ichael, Christos and myself took a left off the freeway to the progressive highfeld town of Middelburg, my hometown. I never know whether to feel sad or happy to see all this commercial progress, which is fast burying the reminiscence of my school days.

I forgot the words of our school anthem, but remember the day when Middelburg raised it's FM tower, which the end of LM Lorenzo Marquis radio.

No one in Middelburg even knows who Evelyn Martin is, today (radio announcer from the former independent LM Radio).

Botchabello is a turn to the left once you leave memory lane. This is now where the Bears were going to have their picnic.

We unpacked the car as fast as we could and dumped everything on the creaky floorboards of "Papenfoes House" kitchen floor and sniffed out every stone wall, pathway and sheep and donkey, anything in front of our noses. Picnic blankets, wine bottles, salami, brie, camembert, boiled eggs, and fresh rolls were neatly packed into the picnic basked and we headed straight for the arsenal on top of the hill, overlooking the missionary of Botchabello.

Marensky was one of the German holy Catholic leaders who came to convert the the many lost black souls, who in turn, build himself the village.

The missionaries started to vacate the quaint town as funds was no longer forthcoming from Germany during World War II.

Botchabello is a farm school, long before the FM tower was erected. This 200-year-old town was restored during the 70's and restoration is still undertaken by the "Van der Stel board of historic Monuments".

But Botchabello is facing a new threat: land claims.

Bears claimed the fort with the dinner baskets filled to the brim. That was our stronghold which means the town belonged to us for the weekend.

Afrikaner women and children died during the Second Boer war, on the same hill. Long before colour TV.

We had all the air, all the time and space to say whatever we wanted, but, somehow, we went mute under billions of stars fighting their way through the bright moonlight and flickering candles all over the stone walls that kept us safe within ourselves.

We dined, drank and staid mute. Just like soldiers in the fort, waiting for the enemy who never came.

The accommodation was above our expectations. Tasteful and clean. Friendly. Also very cheap, at R35.00 per person per night. How often do you get to sleep in these large farm houses from previous centuries?

The morning brightness flooded every room. Monkeys frolicking over the low stone walled meadows and came tumbling on to the front stoep. I wondered just how long could these hundreds of monkeys stay funny. It seemed that they could keep their act up for as long as there were Bears, and resume to picking fleas off each other as soon as the boys would pack up to go back to Joburg.

The others trickled in on Saturday, and all the beds were taken before the sun was at its hottest. We lit the lunch-time fires and threw on the meat. Twenty Bears ate and drank and drank and ate.

This was followed by short walks to the overflowing Klein Olifants River, the Ntebele city and passed out on the banks of the violent river coming down from all the rain a week before. The summer landscape was at its best.

Night time came and we threw more meat on the fires after a sundowner at the Fort. Saturday night is party night. We partied away from home in beds we never slept before. We ventured down to the river at some stage of the party. This had to be the most special experience of the whole weekend to me.

Twenty grown up men, under the moonlit sky of this undiscovered gem, with the forces of nature washing under a bridge which was flooded the night before. We exchanged thoughts and ideas as the rush of the water inspired us to much higher planes. This was the ultimate Bear party, on levels only known to the monks of Tibet.

Our last meal for the weekend was a braai at Papenfoes House which was empty by three on Sunday afternoon with only a heap of ashes left in the back yard of the bonfire from the night before.

We headed back to Gauteng, the river rushing down to the sea.

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