DIARY OF A SOUTH AFRICAN ROADTRIP!

The BBC's Peter Biles is keeping a diary of his travels across South Africa examining issues facing the governing African National Congress (ANC) ahead of its major leadership contest and national conference in December:


THURSDAY 8 NOVEMBER
Vanderbiljpark, Gauteng

The last stop on this 3,600km road trip is the town of Vanderbiljpark, close to the banks of the Vaal River.
This area used to be known as The Vaal Triangle, with three towns - Vanderbiljpark, Vereeniging and Sasolburg - making up a strong industrial and manufacturing base.
Vanderbiljpark was built in the late 1940s by the then Iron and Steel Corporation, Iscor, to provide accommodation for thousands of its employees.

The industrial area is vast and can be seen from far away.
Across the Vaal River lies another former state enterprise, Sasol, which produces chemicals and liquid fuels.
Traditionally, these have been major employers in the area.
Iscor was privatised in 1989, and has since become Mittal Steel SA.
Mittal is the dominant steel producer on the African continent, and the company is critical to South Africa's infrastructure.
The plant at Vanderbiljpark is vast, covering a huge area on the northern side of town. It can be seen from many kilometres away.
On the surface, Vanderbiljpark looks somewhat like the old South Africa.

.The streets still bear the names of Afrikaner heroes such as Paul Kruger.
That is not in the least bit unusual in predominantly Afrikaans-speaking towns, but I am surprised to find myself in "President" Kruger Street.
There is an astounding number of car showrooms in Vereeniging and Vanderbiljpark.
You can see them almost every few hundred metres while driving along the main R42 route.
Vehicle sales in South Africa have doubled since 2000.
At Vaalridge Auto, a BMW dealership, customer relations manager, Jacqui Janse, tells me that it is the emerging black middle class (the so-called "Black Diamonds") which are largely responsible for the phenomenal growth in the market.
"We've been going through good times," she says.
"We sell a lot of cars to African, coloured and Indian customers because these people are now in a higher income bracket."
But the towns on the Vaal have also been hard hit by unemployment in recent years, and one phenomenon of post-apartheid South Africa is white poverty.
Whites were protected by the system of apartheid and guaranteed jobs. No longer.
At the Lochvaal Emfuleni Shelter and Welfare Centre, there are some 30 white Afrikaners, men and women of all ages and a handful of children.
I meet Hendrik du Toit, a 38-year-old unemployed Afrikaner.
He moved into the shelter in Vanderbiljpark two weeks ago. He lost his job in Cape Town, and slept rough on the streets in Johannesburg for a while.
"It's definitely much harder for whites to get a job these days," he says.
In recent years, Mr du Toit has worked as a printer, a security guard, a bricklayer, a petrol attendant and as a waiter on the railways.
He left school at 17 and never obtained any qualifications.
"I love South Africa, but the government must look at our people as well as their own. If they do that, we'll build a better country."

BBC NEWS REPORT.