KAROO FARMER SCOOPS TOP INTERNATIONAL PRIZE
The prestigious Ermenegildo Zegna Mohair trophy, for the best bale of summer kids’ mohair in the world, was recently presented to a Willowmore farmer. And, this is the second time that veteran Angora goat farmer, Billy Colborne, has won this coveted award. According to Farmer’s Weekly of October 17, 2008, Billy the also received the top award in 2005. The announcement was made at an awards ceremony in Port Elizabeth. The prize, which always includes a length of suiting material containing some of the winner’s own mohair, will be presented in Zegna, in the heart of Italy’s mohair country. The Ermenegildo Zegna group, a world leader in men’s luxury clothing, made from natural fibres such as wool, mohair, cashmere, silk and vicuna, started out in 1910 as a small family-owned wool mill in Trevelo, in Italy’s Biella Alps. Form the outset, however, its aim was the production of high-quality fabric and top-class men’s clothing.
ENJOY A TASTE-FILLED WEEKEND IN THE GREAT KAROO
Virna Gouws and Jeremy Freemantle, two people with a passion for good food and the vastness of South Africa’s arid zones, have created the first culinary institute of its kind in the Karoo. Located in one of Prince Albert’s historic old buildings, African Relish, is scheduled to be officially opened in mid-2009. The idea will, however, the idea will be introduced at a special fun-filled weekend from November 14 to 16. Cooking and adventure will be the main themes of this weekend, hosted by celebrity chef Vanie Padayachee and Bokkie Botha, owner of The Olive Branch Restaurant, and a man locally known as Prince Albert’s own “culinary crusader”. The programme will include an introductory dinner prepared by the participants under Vanie and Bokkie’s guidance, a variety of enjoyable outings, interspersed with taste treats, such as coffee and Karoo koekies. During lunch, brunch and dinner cooking sessions many culinary secrets of the area and food preparation in general, will be divulged. Participants will prepare excellent, tasty menus throughout the weekend to practise their skills. “After this initial introductory weekend, we will fine tune the programme and plan the official opening plus some regular monthly culinary vacations, hosted and guided by other top class celebrity chefs from around South Africa,” said Virna. “During session participants will be able to enjoy a well-balanced mix of inter-active, hands-on cooking sessions and tours around the Prince Albert and Swartberg Mountain area. There will be more than sufficient time and space for relaxation,” says Virna. The initial all-inclusive weekend, costs R3 500, and includes luxury accommodation, tours, walks visits to rock art sites and gourmet food.
GREAT IDEA TOOK ROOT, NOW SEEDS ARE BEING HARVESTED
Damaged vegetation and overgrazed veld so saddened two Karoo researchers that they decided to make an effort to put the matter right. So, after 21 years of living in Prince Albert and researching the effects of land use on biodiversity, Richard Dean and Sue Milton-Dean have started a small biodiversity-based business called Renu-Karoo Veld Restoration. Apart from providing expert advise on the restoration of damaged vegetation, they employ local people to grow and collect seed for use in projects which concentrate on the restoration of old ploughed lands, over grazed veld, damaged road sides, areas where gravel mining has taken place and so on. Richard and Sue have also established a small indigenous nursery that supplies plants for gardens and other smaller restoration projects. This dream of “renewing the Karoo veld” became a reality with support from LandCare, the Plant Conservation Unit at the University of Cape Town and Rufford Small Grants for Conservation. This support enabled Renu-Karoo to establish a two-hectare seed orchard in 2007 to produce seeds of indigenous forage plants such as Karoo bietou (Tripteris sinuata), klappiesbrak (Tetragonia spicata) and skaapertjie (Lessertia annularis). Despite challenges posed by dry conditions and brak water, the plants flowered golden yellow in early August this year and first seed was harvested in September. “We gathered six bags of winged Karoo bietou seeds!” says Sue. She and Richard invite those who’d like to visit the seed orchard and nursery or simply to go for a walk in the veld to see some of the unusual succulent flora of the Prince Albert area, to call them.
THE GOOD DOCTOR INSPIRES ‘IF’
Rudyard Kipling’s emotive poem “If” was inspired by Dr Leander Starr Jameson. Kipling states this in his autobiography, Something of Myself, posthumously published in 1937. Despite the fact that The Jameson Raid of 1895 ultimately increased tensions to such an extent that it led to the Anglo-Boer War, the British press portrayed Jameson as a hero. The opening lines of Kipling’s poem say: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs …..,” and most of the conspirators had to do exactly that. John Hays Hammond, an internationally known American mining engineer whom Rhodes had contracted to develop his gold interests, and a conspirator whose death sentence was commuted, said “after Jameson was captured the mood in Johannesburg was a mixture of Armageddon and a psychopathic ward.” Recriminations flew thick and fast. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick referred to the whole affair as “the blackest and most cruel game of treachery ever played.”
