Reader story: The forbidden road

You don’t have to venture deep into the bundus to get stuck. Sometimes it can happen in your own backyard, says Jacques Janse van Rensburg.

This particular incident was a big oops. One day, my wife, Jessica, and I, decided to take a little drive to see the soya bean plantations on our remote farm in the north-eastern Free State.

The farm has beautiful, rocky outcrops with springs that run through them, and there are some lekker places to go drive. Our four-year-old son, Johan, was with us, and I drove next to the tracks in order to stay out of the mud.

But before we knew it, our Cruiser landed itself in a puddle of thick mud, up to its doors!

I had to try get the vehicle out, because there is no cellphone reception on the farm, and our nearest neighbours are about 15 km away from us.

Jessica (who was very negative) and I packed rocks under the wheels, but every attempt to get out was in vain. Eventually I just swallowed my pride and the three of us went in search of cellphone signal by climbing one of the ridges.

With a bit of a struggle, we managed to get hold of my good friend, Marco Tromp and his wife Claudia. But they were 70 km away, and had never been to our farm before.

It took a lot of SMSing back and forth before they eventually found the route to where we were. And when they got there, they first had a good laugh at us before Marco helped pull the Cruiser out of the mud.