18 July 2025
The Winter Warriors of Riverbend
So it’s midwinter at Riverbend. The kind of cold where even the dassies wear jerseys and the fish in the Vaal request hot chocolate before biting.
Early morning. The grass is frosted white, hard as a tannie’s fruitcake from 1993. My breath looks like I’ve taken up vaping again, and Leia, our beloved mini Staffie, waddles out of the house, onto the stoep with that “Hell no, not this again” face.
Now I’m cradling a mug of steaming coffee like it owes me money, and just as I’m about to make peace with the day, I glance down toward the river…
Steam.
Not smoke. Not mist.
Condensation straight-up roaring out the windows of two caravans like a miniature power station.
For a moment I thought someone’s geyser exploded or maybe the Gautrain took a wrong turn and landed at the firepit.
But no.
It was just body heat. And life force.
And the glorious aroma of Moerkoffie, rusks, and NO WHINING.
These weren’t city slickers.
These were hardened, frost-seasoned, under-the-duvet veterans of the road.
Faces glowing like mieliepap under a heat lamp, chatting away like it’s summer in Swakopmund.
So, of course, Leia and I strap on our metaphorical gumboots and waddle over. She’s vibrating like a kettle from excitement (and probably minor frostbite), and I’m grinning like a baboon with a Chappie.
As we approach, the one oom raises his mug in salute like a commander on the front line.
“Môre, boet! Bit fresh this morning hey?”
The other one chirps:
“Ja, I had to spoon the gas bottle last night just to feel alive!”
By the time I get there, I’m handed a mug faster than a Pitbull grabbing a worsie.
We talk diesel heaters, the politics of caravan leveling blocks, and which rusks hold out longest in freezing conditions (Spoiler: Ouma’s Buttermilk. Built different.)
Meanwhile, Leia is belly-up next to the fire, officially abandoning her Staffie dignity in favour of biltong crumbs and back scratches.
And just then…
I think of all the Karens from Gauteng—the ones who rock up in summer with portable fairy lights, gluten-free marshmallows, and the attitude of a spa manager on her off day.
I picture one of them now—trying to survive a Riverbend winter morning.
She’d step out of her tent, her hair looking like it got into a bar fight with a goose, lip quivering, breath fogging, crocs squeaking on the frozen grass…
And her face?
Her face would look so depressed… so offended by the cold you’d swear she was a dog turd that had been lying in the frost all night.
That exact expression— wet, hopeless, betrayed by the elements.
Like she came for glamping and ended up in the Game of Thrones: Bushveld Edition.
And I can’t help it. I laugh.
Because this—this band of cold-hardened nomads, their frosty eyebrows and lungs steaming like kettles—is the opposite of Karen energy.
Karen would’ve seen the frost and said,
“This isn’t what the brochure said. Can I speak to the climate supervisor?”
She’d be bundled in five layers of Woolworths fleece, sipping lukewarm rooibos from thermos like it’s radioactive waste.
But these legends?
They’re sipping joy.
Living large in 3°C with only a *blanket, body heat, and a deep appreciation for silence and second helpings.
And that, my friend, is when I realised:
If you’re not willing to watch your breath freeze while dunking a rusk, you haven’t really camped in South Africa.
Riverbend doesn’t care if you’re cold.
It rewards those who show up, bundle up, and laugh anyway.
Later that day, one of the oumas gave me half a banana bread and told me I have “a soul like a warm gas bottle.” I cried a little. Blamed the wind.
Anyway… we put up a new sign by the entrance:
No Wi-Fi. No Whining.
No Hot Showers Before 7.
Bring Coffee. Share Fire. Leave the Karens at Home.