OLD CAKE OLDER THAN YOU THINK
The tale of the oldest fruit cake’s not that new. It seems Graaff Reinet’s antique dealer Eira Maasdorp found the old cake mentioned in Rose’s Round-up No 61 when she bought an old house on the corner of Church and Somerset Streets 24 years ago. After restoring the house, she opened her antiques shop there, writes Anne Lemkuhl. Eira found the cake under a glass cover while cleaning out the loft during renovations. So she put it on display as part of the building’s history. She then received a photograph of Frans and Carolina te Water’s golden wedding anniversary in 1902 and it showed a cake that exactly matched the one she had found. Frans Carel te Water, born in Brussels in 1824, came to the Cape in 1850 from Belgium and travelled to Graaff Reinet where he opened a business and in time became a town councillor. Initially he was married to Jacomina Jacoba van Rensburg, the widow of Johan Georg Krebs. The pair married in December 1848 but had no children. Shortly after Frans arrived in Graaff Reinet Jacomina died (in about 1851) On April 5, the following year he married Carolina Theodora Muller, who was born in Beaufort West in 1828. She was the daughter of Thomas Nicholas Germain Muller and Hendrina Helena Rabie. They had nine children. Frans died in December 1913 and Carolina in June 1904. No one seems to know why this cake was never used. Perhaps it was put away for some special future occasion and forgotten.
VISIT TO THE STATES A GREAT SUCCESS AND EYE-OPENER
Karoo Blue Cranes, samoosas, and Bison meatballs recently grabbed the attention of conservationists at the Lafayette Club in Minneapolis, USA. “This fund-raiser went well, and we achieved our target despite non-profit donations being cut by 30% because of the decline in the US economy,” reports Nama-Karoo Foundation’s Marina Beale. “The Guest speaker, Dr. George Archibald, was a winner, so were details of the Blue Crane project. Interest in the Karoo is immensely high and two Karoo items – a hand-made Comfort Wool Duvet and a painted ostrich egg – attracted a great deal of attention at the silent auction. The food was also praised. The menu included South African samoosas and Bison meatballs, made by the Broken Heart Ranch, according to a Karoo venison recipe. Other highlights of Marina’s trip included: a weekend with Dr. Archibald and friends from the International Crane Foundation, seeing the best restored prairie land in Wisconsin, America’s newest, greenest building at the Aldo Leopold Foundation, a visit to a bison/buffalo ranch which follows Alan Savory’s rotational grazing system and another to the birthplace of John Muir, founder of the America’s national parks. Marina swam in the Wisconsin River while waiting for Sandbills to land and toured Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, a research and restoration site established in 1940. “It is run by the University of Minnesota with G. David Tilman, who, according to Essential Science Indicators, is the most highly cited environmental scientist of the decade. “Radio collar tracking, is just one of the developments to come out of this reserve.”
HEATED STREETS AND SOFT SPRINGBOK SKINS
Less than .003% of native prairie land is left in Wisconsin and Minnesota, says Marina. So, it was particularly exciting to see the large project area where an oak savanna habitat is being restored. Marina also spent time in the Rocky Mountains in Denver and at Mile High City, on the plains near the foothills of the Rockies. “Among the most interesting places here was a Colorado ski resort. Among its many developments was heated outdoor streets. Here I discovered a boutique selling Springbok skin soft furnishings and this made me long for the Karoo.” These were superb up-market, expensive products. Marina enjoyed “an incredible gondola ride” to the top of the Vail Mountains and also visited the South African section at the Denver botanical gardens, as well as the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). We are lucky to have so much ‘in tact’ nature in the Karoo. Farming plains game, such as springbok, is far easier than managing American buffalo/bison, but I feel our indigenous people have lost more cultural heritage than the American Indians and received less in return. The Karoo now really needs a world-class facility to showcase the region’s cultural history, a sustainable way of managing its natural resources and a means of turning all of this into viable tourist attractions,” she said.
