The ghost of Uniondale finds her way home

”On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night…”

While you won’t find the Hotel California in South Africa, on the semi-desert highway between the towns of Willowmore and Uniondale in the Western Cape, drivers and motorcyclists have reported paranormal encounters with one of South Africa’s most famous ghosts…

The story begins at about eight o’clock on Good Friday (April 12), 1968, when newly engaged couple Michiel ”Giel” Oberholzer – an army corporal and his 22 year old fiance, Maria ”Ria” Charlotte Roux – an administrative clerk, were traveling to Riversdale from Pretoria to visit Ria’s parents and discuss their wedding plans (Source: Older brother of Ria – Frans Roux, 2006).

While Ria was sleeping, the Volkswagen Beetle was veered off course by a strong gust of wind, Giel lost control of the vehicle and the car overturned near the Barandas turnoff around 20 kilometers from the town of Uniondale. Ria fell out and ended up in a ditch along the road. She died instantly… but, some say she is still trying to get home.

Giel survived the accident but was seriously injured. ”He was very confused and could not find her in the dark. A passing motorist picked him up and took him to hospital. Another motorist later found Ria’s body at the overturned Beetle. He picked up her ID booklet, a little change, and her handkerchief, and later sent it to my mother. In an accompanying letter, he wrote that Ria’s facial expression was ‘happy, like an angel’s,’ and ‘like someone who had complete peace with herself’. She was buried shortly afterward in the cemetery in Riversdal where her grave can still be found today.” (Frans Roux, 2006).

Giel married another woman one year after the tragic accident. Some say this is why Ria’s spirit became restless, the fact that her fiance had found love in the arms of another woman. Others say that since she was sleeping at the time of the accident, she did not know she had died and is still searching for her fiance or a way back home to discuss her exciting wedding plans with her parents.

According to Frans Roux, his sister rested in peace until 1973, when a man from Cradock, one Mr. Leonard Fraser and his wife, Catharina, were driving on that same road around midnight when they spotted a girl in a long white gown. ‘’She was standing on a storm-water drain,’’ said Catharina, 32. ‘’She didn’t look human. I could see through her.’ Apparently, when they stopped to pick her up, she “disappeared”.

“When we heard about it again, the story was on a radio talk show. After that everyone apparently “encountered” her, and it has been that way for 35 years now. Meanwhile, our family has to endure it and the hurt is ripped open year after year.” (Frans Roux, 2006).

The most notable recorded sighting of a young woman matching Ria’s description was made on the cold, rainy evening of May 1, 1976,  when Anton La Grange was driving his Mercedes on the Uniondale-Willowmore road near the tiny town of Uniondale. ‘’I saw a girl standing at the side of the road,’’ he recalled. ‘’I stopped. She opened the door and got in. I asked where she wanted to go and she said ‘Porter street 2, de Lange.’ She was dark-haired with a pale face, dressed in a dark coat and slacks. ‘’After a few miles, I turned my head and she was gone!’’

Puzzled, La Grange drove into Uniondale, reported the incident to the sergeant on duty, Cornelius ”Snowy” Potgieter, then resumed his journey. ‘’Just outside Uniondale, I heard the most chilling sound I’ve ever heard in my life,’’ he remembered. ‘’To this day I can’t tell you if it was a laugh or a scream. It was right in the car, really loud… although I was absolutely alone!’’

Terrified, La Grange sped back to Uniondale, where he and Potgieter searched the car, finding no trace of the girl. La Grange again set off, the sergeant following him in his police van. ‘’Just outside Uniondale, while I was driving at a steady 70 kilometers (43 m.p.h), the right rear door of my car slowly opened and closed,’’ said La Grange. ‘’It was a controlled gentle opening and closing, exactly as if someone got out and then shut the door behind them.’’ Sergeant Potgieter remembered: ‘’La Grange drove through a patch of mist and about 200 yards beyond the mist, I saw the right rear door slowly open and close as if somebody got out.’’ Rattled from the experience, Sergeant Potgieter returned to the police station, locked up for the night and went home.

For Sergeant Potgieter, the description given of the girl had stirred some unsettling memories. At about 8am the next morning, Sergeant Potgieter confronted police sergeant Pat McDonald and asked him if he remembered the girl that was killed in the car accident a few years ago. Pat McDonald was the first officer to the scene of the accident that day. ”I found a Volkswagen Beetle off the road, and a girl was lying on her back with her head against the embankment, she had died of head injuries. I later ascertained that her name was Maria Roux. The driver survived. I explained to sergeant Potgieter what the girl actually looked like, which was exactly the same description that was given by La Grange.”

The word spread around Uniondale like wildfire, there was a phantom hitchhiker on the N9. Within days the newspapers had got hold of the story and contacted Maria Roux’s mother. According to journalist Janie Meyer,  ”I told her about the story and that the people thought it’s her daughter that is haunting in that area, and she gave me a photograph of her.”

Later, when Anton La Grange was shown the photo of Maria, he said: ‘’It was the same girl. There’s no doubt about it.’’

‘’It frightened me so much, I’ve never been back since,’’ says 40-year-old Anton La Grange, a mechanic and truck driver (Source: ‘’Baffling Case of the Hitchhiking Ghost’’, The National Enquirer Newspaper, Edward B. Camlin, 4 July 1978).

