Ons het verdwaal, omgedraai en die vulstasie onverwags gevind.

Het is the auxiliary verb used to form the perfect tense in Afrikaans. In everyday Afrikaans, this tense is very common where English might use either we got lost / turned around / found or we have got lost / turned around / found, depending on context.

Here, het does not mean had by itself. It is part of the tense construction: Ons het ... gevind.

Afrikaans main clauses usually follow a verb-second pattern. That means the finite verb comes early in the sentence, in second position.

So the structure is roughly:

• Ons = subject
• het = finite auxiliary
• the rest of the clause = past participles, object, adverb

That is why you get Ons het ... at the start, and why gevind appears near the end.

Because verdwaal begins with the inseparable prefix ver-. In Afrikaans, verbs with inseparable prefixes such as be-, ge-, her-, er-, ont-, and ver- normally do not take an extra ge- in the past participle.

So:

• verdwaal → het verdwaal
• not het geverdwaal

This is a very useful pattern to remember.

Because omdraai is a separable verb. With separable verbs in Afrikaans, the ge- is inserted between the prefix and the main verb stem in the past participle.

So:

• om + draai → omgedraai

The same pattern appears in many other verbs:

• aantrek → aangetrek
• uitgaan → uitgegaan

Gevind is the past participle of vind. This is simply the correct participle form to learn with the verb.

So:

• vind = find
• het gevind = found / have found

English speakers sometimes expect a more transparent pattern, but gevind is the standard form.

Because one auxiliary can cover several coordinated past participles. In this sentence, het applies to all three actions:

• verdwaal
• omgedraai
• gevind

So the sentence means:

• we got lost,
• turned around,
• and found the filling station unexpectedly.

Repeating het would usually be unnecessary unless you were separating the actions more strongly into different clauses.

In Afrikaans, non-finite verbs such as past participles often come late in the clause. Since die vulstasie is the object of gevind, and onverwags is an adverb modifying that action, they can appear before the participle.

So the end of the sentence works as a unit:

• die vulstasie onverwags gevind

This is very normal Afrikaans word order.

Onverwags means unexpectedly. It is an adverb, and here it describes the action of finding the filling station.

So it does not mean that the filling station itself was strange or unusual. It means the speakers found it in an unexpected way or when they were not expecting to.

Vulstasie literally means filling station. In natural English, that would usually be gas station or petrol station, depending on the variety of English.

It is a compound noun:

• vul = fill
• stasie = station

Compound nouns are very common in Afrikaans.

Die is the definite article, meaning the. Unlike English, Afrikaans does not have different forms of the for gender, and unlike some other languages, the article system is quite simple.

So:

• die vulstasie = the filling station

You do not need to learn different masculine, feminine, or neuter forms for the in Afrikaans.

Yes. Omdraai can mean turn around, turn back, or turn round, depending on context.

In this sentence, it probably suggests that the speakers had gone the wrong way, then changed direction. So English could naturally render it as either turned around or turned back.

Yes. In Afrikaans, ons can mean both we and us. The function is usually clear from the sentence structure.

Here, ons is the subject, so it means we:

• Ons het ... = We ...

If it were an object, it could mean us instead.