A TIME TO THINK AND A TIME TO DREAM
Travelling 360 miles in an ox wagon gives a man time to think. That was the opinion of Sir John Charles Molteno, who in the mid-1800s enjoyed his “thinking time” as he travelled from Cape Town to his farm near Beaufort West. A man could travel for hours along rugged routes into the interior and not meet a soul, so there was nothing to distract him, said Sir John. He claimed to know every stone along the sandy track. He said he also knew every koppie, bleached horse and ox skeleton on the road. Every time he made this trip his thoughts strayed to the development of “this wild Karoo wilderness area.” Among questions he pondered were: What about a rail service? Would it work? He claimed to have ridden this route for a quarter of a century, pondering a huge variety of problems as his vehicle bounced along. Then, he stunned the House and with his Great Railway Speech in 1874. It was staggering. He envisaged, he said, 800 miles of new rail lines at a cost of £5-million. At the time there was less than 70 miles of railway track in the entire country. “Push for Beaufort West,” he said “It’s half way to Kimberley and it will be the first terminus on the line from the Cape.” And, he added the main advantage to pushing for Beaufort West was that subsequent extensions would not be difficult. The Afrikaans farmers of the Colony were suspicious of railways, but Sir John, a farmer himself, enjoyed their confidence, so they agreed to be guided by him. This kind of support helped lead to the success of many of his plans.
DREAMS OF A HAPPY FAMILY FARM END IN LONELINESS
John Charles Molteno was a dynamic man. He first saw the Karoo as a fatherless lad of 17. By 23 he had founded Molteno and Company, a firm dealing specifically in the sale of wine, wool, meat and aloes. When the bottom dropped out of the wine market, he sold his business and warehouses to the Government. He liked the Karoo and in 1840 bought a farm north of Beaufort West, in the Nelspoort area, and appointed a man called Naylor, to manage it for him. As early as 1841 Molteno decided that the Karoo was excellent sheep country and sent two Saxon Merino rams he had purchased from Europe to his farm. The locals laughed. They said he knew as much about sheep as they knew about him. Within five years, however, he’d made a great success of his farming enterprises and merinos were part of Beaufort West farming scene. His farm was a showpiece – with good kraals, dams and irrigation furrows, wheat and orchards. Many said his fierce and desperate work resulted from loneliness because soon after he brought his young wife and baby to the farm in 1843 both died. For quite a while in letters to his mother in England he claimed to be lost and alone. Once the farm was “ship-shape” he moved into Beaufort West to build up a business and help establish a bank.
TRAGEDIES OF THE ‘WAPAD’ – THE ROUTE TO THE NORTH
On Easter Monday, April 1, 1850, Robert Gray, first Bishop of Cape Town set out on his fourth visit the faithful in the Karoo, Free State and Natal. One of the tragedies of the trip was the loss of his horse. When the animal “appeared unwell” the Bishop gave him a dose of Battley’s opium mixed with wine and kept a close eye on him. “That night I slept little, partly from the uncomfortableness of my bed, and partly from anxiety for my poor sick horse, tethered at my feet to the cart.” Next day they continued to “a miserable farm of an intelligent Dutchman (De Villiers) who speaks English fluently.” The horse appeared better, “as if to encourage us to proceed, but before we could arrive at water where we could outspan, he became so ill that we took him out of the cart. He appeared to be suffering from inflammation. I gave him more laudanum, but to no avail. The Bishop sat with his head in his lap till it died. He said: “I felt more on the occasion than I could have conceived, for when one has no other companions, a man becomes very attached to his horse.” The Bishop also saw “a poor ox lying helpless by himself, left die in the desert, being able to go further.” Moralizing on the carcases of animals strewn along the whole length of the road, he said that he had little thought that his horse would be added to their number. “It was quite dark, before we quitted the horse and because Ludwig, (his driver), could not see the road, I had to run before the cart for a mile or two, to point it out, and warn him of stones, rocks, and gullies. We arrived at a wretched hovel at Zoute Kloof, (near present-day Laingsburg) where an uncouth farmer, with his family, suffered us to outspan. I slept in my cart, and would have gladly cooked my own supper, as I have often done; but I thought it might give offence, so I partook of a very uncomfortable meal with them.”
A WHIFF OF THOSE WHO WENT BEFORE
Most early farmers were hospitable, but some of the bedding was not up to scratch. Many travellers thus opted to sleep in their carts. T C Lucas, young British soldier who came to South Africa to fight in The Frontier Wars “where one neither lived, nor died like a gentleman,” found most beds and bedding a little off-putting. “Most farms beds were huge square platforms ‘planted’ on four legs. The huge feather mattresses used for bedding, left a lot to be desired. They seldom had the sweetest of odours, the same applied to the ‘feldt comberse,’ and the quilts. These, it seems were seldom, if ever, washed and in the hot climes of the Karoo, where even summer nights can turn cold, one often found oneself having to huddle into a heap of fetid smells.”
