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We’ve crested the halfway mark of the year and the Winter Solstice is behind us. Although the nights are still getting colder, the days are slowly starting to get longer again. Let’s hope it’s not a case of before we know it, Christmas is here.

Hope you enjoy this month’s travel info mailer.

Regards, Jonker

This month, we look at:

• Wander along the Tuishuise in Cradock’s Market Street

• Learn about the Dutch Reformed Church in Kareedouw

• The significance of Graaff-Reinet’s Nqweba Dam

• Discover the MOTH Memorial in Jeffreys Bay

If there is something that you would like to see featured in our monthly travel mailer or have any suggestions, please drop us an email at jonker@fireflyafrica.co.za

Cradock’s historic Tuishuise

Imagine being back in the 1840s. Clanking wagons roll through the river town of Cradock on their way to the hinterland. Hear the clatter of blacksmiths, the crack of the drovers’ whips, the chatter of last-minute traders as adventurers and their families prepare for their long trek across the Karoo. More than two dozen Tuishuise line Market Street up to the Victoria Manor, where travellers unload to spend the night and enjoy hearty country fare.

The Victoria Hotel, as it was then known, was advertised as early as 1852; however, it had been in operation for some time before that. The story goes that the original structure was a simple private dwelling built in 1848. The hotel has hosted the likes of General Haig, Olive Schreiner (herself a one-time Cradockian) and, in the 1880s, all manner of diamond- and gold prospectors. During the Anglo-Boer War the Victoria Hotel was commandeered by British forces, who turned the cellar into a jail for captured Boers.

The late Sandra Antrobus started buying and restoring the Tuishuise in the 1980s. She bought ‘the foremost hotel on the Frontier’ in 1994 and revived it from a dilapidated old hulk to a thing of Victorian splendour.

Kareedouw’s historic

Dutch Reformed Church

The Kareedouw congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church separated from the Humansdorp Moedergemeente in 1906.

The sandstone rocks used in construction came from a hill on the southwest side of the church building and were brought in by oxcart at 25 cents per load. The original wood for benches (now on the galleries) was donated by A Witcher from the Tsitsikamma.

The cornerstone was laid on 10 February 1908 and the church was consecrated a year later on 14 February 1909. The town developed around the church building, and in 1910, there were only 8 houses in Kareedouw. In 1929 the church building was enlarged. The church’s two Morrison automatic generators provided lights for 50 other buildings in the town in 1951.

In front of the church is a monument commemorating the Great Trek Centenary celebrations with the Piet Retief wagon visiting from 3 to 5 September 1938.

Balthazar Johannes “B. J.” Vorster (13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983), better known as John Vorster, was buried out of the church and laid to rest in the heroes’ acre next to the building. Vorster served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and as state president from 1978 to 1979.

Graaff-Reinet’s Nqweba

An influx of soldiers, farmers and their workers to the Graaff-Reinet district and town after the Anglo-Boer War led to an acute water shortage in the region. This set in motion a plan for a substantial dam on the upper reaches of the Sundays River at the confluence of four rivers, namely the Sundays River (or Nukakamma), Gatsrivier, Pienaarsrivier and Broederstroom.

Van Ryneveld’s Pass Dam was surveyed in 1918, and construction commenced in 1920. Excavations for the wall commenced in July of 1921, and by November, these had reached bedrock. Sand and stone were harvested from the immediate surroundings for the large volume of concrete (250,000 bags of cement were used) required for its construction.

The dam wall has a triangular cross-section, 30m at its deepest and widest point at the base, tapering to 3m at the causeway above. The spillway is 169 meters long and stepped on the downstream side of the wall to break up water coming over during a flood.

It was officially opened on 14 July 1925.  In 2001, the name of the dam, Van Ryneveld’s Pass Dam, was changed to ‘Nqweba’, the isiXhosa word meaning ‘meeting place’ or confluence. Located in the Camdeboo National Park, the dam has a catchment area of 3,800 square kilometres with a storage capacity of 80 million cubic metres, covering 1,133 hectares when at its fullest.

The MOTH Memorial in Jeffreys Bay

I’ve been wanting to stop at the war memorial next to Da Gama Road in Jeffreys Bay for a while now, but every time I pass it, I put it off to the next visit. “Next time” finally became this time. Turns out the war memorial is, in fact, a MOTH memorial.

The Memorable Order of Tin Hats (M.O.T.H.) was founded in 1927 by Charles Evenden as a brotherhood of South African former front-line soldiers. Its stated purpose is to help comrades in need, either financially or physically, and to remember all servicemen who have answered the Sunset Call, both in war and peacetime.

Based on “True Comradeship, Mutual Help, Sound Memory, MOTH grew to thousands internationally, but as old age catches up with those who fought in the Second World War, numbers are declining. Although MOTH is open to those soldiers who fought in the Bush War, the majority of those who also wore the “Staaldak” haven’t chosen to join organisations.

These memorials serve as places of remembrance for fallen soldiers and often feature plaques to honour deceased members. The MOTH Memorial in Jeffreys Bay is no different.

The plaque in front of the memorial reads:

FROM AIR, LAND AND SEA CAME TWO LIVING

STREAMS. THE LIVING HERE AND THE LIVING

WHO WON VICTORY OVER DEATH. HERE ABOVE

ALL DISTINCTION WE STAND TOGETHER THE

SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. IN TRUE COMRADESHIP

WE FIND THE TRUE NEIGHBOUR. IN MUTUAL

HELP WE FIND THE JOY OF GIVING. IN SOUND

MEMORY WE EXPRESS THESE THINGS FOR THOSE

WE SERVE, AND FOR WHOM, AS THEY PASSED

OVER THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED.

REUNION IN REVEILLE

THEY SHALL GROW NOT OLD AS WE THAT ARE

LEFT GROW OLD. AGE SHALL NOT WEARY THEM

NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN. AT THE GOING

DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES, IN THEIR NAME

WE GIVE OUR SERVIC

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