
We are putting the hard fishing conditions down to the cold fron that moved in as well as it being full moon.
We left on Monday morning and had quite a trip baack to the coast, which included a speeding fine and having our pork ribs confiscated at the “Swine Fever” roadblock.
All things considered it was a great trip and thanks again to Donie, Juan-Marie, Amanda and Oom John. We will be back.
