Karoo

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Walter Battiss Art Gallery – the home of Fook Island

The Karoo Heartland town of Somerset East is a place full of interesting and quirky attractions.  One of them is the Walter Battiss Art Gallery which also houses the local tourism information office.  Battiss (6 January 1906 – 20 August 1982) was generally considered to be the foremost South African abstract painter but is probably equally as famous as the creator of the quirky Fook Island.  Fook Island was Battiss' "island of the imagination" for which he created a map,…

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25/04/2016
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Remembering the Slagtersnek hangings

If you are flying along in a northerly direction through the Karoo Heartland on the N10, the main drag between Port Elizabeth and Cradock, do slow down a bit after you pass the first turnoff to Somerset East and keep a look out on the right hand side of the road for a cenotaph like monument.  Once spotted, do pull over and have a look as this is a very significant spot in the early history of the area.I'm not…

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14/04/2016
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The Windpomp

The windpomp is one of the icons of the Karoo Heartland and as part of the landscape as Karoo koppies, sheep and Angora goats and a good ol' farm gate.  But have you ever wondered where the windpomp came from and how long they've been around?The first windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.  They later became widespread across the Muslim world and also spread to China…

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13/04/2016
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Somerset East’s whiskey bar in a church

I'm not much of a drinker preferring to do the sacrilegious thing of making beer shandy by throwing lemonade into a perfectly good beer.  But I am known to enjoy a good beer or wine tasting so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that I'm doing a post on a place where you can do a spot of whiskey tasting.  As long as I only need to taste.  But this isn't sommer any place, it's a whiskey bar inside a…

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06/04/2016
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Hofmeyr’s pink church

Most Karoo towns have a historic church with a church tower that keeps an eye out over it.  The Karoo Heartland town of Hofmeyr is no different...  or perhaps it is.  Why? Because it has a pink church tower standing out above the town.  The Dutch Reformed Church in Hofmeyr was built in 1875 and at some stage went pink.  It definitely didn't go pink for breast cancer awareness because it happened way before that but whatever the reason it…

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04/04/2016
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Moonrise over pink clouds

Not long ago I spent a night at Angler and Antelope Guesthouse in Somerset East.  Coming out of the guesthouse on my way to dinner, the near full moon was rising in the east over clouds painted bright pink by the setting sun behind me.  I rushed back to my room to grab my car keys, dashed to the car to get my camera and by the time I got back to my view spot most of the pink had…

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29/03/2016
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A Karoo road – doesn’t matter which way you go

“Would you please tell me, which way I ought to go from here?”“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat.“I don’t much care where … ” said Alice.“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the cat.”— Lewis Carroll

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24/03/2016
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Museum lane

Looking up Museum lane to the Somerset East Museum at the foot of the Boschberg.  The museum is at the top of Beaufort Street with the Dutch Reformed Church at the other end.

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17/03/2016
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The Dutch Reformed Church in Somerset East

Somerset East's historic Dutch Reformed Church stand on the main drag through town at the intersection with Beaufort Road.  After the village of Somerset (with the East only being added 30 years later) was established, a need started to arise for a church.  The corner stone of the church was laid in 1830 and it was completed in 1833.  The church in it's current form is the result of extensions made in 1870 with only    a few of the…

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15/03/2016