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It feels like January only ended four days ago, and here we are in March. It’s tourism show season. Meetings Africa took place last week and WTM Africa and Africa’s Tourism Indaba are on the horizon.

I’m working hard to expand on the Karoo Heartland website, but the challenge is to get establishments within the Eastern Cape Karoo to sign up and become part of the website. The Mission of Karoo Heartland Routes is to showcase the authentic spirit, unique culture, variety of attractions, long history and extraordinary landscapes that define this captivating region.

The Vision is to create the ultimate reference guide of everything Karoo Heartland,

to elevate the Karoo Heartland as a must-visit destination while honouring the

stories, traditions, and landscapes that make it exceptional, and to get proper collaboration going throughout the region to promote it as a collective.

Have a great March

Jonker

This month, we look at:

• The Karoo Koppies of Mary and Martha outside Tarkastad

• Hapoor, the legendary Addo elephant

• The Middelburg Cultural History Museum

• The Great Southern Cape Fire of 1869

• Karoo Heartland Routes Recommendations

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

Historic Cemeteries of Middelburg Karoo

Throughout the Karoo it’s common to see flat-topped hills called Karoo Koppies along the horizon. Karoo Koppies are capped by hard, erosion-resistant dolerite sills. This is solidified lava that was forced under high pressure between the horizontal strata of the sedimentary rocks that make up most of the Karoo’s geology.

One of the best-known landmarks in the Tarkastad district, at an elevation of 1454 meters above sea level, is two Karoo Koppies called Mary and Martha. They sit like two heavy women on a stoep, weary from a day’s hard work, awaiting the return of men from the fields.

Where did Mary and Martha get their names from?

In 1837, Reverends Shaw and Boyce purchased land near the source of the Zwart Kei River on the northern slopes of the Winterberg. Here they established Haslope Hills, a mission station aimed at the social rehabilitation of liberated slaves and displaced Thembu, Mfengu and Tambookie people. John Ayliff, an 1820 British Settler, moved here in September 1839.

Haslope Hills was situated on the eastern slopes of what was then known as the Tweeling Berge (Twin Mountains). The Ayliff daughters decided the names of the biblical sisters Martha and Mary would be more appropriate. These mountains are known by those names to this day and have become the distinguishing landmark of Tarkastad.

Hapoor, the Addo legend

Hapoor, the elephant, was a legend in the Addo Elephant National Park and its dominant bull for 24 years. ‘Hap’ means ‘nick’ or ‘hole’ in Afrikaans, while ‘oor’ means ‘ear’ and it is believed the distinctive nick in his ear was caused by a hunter’s bullet. Hapoor retained a deep hatred of humans throughout his life. On more than one occasion, park staff were forced to flee to safety when Hapoor made his appearance.

His dominance stretched from 1944 to 1968. During the latter part of the 1960’s a few younger bulls reached maturity and challenged Hapoor. These upstarts were unsuccessful until one bull named Lanky finally deposed Hapoor in 1968. Hapoor was driven from the heard and became a loner. Later that year he succeeded in climbing the park’s ‘Armstrong Fence’, which for nearly 20 years had been elephant-proof. His freedom was to be short lived as due to his aggressive nature, it was determined he would have to be shot.

His head is mounted inside the park’s Interpretive Centre to show off his size.

Middelburg Cultural History Museum

The Middelburg Museum Association was founded in 1983 with the prospect of establishing its own museum. The former poor school, which later became the preparatory school, was unused. The association persuades the municipality to buy it from the Department of Education. The museum was officially opened on 30 November 1985 with Mrs Hettie v d Walt as the first curator.

This cultural and historical museum displays the history of Middelburg and the surrounding areas. It also houses an internationally renowned collection of San artefacts, currently on display in the Bushman cave.

For anyone who wants to understand Middelburg, the museum should be the first stop.

The Great Southern Cape Fire of 1869

The indigenous forest is one of our biggest assets in the Tsitsikamma region, but did you know that big parts of the forest were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1869?

At sunrise on Tuesday, 9 February 1869, a berg wind, the hottest in living memory, started throughout the Southern Cape.  This “intensely hot hurricane” raged through an area from Riversdale to Uitenhage and even as far as Port Elizabeth, and fires broke out across a distance of over 450 kilometres and “it seemed that the world went up in flames”.

Reports from the different places say that all the fires started early on the Tuesday morning, which suggests that it was not a single fire spreading from west to east in forests, fynbos and farms, but must have been many separate fires.  There were also fires which spread from over the mountains towards the coast, all driven by the berg wind which blew from the north or north-northwest.

The devastation in the Tsitsikamma was enormous.  There were at least 41 lives tragically lost in the Tsitsikamma, Clarkson and Humansdorp areas.  The pets and the farmers’ livestock – poultry, pigs, goats, sheep, cattle, oxen, mules and horses; the bush buck and other game and birds of all sizes, all horribly burnt to death or overcome by the smoke.  Homes, from mansions to labourers’ cottages and kraals with huts, were destroyed, along with crops, tobacco, fruit trees, cut sheaves and stacks of fodder.  There was little or nothing left for those who survived, and many were ruined.

Karoo Heartland Routes recommend: