The Republic of Gamkapoort: Where dams burp and Fox calls the shots

Your drive to the Gamkapoort Dam on the northern edge of the Seweweekspoort in the Klein Karoo takes you on a gorgeous roadway through the Bosluiskloof Pass, where legendary road builder Thomas Bain and his friend Dr William Atherstone once travelled.

Eventually you will glimpse a great body of blue water in the distance, an otherworldly sight, like a piece of sky asleep among Karoo koppies.

This is the Gamkapoort Dam, completed in 1969. During the great floods of 1981, it was put to the ultimate test when the Gamka and Dwyka Rivers became huge torrents, filling the dam to 210% with the rain roaring off the mountains. The wall remained undamaged.

Once you are closer, head for the manager’s old house within a miniature prefab construction village built during the 1960s.

This is Fox’s lair.

Inside, along with an ancient cat called Bubbles, is a world of memorabilia, maps, photographs and books, traces of a widower’s life and comforts.

Lambert Vincent Ledeboer, aka Fox, can trace his bloodline back a thousand years. It all started in German Westphalia, involving generations of men saddled with the name Lambertus Vincenticus.

Fox got his nickname while at primary school in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal.

“We had to run cross-country. I was right at the back of the field with the other hostel guys. A rabbit jumped up – one of those spring hares. And it ran parallel to the way we were running. So I chased it and caught it, and ran over the winning line with it. I came fourth.”

A friend dubbed the scene “the Fox and the Hare”, and the nickname stuck.

Before the dam

Fox entered the corporate world with middling success. From childhood in a family hotel near Majuba in northern KwaZulu-Natal, he’d led an active outdoor life. Canoeing, running, climbing and hiking always claimed precedence over extra hours in the office. Fox Ledeboer became one of the prime movers in South African canoeing. He helped get Cradock’s Fish River Canoe Marathon started in 1982.

In the 1980s, Fox and his late wife Meg left city life to start what would become a highly popular farm stay in McGregor, called Whipstock.

Ten years later, his life fell apart in the space of six months.

“My mom died, my dad died, my father-in-law died, my aunt died, my other aunt died, the dog got bitten by a puff adder, I was sued for money owed and my marriage fell apart.

“So I auctioned everything, sold the farm, paid all my debts and came here to start again.”

He’d received an offer from a farmer to raise ostrich chicks, up the road from Gamkapoort Dam. Fox lived in the farmhouse that would later be converted to the reception and restaurant area of the Bosch Luys Kloof Lodge.

A genuine UFO

One stormy evening, he saw something jaw-dropping.

“I was speaking to someone on the phone. Then I saw this huge greenish balloon, the size of a Boeing, rise from the dam. I just blasphemed really, really badly and dropped the phone to look at this thing. It got bigger and bigger, then it slid up over the mountains and disappeared. It was massive. I thought it could only be a UFO.”

About twenty minutes later, Fox came back inside, shaken by the experience. But the weirdness didn’t stop there.

“I kept hearing this voice calling me, Fox! Fox! Hello!”

It took him an entire minute to register that the disembodied voice came from the phone he’d dropped.

It turns out that lakes or dams sometimes exhale gas, especially when the barometer readings change dramatically before a storm. This often ignites spontaneously, rising as it loses mass.

Not many people can say they’ve seen a dam burp, but Fox can.

Republic of Gamkapoort

Then the farm was sold, and he had to move. It so happened that the water bailiff stationed at the dam left at roughly the same time.

“I simply moved down. I phoned Water Affairs and said, you’ve got a new tenant. I’ve been here ever since. I think they were glad to have somebody out here. It was always a difficult position to fill. Nobody wants to live here, and I don’t cost them anything. So that’s me. I found my spot on the planet. This is the Republic of Gamkapoort.”

Fox set about cleaning the place up and fixing up a few of the prefab cottages for visitors.

Hazards of being a water bailiff

One day, not long after he’d moved to the dam, Fox was at a loose end. His bakkie was in Ladismith for repair, and he was bored.

“I walked down to the dam wall, went down six flights of stairs, started the generator and looked at the control board.

“On impulse, I pressed one of the buttons to open a sluice gate. The water started flowing out. I pressed it again, and there was more water, and then more. Then I decided well, I’d better close it, and I pressed the other button. Nothing. There was still a metre of water shooting out.”

Then ensued one of those scenes that is only hilarious in hindsight.

Fox rushed up six flights of stairs, along the dam wall, up the two-kilometre winding road to his house and called Water Affairs.

“I said I’ve opened this sluice gate, and I’m emptying your dam, but I can’t close it. They said: ‘Try doing this.’

“So I ran all the way down again and tried what they’d suggested. It didn’t work.

“I ran back and forth five times, and nothing was stopping the water. Then a maintenance guy walked into the Water Affairs office and as an afterthought, they asked him if he had any bright ideas.

“He knew exactly what had happened. A little bit of mud was blocking the signal. As soon as I cleaned off the mud, down went the sluice gate. Since then, I’ve been the designated person that Water Affairs asks to open the sluice gates for the irrigation farmers downstream.”

A wild life

Fox, now 80, has traipsed over every bit of land here, and knows where all the best views are. He told us that only one peak remains on his bucket list – the imposing Aasvoelkrans in the distance.

He has befriended a family of sleek Cape grey mongooses that regularly check up on him and his stocks of cheese. There’s a porcupine that is partial to potatoes. He knows the klipspringers and the kudus, and has a wary relationship with a troop of baboons down at the dam wall. They dislodge large stones when he heads down to open or close the sluice gates.

“Down the road, there’s a muddy place where the baboons love to slide down after rains. I’ve also watched them do cartwheels. Most of them seem to be right-handed because they lead with their left arm.”

Fox often paddles around Gamkapoort. He knows where the resident fish eagles are nesting, and is happy to spend an entire afternoon watching birds launch themselves off the krantzes, like paragliders.

But every month or two, he must head off to civilisation for supplies.

The waterproof bakkie

“Look, when the stuff in the fridge goes purple, it’s time to go shopping. You can’t live on penicillin.”

Fox has a choice of two bakkies, but generally picks the Nissan 1400 “because it floats. I once sealed the back, so it’s waterproof. If the river is in flood, I’ll suss out the current and go across – up to a certain level, obviously.”

The passes are generally fine, and well maintained. It’s the flat areas that are the problem during flooding, he says.

“Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind at all if some aliens landed here. Especially if they could drop off some fresh bread, milk and an English newspaper.” DM

This is an excerpt from Klein Karoo Magic (390 pages, full colour) by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit. To order your author-signed copy (R400 including SA courier service), email Julie at julie@karoospace.co.za