KEVIN MCCALLUM: Stanford, a floating bridge over troubled waters

In March, the riders of the Absa Cape Epic crossed the Klein Rivier into Stanford via a floating bridge. Some flew over, some went a little more sedately and others tiptoed. Just one rider fell into the river, trepidation seizing his momentum and turning it into a gentle, slow-motion splash.

The young lifesaver, on hand all morning for just such a mistake, swam to him and he was hauled out, and then took the sensible option of pushing his bike the rest of the way across. The river was low that day, March 21, the dirt road that runs alongside accessible to traffic and packed with locals in fine voice. 

Two weeks before that first stage of the Epic, my wife and I made an offer on a house just under a kilometre from where the bridge was. It was a Stanford house that just felt right. In July, we did some basic renovations — built a pergola for vines to wrap around and painted it white from head to toe, inside and out.

It was as close to the Karoo cottage we had always wanted ever since we stayed at the beautiful Richmond Rooms in the Northern Cape. North-facing, a view of the majesty of the Klein Rivier Mountains from the stoep.

Stanford is very different and very special. Far away enough to be in the country but close enough to the big smoke of Hermanus. It has the Wandelpad, a path along the river that takes you under magical milkwoods, where the branches of these old trees create mini fairy-tale forests where you can escape the world and pretend you are Hansel or Gretel for a spell.

On Sunday night, I watched Wales trounce Australia. It was raining when I went to bed around midnight. It had been raining for good few days, hard, consistent, relentless.

I woke up to the sound of gurgling drains. I looked outside and saw a flooded garden, and a flooded road. It didn’t look too bad. It took less than 20 minutes for it to get bad. 

The Klein Rivier, which embraces the village from the west, winding down to the lagoon and, eventually, when the lagoon breaches, to the sea, had burst its banks. Keri and I grabbed our dogs, Queenie and Laddie, and tried to escape in our car. Safety and dry land was just 100m away across one road.

We never made it.

The street we live in had become a river so strong and fast it was a horizontal waterfall. We were swept down the street like a twig. We couldn’t stop, we couldn’t think. The back of the car somehow lodged against a tree. I climbed out of the window and tried to open the door for Keri to escape, but it would not budge. The water kept rising, kept getting stronger.

A rescue team of local volunteers tied tow ropes together and formed a human chain. Keri, who admits she couldn’t make the D side netball team, caught the rope first time — think Jonty Rhodes at his peak and you get the picture. She was pulled to safety. I went back into the car to get the dogs out, passing them to our rescuers, then I was helped out. 

My memory is a little hazy after that. I went into hypothermic shock and a series of panic attacks. Keri was the calm one. Her strength was extraordinary. We were alive. That tree was our miracle. It saved us from drowning. As did Richard, Grant, Clayton, and one other whose name I forget, who risked their own lives to save us. And, then, the extraordinary Ros, a guardian angel who took us to the sanctuary of our good friends, Robyn and Peter, who took our sodden family in and gave us warmth and hope. 

I’m writing this column in our house, with the mud having been shovelled out and the floors made usable. We cannot stay here for a while. We have lost so much, memories and loved things, as well as furniture and stuff that can be replaced. But, there is relief and calm. We are alive and Stanford has gathered us in its embrace.

As I write, Ros is driving past our house making sure those of us who were in the water have tetanus shots. La Cantina, the local Mexican bar, became a de facto collection point for clothes and blankets. Sue at the Stanford Laundry is cleaning clothes and linen. Others have made food, opened their homes, given huge discounts to clean houses. 

A river runs through Stanford, and it ran through us on Monday. But there is love here, there is hope and there is a village like no other. They are our floating bridge after troubled waters.