following the footsteps of our ground fathers,,,,,,
damm it was cold (but amazingly great and crisp and quiet),,,
and to everyone who obviously got up at 6 and was on the road by 7 to be at magaliesburg hotel for 8,,,,great stuff dudes,,,
ok so first we had to find our tour guide,,,of we went to the historical museum in magaliesburg and went through the museum that Robin and the historical society are putting together,,,what a great bunch of people,,,befitting the part we found our goblin like de la rey lookalike Robin,,,,our guide for the day
a well versed and extremely knowledgeable man and living proof that historians are fun guys,,,real party animal and also just a man,,,
anyway the museum was well stocked and interesting with various articles from washing machines, coffee grinders and more,,,what stood out for me was the exhibit of Hartley who was renowned for having shot 1200 elephants,,,but according to robin some reports said the magaliesberg valley had elephant herds as big as 300 while others reported that there were no elephants at all,,,maar ja,,,we know how stories can grow,,,
so off we went not even 15 kms from magaliesburg and stopped at some farm where de la rey's brother was buried,,,this valley mainly belonged to the Krugers, Hartleys, De La Reys and nogga english man whos name eludes me now,,,,
the boer tradition allowed a man to take himself a farm ,,,in fact two farms,,,one for grazing and one for cultivation no bigger than 6000 acres and obviously not bigger than your dads which lived next to you,,,,,so ja,,,everybody had 2 farms,,,in fact Retief who died in Natal only had daughters and they were given each a farm at the olifantsnek pass side of magaliesberg with the understanding that if a daughter gets married the husband must take the surname Retief and thus keep the surname going,,,,wtf
so ole oom paul had 2 farms and it was just off where we stopped at de lareys graveyard that the young kruger shot a rhino and his gun (2 pounder??? shark???) exploded in his hands and his thumb was shot of hanging by some skin,,,unperturbed the young kruger flicked open his buck knife and cut it of leaving a stump,,,,he immediately nursed it with turpentine but by 2 weeks the gangrene was creeping up his arm,,,he then commissioned a sangoma who made him slaughter a sheep and made his stick his injured hand into the warm intestines of the goat,,,ja ja ja,,,,whatever,,,he was healed within 2 months,,
the current farm owner is called the "italian stallion" and i remember him from a previous bike ride where splash had a puncture and blazes and everybody spent some timefixing it,,,it was the same guy who came down and gave us beers and offered malibu and cg some expresso,,,anyway its the same man and once again he made everybody some expresso and we had some brandy in it,,,,and then we greeted and trekked further,,,,
next stop was noupoort and the ghost house of a steenkamp??? where the commandos of all the directions would come together and decide strategies against the british,,,the commandos would come from mafeking, jozies, klerksdorp and pta,,,,imagine the jol,,,the place has a nice waterfall but we werent here for the nature,,,although it was beuatifull...we were on our wy to the battle of nooitgedacht when we stopped at the foot of olifantsnek where he showed us the Retief farms,,,smokebreaks and talking kak with the police we decided to go rather to breedtsnek where we were told we were stopping for homemade lemonade,,,jajaja we knew what was coming and away we sped away arriving at our host who was gonna relinquesh our thirst of the dry dusty gravelroads,,,lo and behold we were offered real lemonade,,,very very refreshing,,,even groenie had some,,,but next time someone must bring the gin,,,we were at the foot of breedtsnek looking up at the remnants of a blockhouse,,,
pics:
1, de la reys family grave yard
2. noupoort ghost house where the commandos had their bos beraad
