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Queen’s Death Stuns The Great Karoo
During the Anglo-Boer War, the news of Queen Victoria’s death on January 22, 1901, was greeted with deep emotions in the Karoo. British gun salutes echoed across the veld and rumours of battles spread. Journalist Edgar Wallace received the news at Matjiesfontein and wrote this poignant piece: “Queen Victoria had ever been a sacred subject […]
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The Land Where The Citrus Blooms
A journey through the Karoo in 1856 so affected a Dutch traveller that he lapsed into philosophical meditations. Hendrik Antonie Lodewijk Hamelberg wrote: “I compare this road to the life of man. The potholes are the troubles he often feels cannot be overcome. Stoney places symbolise life’s disasters, while individual stones remind one that in…
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On This Karoo Peak You Can Taste Infinity
There’s a magic mountain on one of the Murraysburg farms. It’s Toorberg, the third highest peak in the Western Cape Province. Popular with tourists, Toorberg peaks at 2,400m (7,874ft) above sea level. Early indigenous people thought the mountain, which lies on Quaggasdrift, was magic because of its rich water sources. Streams, waterfalls and fountains, fed…
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Road To History Has Strange Twists And Turns
An old building, a collapsed ceiling and a young singer practicing for a concert led to the rediscovery of Willowmore’s history and its donation to the Cape Archives. It all began in August, 1984, when an old building in Knysna Street was being renovated to make room for Willowmore Bottle Store and a new Pep…
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Fled to Avoid a Scandal
Medicine had been taught at Edinburgh University since the beginning of the sixteenth century. This University Medical School is one of the oldest in the world and it has a rich history. Before 1832 few bodies were legitimately obtainable for study purposes and keen medical students were often forced to “acquire” bodies by illicit means…
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Perfume Prince of the Great Karoo
These days aromatherapy is widely promoted as a health cure, but few know that country’s first natural oils were extracted in the Karoo. In 1894 a Dane, Fredrick Nielsen, built a little plant on a farm in “Die Gang” (“the Passage”) route between Prince Albert and Klaarstroom. Here he extracted essential and volatile oils from…
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So Lonely and So Far From Home
High on a Karoo koppie on a massive boulder lies a little bit of Sweden. It is a poem and it was engraved on the rock by a Swedish tutor who ended up in the Karoo and spent some time teaching the children on Courlandskloof, a farm in the Nelspoort area. The man, simply known…
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Old Habits Die Hard
If you stand on the koppie on Juriesfontein farm in the Nelspoort area you can easily trace the route that the postman of yesteryear took from Beaufort West to Murraysburg. It snakes across the veld like a long brown ribbon . The route is punctuated by a huge heap of tiny white pebbles just below…
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Oddball Surveyor Was A Legend …
Every man needs a little madness, so he can cut the rope and be free, was the philosophy of that unforgettable film character, Zorba the Greek. In the 1860s, James Alexander Thwaits, Beaufort West’s eccentric and greatly acclaimed land surveyor, appeared to have the same approach to life. Tall, slim and imposing, this bearded Scot,…
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The Quiet Girl On A Dark And Lonely Road
Its the people who make the Karoo. They have a special way of creeping into your heart and ensuring that you hever forget them. This was the case with Abel Phelps. Way back in 1930, the then youthful and carefree Abel, had a strange encounter in the Karoo near Beaufort West. The meeting lived forever…