Every country has a legend about a haunted place. In South Africa one of the most mysterious hauntings isn’t set in an old castle or a battlefield but rather on a lonely Eastern Cape road near the town of Uniondale.

The ghost of a young woman in a blue blouse is said to haunt this piece of South African road, with the story now passing into the country’s folklore as the story of the Uniondale hitchhiker.

But what is the origin of the story of the ghost?

The Accident

On Good Friday, 1968, Lieutenant Giel Pretorius of Air Force Base Bloemspruit in Bloemfontein was driving his fiancée, Maria Charlotte Roux, to Riversdale, 900km away, in what is today the Western Cape, where they planned to finalise their wedding arrangements with her parents.

It was cold and pouring with rain. About 19km outside Uniondale, Pretorius lost control of his VW Beetle. (Uniondale is in the eastern part of the Western Cape, close to the border with the Eastern Cape.) The car rolled and both occupants were thrown from the wreck.

Pretorius was seriously injured. Maria, who had been asleep in the passenger seat, was killed instantly.

The First Sighting

Eight years later, on another wet Easter evening, Anthony le Grange was driving from the Eastern Cape town of Willowmore to Oudtshoorn, in the Western Cape, when he stopped for a hitchhiker near Uniondale.

She was young and pale, with long dark hair, black slacks, a blue blouse, and a black coat.

Le Grange asked where she wanted to go. She gave him an address in Uniondale. When he turned to ask for directions, the passenger seat was empty.

The Scream

Le Grange drove straight to the Uniondale police station and reported what had happened to Constable Cornelius Potgieter.

Then he set off again.

Not long after Le Grange had left the town, a hysterical scream suddenly erupted from inside his car.

Shaken, Le Grange turned around and went back for Potgieter.

The Investigation

Potgieter did not believe in ghosts, but agreed to investigate. He followed behind Le Grange in a police vehicle.

As the vehicles approached the bridge, the rear door of Le Grange’s car reportedly opened and shut by itself. Le Grange said the scream came again. A lunch box and flask that had been on the front seat were now lying on the back seat.

Potgieter searched the car. Convinced that someone or something might be inside, he even spoke aloud and offered to help.

There was no answer.

The two men returned to the police station.

There, Le Grange was shown an old photograph and identified the woman he said had climbed into his car.

It was Maria Roux.

Not the Last

The story did not end there.

In 1978, an army corporal named Dawie van Jaarsveld reportedly stopped his motorcycle near Uniondale for a young woman with long dark hair and dark clothing.

She climbed on behind him, put on his spare helmet and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Several kilometres later, he felt a jolt. When he looked back, she was gone.

Believing she had fallen, he turned around to search the road. Then he noticed his spare helmet.

It had been neatly fastened back onto his luggage rack.

Why She Waits

Over time, the story acquired its explanation.

Maria had been asleep when she died. According to the folklore, she never realised what had happened and continued trying to reach her parents, still travelling towards the home where she had been heading to discuss her wedding.

There is one final twist.

Giel Pretorius, the man driving the Beetle on the night Maria died, was himself killed in a car crash in 1984.

Sightings of the Uniondale Hitchhiker reportedly stopped soon afterwards.