Uniondale’s phantom hitchhiker had been identified as Maria Roux. There were no more sightings of her, until two years later…

On Easter weekend 1978, Army Corporal Dawie van Jaarsveld was doing his national service at Oudtshoorn army base 100 miles from Uniondale, he was on his way there to spend the holidays with his girlfriend. His journey took him along the N9. ”When I reached the intersection, I saw somebody standing on the side of the road. Just as I turned to the right, she kind of lifted her arms up – like ‘oh no, aren’t you going to stop’.” Dawie stopped his motorcycle and offered a lift to the young woman with dark hair and dark clothing. She climbed on, putting his spare helmet on her head and an earpiece in for some music. ”I asked her to please hold tight around my waist so that I can feel if something goes wrong. After a kilometer or two, the bike had a twitch, I thought she fell off. A lot of scenes went through my mind. I turned around, I wanted to see if I still had someone with me, there was nobody. I turned around, went back with the motorcycle to see if there was anybody lying along the road. I saw the spare helmet was back on my luggage rack, then I just had to move off because I realized then that I didn’t actually pick somebody up.”

Dawie was badly shaken, not knowing what could have happened to the girl. He fled to the safety of Uniondale. According to journalist Janie Meyer, ”Corporal Dawie van Jaarsveld also said she was a shortish girl, short dark hair (brunette), and she had slacks on and a jersey. That was the same description of La Grange as well.”

”I didn’t think there was something wrong at the time. I didn’t notice that it was a spirit or something. But I did feel strange.” – Corporal Dawie Van Jaarsveld.

However, according to Frans Roux, this behaviour does not fit the person who Ria was, ”Ria would never have gotten on a motorcycle in her life, she was too conservative for it. Definitely not a hitchhiker, we weren’t raised that way.” (Source: ‘Laat Uniondale se ‘spook’ rus’, News24 Archives, 2006).

On Good Friday 1980, motorcyclist Andre Coetzee, 20, had a terrifying experience while riding along the N9 past Uniondale looking for a friend who he thought might have run out of petrol in the desert. ”All of a sudden I felt hands around my waist, I could actually feel the pressure and as I looked down I saw the hands. I was very very scared and I felt I must get away from that place. That is when I accelerated and about 150 Km she gave me three wacks against the head and then she just disappeared. I never saw nobody standing next to the road or nothing.”

Andre drove to a local cafe in Uniondale for help. ”He could hardly speak when we asked him what had happened,” said Jeanetta Meyer, the cafe owner. ”But gradually it dawned on us that the woman ghost had appeared once more,” she said.

Andre’s story was written up in an American newspaper, although some details written by the journalist are incorrect, such as the woman died in a motorcycle accident and she was blonde.

Since then a number of unconfirmed sightings have been claimed, all involving a young female hitchhiker standing alongside the lonely stretch of road between Uniondale and Willowmore who is given a lift, then inexplicably disappears a few kilometers down the road, and some have reported car doors opening and closing, laughter and a chill in the air. The scent of apple blossoms is apparently the only reminder she leaves behind for her stunned drivers.

There have also been reports saying that the woman says she wants to go to ““Porterstraat twee, de Lange” – ”number 2 Porter Street”, but she never stays long enough to reach her destination.

Michael Aspel of the popular British paranormal documentary television show ”Strange but True?” tracked down the real eyewitnesses of the three most well-known sightings of a Phantom Hitch Hiker in Uniondale in an episode which aired on 6 October 1995. You can watch the episode in the Youtube video below:

Many people on social media have also claimed to have personal experiences with the Uniondale hitchhiker ghost:

While on his honeymoon in 1983, Danny De Kock, had a personal encounter with the hitchhiker ghost; ”My wife and I stopped next to the road to take a rest. My wife was asleep in the passenger seat. It was late at night and there wasn’t the slightest wind. I got out and walked around the car (VW Beetle) for a wee when a terrible sound like a rushing wind came rolling down the road and went dead quiet as it reached the car. I got the fright of my life and ran back to the driver’s side to be met by someone sitting in my seat. I ran back to the other side again to pull my wife from the car as I thought we were being hijacked but upon wakening my wife I discovered the other person was gone. We left the spot in a hurry and about 500 meters down the road we saw this woman in what seemed to be dressed in a gown, waving at us to slow down. I reduced speed in case it was someone in need of help but before we could reach her she disappeared. I stopped at a garage in Uniondale and told a stranger about my experience and that was the first time I learned about this ghost. You can imagine the chills that went down my spine. This is the honest truth.”

In 2006, thirty-eight years after Ria’s death, her older brother, Mr. Frans Roux (66) of Ramsgate in KwaZulu-Natal was interviewed by News24. Her family now asks that the ghost stories about her come to an end (Source: ‘Laat Uniondale se ‘spook’ rus’, News24 Archives, 2006).

“We are more than tired of it. It’s a bunch of nonsense, but it just doesn’t end. The organizers of the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival even use it as an advertisement for their festival, Anton Goosen sings about it, and then there are the people who go camping at the accident scene on Easter weekend year after year in the hope of seeing a ghost. Even Uniondale is benefiting from the tourism.” (Frans Roux, 2006).

The family has a final plea to convey: ”We want to say to the people: release Ria. There is no ‘ghost’ of her and there has never been one. People need to know that Ria was a happy girl and she was a compassionate person. She loved jokes, loved music, loved animals, and she had a bubbly personality. If Ria, where she is in heaven right now, was looking at all these monkeys and their stupid ghost stories here on earth, I’m sure she would have a good laugh. She was that type of person.”

In 2014, a South African movie was made based on the story and filmed in Willowmore. The movie is entitled ”Die spook van Uniondale”. The story focuses on romance rather than outright horror.

When Giel, ironically, died in a car accident in 1984, Ria’s ghost apparently stopped appearing, she was finally at peace. According to the residents of Uniondale, her ghost has not been seen for a long time… perhaps she finally found her way home, reunited with her lover or perhaps with all the crime in the country it has become too dangerous to hitchhike, even for a ghost!

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