‘MANNA’ GOES TO A SECOND REPRINT
Manna in the Desert, a book about life in the Karoo in the late 1800s is again being reprinted. Written by Alfred de Jager Jackson, when he was 80 and first published in 1920, it is a poignant story that captures the spirit of the region in the 1860s. Copies of the original are in great demand and fetch prices of R1000 at second hand dealers if they can be found. Details of the reprint are available from Alfred’s great grandson, Craig Elstob
A LOVELY LEGEND THAT WILL NEVER DIE
Some time ago Wendy Hardie’s took a 14-day trip into the Karoo to search for the legendary mermaid. She and Maya Morgan, the director and camera operator along this journey of pure magic, drove along roads less travelled trying to discover there truth behind the mythological mermaids, water sprites, snakes and spirits. “Many believe the story and take the greatest care at spots where these creatures are said to appear, while others scoff at the idea.” said Wendy. Prince Albert palaeontologist, Dr Judy Maguire said: “When European settlers first saw this rock art they interpreted the images as mermaids, because that they could not identify the creatures. The drawings are more likely to be swallows, or shaman calling the rain during an out-of- body experience.” Wendy and Maya Morgan didn’t see a mermaid, but they uncovered many fascinating stories and captured them on a DVD entitled Searching for Mermaids in the Karoo. Whether you believe in the legend or not this DVD is worth a look simply for the scenery and legends. Copies are available from Wendy hardie@iafrica.com. It seems the mermaid myth will never die because while she didn’t appear for the TV cameras, she was once again sighted at a dam outside Beaufort West, immediately after Wendy and Maya left.
SNAKE MAN HAS A NEW ‘ADDRESS’
The slender, round-eyed, quick moving Karoo Whip or Sand Snake (Psammophis notostictus) is an interesting creature. Its colour ranges from olive to grey, sandy to redish brown or dark brown with darker flanks. Found in Karoo scrub, Namib Desert, fynbos, grassland and arid savanna areas, it feeds mainly on lizards, including skinks, cacertids, agamids and geckos. It can also eat mice and small rodents. Its venom is harmless to humans.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT BIRDS
This year’s Birding Big Day is scheduled for November 29. “The annual competition is a great deal of fun as it encourages enthusiasts to record as many different species as they can within a 24-hour period,” says well-known birder, Japie Claassen. Doug Newman’s recently launched Bird Calls for Beginners, an A5 book with CD, recently published by Struik and costing R69-95, would be an ideal way for beginners to brush up on their skills. William Quinton Karoo Wild Bird Club is also arranging two interesting outings for November. They will visit Elandsfontein, 30 km east of Beaufort West, on November 2, and Saucykuil, 40 km from town and on the Rietbron road on November 16. Both are excellent venues, says Japie.
NOW SWEDEN FEATURES A BIT OF S A STYLE
Three Lily Buds, is a small piece of South Africa in Sweden. The project, brainchild of Swede, Anders Paulsson and Prince Albert’s Sally Arnold, showcases some unique South African products, on a small farm, at Fridhem Gaard, close to the Swedish/Danish border. Two years of extensive renovations to the farm buildings were necessary and a glass house was also added before products such as Avooca, True Karoo, Vinwood, Charlotte Rhys, Carol Boyes and the Wolskuur Spinners of Prince Albert and Kredouw farm were sourced for display. Also on show here is a vintage Karoo windmill. It was assembled on site by Prince Albert’s Johan Rissik and it now pumps water into a large dam which attracts small buck and large numbers of migrating geese.
FAR, FAR AWAY FROM HOME
A small part of the vast Karoo lies very far away from home. Way back, when the world was much younger, Africa and Antarctica used to be part of the Gondwana Supercontinent, which included present-day Arabia, Australia, New Guinea, India, Madagascar, South America and New Zealand. As these continents slowly drifted apart a large part of the Karoo went with them. Today South Africa’s current Antarctic base (SANAE IV) is perched on top of a gigantic outcrop of Karoo rock – nearly 5 000 kilometres from its original home.
You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.
Frank Herbert, author of Dune, said to be to science fiction what Lord of the Rings is to fantasy, Herbert , an exceptionally bright, intellectually curious, undisciplined young man, drifted from one thing to another struggling to write for 20 years. Then he produced Dune. It took ten years to become a success, then sold over 20 million copies, and became one of Sci-Fi’s most successful books
