The winter crept stealthily up on us and before we properly realized it, there was a sharp nip in the air, the westerly winds had started blowing erratically and the grazing seemingly turned yellowish-brown overnight.

As was my custom, I once drove to one of the camps lying slightly farther afield to check on the water level in the dam that fed the drinking troughs. To my utter disbelief, cattle were milling around the troughs and closer inspection confirmed my suspicion: there wasn’t a drop of water in the dam. Apart from a small python trying to hide in the concrete trough and posing a threat to guineafowl and small antelopes, I could not discern any burst pipes, neither a specific crack in the dam wall, nor any other eye-catching discrepancy.

It became very clear that the situation had the potential to become very disastrous, and, therefore, demanded quick and decisive action. My next focus was the windmill, lazily turning in the slight westerly breeze, a hundred or so metres away. Alas, no water was coming. The open end of the feeder pipe into the dam was as dry as a biscuit!

The challenge was to determine the exact location of this enigmatic water problem, but the question that needed an answer was where to start when everything was actually comprising a hostile and unforgiving environment.

First things first: we moved the cattle to the next post, not knowing how long it would be before the life-giving water would be back. I was compelled to return home, and after having determined with a high degree of certainty that the problem lay in the windmill gearbox right at the very top, we had to give free reign to our imagination to contrive a method of reaching and dissembling the windmill. We came up with a contraption consisting of several 3m-long pipes screwed together, standing 1 or 2 m higher than the windmill. To this was attached a pulley system, housing a flexible cable which ended in a strong steel hook. The other end of the cable would be attached to the tractor. The vertical steel pipe uprights were in turn temporarily bolted in position against the windmill tower by horizontal spread-eagled pipes.

All the workers were organized with due haste, every possible tool, cable and pulley that might come in handy, including three monkey and chain wrenches of different sizes. Everything was loaded onto a trailer which was then hitched up to the tractor. We made our return journey over rocky outcrops at a snail’s pace and started assembling our invention.

After a laborious, nail-biting two and a half days of sweat, grease, and yelling we could eventually watch with awe when once again crystal-clear subterranean water flowed effortlessly into the dam to quench the thirst of many heads of cattle, kudu and warthog.

We could congratulate ourselves on ingenuity that would not qualify for the Nobel Prize, but sure as hell solved our problem.

Nickey van Zyl