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Can you believe that it is October already? The holiday season is just about on us, matric exams are starting and Christmas decorations are already creeping into some shops when the only creep(y)ing should be Halloween.

This month, we look at:

• A bit of background about Nqweba Dam in Graaff-Reinet

• Discover South End Museum in Port Elizabeth

• Be surprised by the Aberdeen church hall biblical panels

• Learn the history behind the Tsitsikamma Dutch Reformed Church

Hope you enjoy this month’s travel info mailer

Regards, Jonker

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

Nqweba Dam – Graaff-Reinet

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.

Surveying was done in 1918, and construction commenced in 1920. It was officially opened five years later on 14 July 1925. 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 dam wall has a stepped slope facing downstream and is vertical upstream. These steps are staggered to break up water coming over the 169-meter-long spillway in case of high floods. The dam has a maximum height of 33 m above the riverbed level, but like other dams in the area, it has lost much of its capacity due to excessive siltation.  Water is utilised for both agricultural and town use.

In 2001 the name of the dam, Van Ryneveld’s Pass Dam, was changed to ‘Nqweba’, the isiXhosa word meaning ‘meeting place’ or confluence.

South End Museum in Port Elizabeth

Step back into the fascinating story of old Port Elizabeth at the South End Museum, where the memories of a vibrant and diverse community have been carefully preserved.

South End was once a bustling, cosmopolitan suburb where people of different races, cultures and religions lived alongside one another. Families ran businesses, children attended local schools, churches, mosques and temples served the community, while sport, fishing and music played an important part in everyday life. That way of life was shattered by the implementation of the Group Areas Act and the forced removals of the 1960s and 1970s. Homes were demolished and thousands of people were forcibly relocated to areas designated according to race.

Today, the museum tells their story through fascinating photographs, memorabilia, exhibitions and a remarkable floor map showing what the old South End looked like before the removals. Exhibitions explore the area’s social, sporting, fishing and musical heritage, as well as the lives of the people who called South End home.

Housed in the historic former Seamen’s Institute, the museum itself is part of the story, with its foundation stone laid in 1897. A guided walking tour of the old South End can also bring the history to life by taking visitors to important landmarks and sharing the stories of the people who lived there.

The South End Museum is more than a museum about a neighbourhood that disappeared. It is a place of memory, heritage and resilience, and an important reminder of the people and communities that helped shape Port Elizabeth.

📍 Walmer Boulevard & Humewood Road, South End, Gqeberha

Aberdeen church hall biblical panels

The 20 biblical panels in the hall of the Aberdeen Dutch Reformed Church are among the most unique works of religious textile art in South Africa. Far more than simple decorations, the panels collectively tell the story of God’s covenant with humanity, taking visitors on a visual journey from Creation in the Old Testament to the Second Coming of Christ in the New Testament.

Designed by Johanna König and created in just four months by five local women, one young man, and numerous community volunteers, each panel was painstakingly assembled using textiles, sheep’s wool, hessian and a homemade flour-and-salt glue. Rather than being painted, the scenes were built piece by piece from fabric, with only the faces hand-painted onto cloth, making them an extraordinary example of community craftsmanship.

The sequence of panels follows key biblical events, including Creation, Noah’s Ark, Moses and the Exodus, the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, culminating in the Second Coming of Christ. An Alpha and Omega motif links the first and last panels, symbolising Christ as “the beginning and the end” and reinforcing the overarching theme of redemption throughout scripture.

Originally conceived to improve the hall’s acoustics, the installation achieved that practical purpose while also becoming one of Aberdeen’s most remarkable cultural attractions. Today, the biblical panels are admired not only for their artistic beauty but also as a testament to the faith, creativity and collaborative spirit of the local community that brought them to life.

Tsitsikamma Dutch Reformed Church

The Dutch Reformed Church in Sanddrift in the Tsitsikamma may not be a historic building like so many other churches in small towns, but the congregation does have a long history attached to it.

The Uitenhage Dutch Reformed congregation was established 1817, and the western part of the Uitenhage Division stretched from the Gamtoos River westwards as far as the Bloukrans River. This large rural area was served spiritually from Uitenhage, with Rev. Alexander Smith ministering to the district for about 40 years from 1821.

This is important because it shows that Dutch Reformed families in the Tsitsikamma and Kareedouw area were part of a much wider rural church network long before Storms River became the village we know today.

The new Humansdorp congregation was approved/constituted in 1848 and formally separated from Uitenhage a year later. The congregation in Kareedouw was established in 1906, when it separated from the Humansdorp congregation and the Tsitsikamma congregation separated from Kareedouw in 1944.

The cornerstone of the Tsitsikamma church building was laid in 1955. This was at the same time as the development of the N2 route and the construction of Storms River Bridge. This was an important period in the Tsitsikamma’s history when it transitioned from an isolated forestry and farming district into a much more accessible community.

The church can be found in Sanddrift along the R102 route.

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