VOORTREKKER

Standing high on the Land Rover game viewer, I found myself wondering what Gerhard Moerdijk thought when he first saw this koppie, the one said to have inspired the form of the Voortrekker Monument. Living in the Waterberg, he is said to have travelled here often in search of quiet and inspiration.

I had spent ten days studying this granite mass from several viewpoints, trying to understand its power. It was easy to see why a monumental mind might have responded to it. The koppie carries a severe, self-contained presence, both sculptural and immovable within the wider Limpopo landscape.

I waited five days for Nimbus. On the sixth evening she finally arrived, moving across the meeting place of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers in the distance, where Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa converge. Turning overhead like a dark shroud, she revolved slowly across the sky, thunder breaking at intervals over the stone.