Gamtoos

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Gamtoos Series 5 – Queen Victoria Profile

This is post #5 in a series of 7 posts featuring the Gamtoos Valley west of Port Elizabeth. One of the well known landmarks in the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape is the Queen Victoria Profile on the road between Patensie and the Baviaanskloof.  The profile is the result of erosion of the sheer cliff and can be seen when driving towards Patensie.    About 140 million years ago the Cape Mountains were roughly three times higher than today.  A period…

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09/05/2014
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Gamtoos Series 4 – Phillips Tunnel

This is post #4 in the Gamtoos Valley series.  The town of Hankey was started as a mission station on behalf of the London Missionary Society by Dr John Phillip.  The main purpose was to grow corn and mielies for the mission station at Bethelsdorp as well as to carry out evangelistic work in the valley.  Dr Philip's son, William Philip, came to the mission station in 1841 and during his time there the area experienced a serious water shortage.  The best way to get water…

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08/05/2014
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Gamtoos Series 2 – water canals

This is post #2 in the Gamtoos series featuring the Gamtoos River Valley west of Port Elizabeth.  The valley is referred to as the food basket of the Eastern Cape due to the amount of fruit and vegetables being grown here.  These farms all get their water from the Kouga Dam.  Water is taken from the Kouga Dam to the Loerie Dam (on its way to consumers in Port Elizabeth) via a main canal while irrigation water for the farms in…

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06/05/2014
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Gamtoos Series 1 – Kouga Dam

I'm going through a very busy period at work having just come back from World Travel Market Africa in Cape Town and off to Durban for Indaba in a couple of days.  Because of it I'm running low on photos and rather than skipping days I decided to keep the daily photo concept going and recycle some pictures from The Firefly Photo Files over to PE Daily Photo.  So lets go on a little PE Daily Photo holiday and discover the nearby Gamtoos…

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05/05/2014
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The old Gamtoos Bridge

Today's post is slightly outside the borders of Nelson Mandela Bay, but the Gamtoos area is very much part of the metro even if its only through close association.  When the first Dutch trekboers got to the Gamtoos River in the latter part of the 1700's, they had to move upstream to find a suitable spot to cross the river.  Later a pontoon was used roughly where the Gamtoos Ferry Hotel is today.  There was a call for a causeway to…

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10/04/2014