a single, narrow road across the Flats from Cape Town to The Strand that ran between walls of alien rooikrans bushes and one could travel for miles without seeing any sign of habitation other than a few fences and a handful of farmhouses.

Native antelope roamed at will between the dense thickets of wattles. The army used the area for military exercises and the few farmers who inhabited the Flats eked out a living by growing vegetables in pockets of relatively