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Free State - country of my soul

To some people the Free State is the Cinderella Province of South Africa with Bloemfontein (the capital of the province) a convenient halfway stop between the Cape and Johannesburg but to me it is the land of my childhood and the country of my soul. I grew up on a farm about 60 miles from Bloemfontein and the mealie lands (Americans call them corn fields) and the wide open spaces have a language of their own to me. I wanted to take Peter there and had an urge to go back to Theunissen, the little town where I spent the first 17 years of my life and visit my father's grave. Unfortunately I have no relatives living on the farm anymore and it is too sad for me to go there now.

On our way to Bloemfontein we also stopped in Welkom, the heart of the mining industry in the Free State. We had lunch in Welkom and Peter had to find a Post Office to send off his postcards (smile). Our next stop was at the rather neglected graveyard in Theunissen where I pondered about bygone days standing at the graves of my father and grandparents...

I also could not resist showing Peter the head stones of some of the more eccentric former inhabitants of Theunissen. The one being the grave of Old "Rooi Josef Du Plessis" (Red Joseph Du Plessis) who was a famous Afrikaner cattle breeder and has a red Afrikaner bull on the head stone of his tomb. Near old Josef's grave are the two graves with huge urns for head stones where the story goes that the deceased made provision to have suitable containers for their drinks in the after-life since they used to look deep into the bottle before departing to better pastures.

De la Harpe tombstone - sadly neglected

We arrived in Bloemfontein during the late afternoon and barely had time to visit he Anglo Boer War Museum and the Women's Memorial before closing time. The city of Bloemfontein has been the capital of the independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State years ago until the Union of South. Africa was declared in 1910. At the time it was made the Judicial Capital of our country and today it is still the site of the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Bloemfontein - the name means "spring of flowers" - is famous for its roses and each year in September it hosts an annual rose festival. More than 4000 rose bushes are planted in King's Park alone. Many of the city streets are lined with rose bushes and the inhabitants also love planting roses. I also had a beautiful rose garden when I lived in Bloemfontein. We drove past the house that I owned but everything have changed so much over the past ten or more years since I left that I almost did not recognise the house and much of the rose garden is not there anymore...

The Basotho name for Bloemfontein is Mangaung that means "place of leopards".

We did not have much time to explore Bloemfontein but a visit to the Women's Memorial and the War Museum is a "must" for any tourist. The War Museum is the only museum in the world that has the devastating war between the two Boer Republics and Great Britain between 1899 and 1902 as a theme. Many artefacts from this period are displayed in the museum.

Women's Memorial, Bloemfontein

Children as young as eight years of age and men over the age of conscription took part in this war and the clothes, weapons and other equipment on display have been used by the Boers during the war.

Close to the entrance of the museum is a magnificent display of tiles that once were part of the decorations of the Transvalia Theatre in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. When the theatre was demolished the tiles were bought and brought to the museum. The tiles depict the most famous battles of the Anglo Boer War.

The table that can be seen in the Da La Rey Hall of the museum was used during the important conference that was held in Bloemfontein to try and bring about a peaceful settlement. It was during this conference that President Paul Kruger uttered his famous words: "You do not want franchise, you want my country". The conference was not successful and war broke out on 11 October 1899.

One of the halls in the museum is dedicated to Emily Hobhouse, that most remarkable woman who did relief work amongst the inhabitants of the concentration camps in spite of heavy opposition from her fellow countrymen. A set of watercolour paintings by Emily Hobhouse demonstrates her very personal view of the "scorched earth" policy and the destruction of the war. One painting shows numerous funerals taking place and another of a boy that is near death - these were common sights in the concentration camps. More than 26 370 women and children died as a result of the war.

The men that were captured during the war were sent to Prisoner of war camps abroad - to places like Ceylon and India and many woodcarvings and other articles made by the men can be seen in the museum.

Outside the museum are a number of statues. "Afskeid" (Farewell) is dedicated to the memory of 54 000 burghers between the ages of 16 and 60 who left to join the Boer Commandoes. "Banneling" (The exile) is dedicated to the memory of the Boer Prisoners of War who died in the camps abroad. "Bittereinder" (The bitterender) depicts the 12 000 men who were still in the field at the end of the war and who fought till the very end.

Farewell

The Women's Memorial was erected in 1913 on the inititative of President MT Steyn. Mrs Steyn was a close friend of Emily Hobhouse. Of the more than 26 000 women and children who died in the concentration camps 2 074 were children under the age of sixteen. The ashes of Emily Hobhouse are buried in a niche at the foot of the Memorial to honour this remarkable woman who did so much to lessen the suffering of the women and children and to improve conditions in the concentration camps.

Peter signing the guestbook at Midway Manor

The display of farm utensils and other bric-a-brac immediately caught our attention as we entered the huge lounge of Midway Manor (it used to be the local hotel in years gone by). A few curious local inhabitants were already settled in for sundowners and we needed no further invitation to stay over for the night in the simply furnished, clean rooms.

We did not have time to visit all the exhibitions in the museum before the guard asked us to leave at closing time. We decided to proceed with our journey to the Cape and find a guesthouse somewhere beyond Bloemfontein since there was still a few hours daylight left.

We reached the small town of Trompsburg just about at sunset. Our search for accommodation took the best part of ten minutes by which time we had travelled all over the little town. Our friendly host was standing on the stoep next to a sign board Displaying "Midway Manor" and upon enquiry about accommodation invited us to come and inspect the rooms before we make a decision to stay over for the night.

The "Bottle" rondavel at Midway Manor

We immediately joined the owner and the locals at the pub for a few beers while the hostess and her helper offered us the menu and started preparing the evening meal. We were the only guests for the night and were treated more like family than strangers. After enquiring about ourselves the owner told us that he studied in America and to his amazement Peter discovered that this man was a resident of Minneapolis St Paul at the time when he himself lived there. A small world indeed!!

The next morning a full English breakfast was served after which we explored our surroundings a little more. As we went to pack the car two rondavels at the back of Midway Manor caught our attention. The walls of the rondavels were built entirely of empty beer bottles. We were curious to see what the construction looked like on the inside and a friendly lady invited us to come and have a look.

A brief visit to the post office and bank concluded our most pleasant stay in Trompsburg - more fun than any fancy, modern hotel could have provided!

After leaving Trompsburg we stopped at the Gariep Dam near Colesburg. The Gariep Dam is the largest man-made "lake" in South Africa and was mainly built to generate hydro-electric power. It has a shoreline of about 435 km, and the dam wall is 88m high and 914m long. The huge amount of 1,73 million cubic meters of cement was used during the building of the dam wall. A network of 13.2km of tunnels and more than a thousand steps that leads to its foundation on the Orange River is part of this engineering masterpiece.

Needles to say we did not attempt all those steps to go on a guided tour!!

After our visit to the Dam we were on our way to Nieu Bethesda and Graaff-Reinet in the great Karoo.