At the end of August I took a road trip to Johannesburg and on my travels discovered two slightly unusual monuments. Discovered by the way, as there were Geocaches hidden close to both. The first one was a monument just outside of Middelburg in the Eastern Cape. The stone monument has a picture of a chair on it and the sign says "Stoel Monument" (Chair Monument). So what is the story behind the Stoel Monument? There's a long and a short so…
Most of Port Elizabeth's monuments are located around Central and the city centre. There are a few outside of those areas though. One example is the Piet Retief monument and another is the Cenotaph in front of the Walmer Townhall. I stopped at the Cenotaph with Drama Princess and snapped a few pics while she was checking it out. The Cenotaph contains the names of the men from Walmer who died during the two world wars. Why does Walmer have…
Statues is a bit of a sore point in South Africa at the moment (referring to the Cecil John Rhodes statue at UCT and and and...) but there are some truly special ones out there. One of these is the War Memorial or "Victory Peace Angel" outside the town hall in the Karoo Heartland town of Graaff-Reinet.About three months after the end of World War One, the Mayor of Graaff-Reinet called a public meeting to discuss the erection of a war memorial. …
Most people visiting the Karoo town of Graaff-Reinet take a drive out to the Valley of Desolation to enjoy the magnificent views of the town and surrounding Karoo plains as well as the very sheer cliffs and unique Dolerite stone columns of the valley. I wonder how many people have spotted the monument on the left as you pass the dam just after leaving town. The Gideon Scheepers Monument remembers Commandant Gideon Scheepers who was a Boer scout and commanding officer during the Anglo-Boer War. …
Constitution Hill is one of Johannesburg's most prominent heritage sites. It is the home of South Africa's Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country, and is located on the site of a number of prisons dating back to the Apartheid years. One of these prisons were Number 4 Prison (the other two were the Old Fort and the Women's Jail) where a lot of awaiting trail prisoners were kept during those years. Although most of the old prison buildings…
The Anglo Boer War (1899 - 1902) is one of the big turning points in South Africa's history along with the arrival of Europeans in the country, the Great Trek, the Apartheid years and a new democratic South Africa. Okay, so the history is about more than just those five turning points but that is what came to my mind just now. One of the most significant things that happened during the Anglo Boar War was that it was the first time ever that…
My quick two day visit to Cape Town for the e-Tourism Africa Summit just wet my appetite for a bit of a Cape holiday again. Not that I know when I'll get the opportunity but I do know that I need some explore time in the city again. The three things I would really like to do is a tour of the underground tunnels that run through the city bowl, to hike up Table Mountain via Platteklip Gorge and to do…
Over the years the Cape has been occupied by different countries and there was always a threat of an invasion because of the Cape's strategic location. Because of this a big number of defensive positions have been set up all around the Cape Peninsula from the time that the first European's colonised the area. One of these can be seen at the top of Kloof Nek. Two 12 Pounder Guns were placed on Kloof Nek in 1782 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC)…
Very few people driving along the R72 coastal route between Port Elizabeth and East London have ever seen or even know of the Karel Landman monument about halfway between Nanaga and Alexandria. The only indication that there is a monument up the dirt road is a road sign at the turnoff. A couple of kilometers up the dirt road one stands in awe though of the magnitude of this monument in the shape of a globe. Its huge... and kinda in…
The East London beachfront has a very interesting looking statue which had me scratching my head when I saw it for the first time. Multicultural Man is a bronze sculpture created by Italian artist Francesco Perilli. It depicts a faceless man in the middle of the earth who is trying to unite two meridians, while the other meridians are lifted by doves, the universal symbols of peace. The bronze man himself is three meters high and has been designed to represent…