Historically, what is now a sensational road, was a bridle path, and was used to convey goods between South Africa and Lesotho, by donkey, mule and oxen.
Category: Africa
A Crazy Idea: Sir Conan Doyle and an attempted salvage of the Grosvenor treasure.
A crazy idea: the attempted salvage of the Grosvenor treasure What does the Wild Coast of South Africa and Sherlock Holmes have in common? What does an Anglo Boer War doctor and Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis, Moriarty have in common? The answer is Conan Doyle, as in Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (1859 –… Continue reading A Crazy Idea: Sir Conan Doyle and an attempted salvage of the Grosvenor treasure.
Deelfontein: Home of the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital
Mrs Google Maps when getting the directions to Deelfontein must have been playing broken telephone, because we took a seriously long scenic route. But hey, I don’t do lost, so we enjoyed the Karoo scenery. Flat land. The odd koppie (small flat topped mountain). Sand. Springbokke. Knee high scrub bush. Repeat. Repeat again.
Pondoland, Transkei and the tragedy of the SS Mendi.
‘You are going to die, but that is what you came to do… let us die like warriors. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war cries, my brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais [spears] back in the kraals [villages], our voices are left with our bodies.’
What’s in a name? Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa.
Kwa Zulu-Christmas.
That doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
What if the history books wrote about Port Christmas?
Or the Colony of Christmas?
The Umzimvubu River and Port St Johns
…..as usual, the European powers that were, had no respect for local knowledge, so the Umzimvubu River is called the St Johns River on all maps, and in all books written up until the early 1900s.
The Trekbokke of the Karoo
The springbok treks in the late 1800s were akin to swarms of locusts moving over the land, and as devastating to sheep farmers, who often gave up farming after their grazing land had been destroyed by the springbokke.
The Beervlei Dam
It does not supply any towns with water. Considering that this the dry, almost desert like Little Karoo, you will think that strange, or a waste of precious water.
Carnelian Beads on Transkei Beaches
…is there an unaccounted for wreck under the dunes?
Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, aka HIP
…a huge black mamba, one of Africa’s most deadly snakes, rose up between them. They froze, and the snake went on its way, but came back when……
Traveling again? Galavanting with Kathryn Costello 