Hang 'em twice!


Graaff-Reinet, 18th of August 2018 – Karl from Schotia gave us a tip. ‘Go to Graaff-Reinet, it is my favourite village in the Karoo’. It is a Saturday but we are almost alone when we drive on the N10 North to Cookhouse. We fill up the car just opposite the Slagtersnek Monument. The short story: ‘In 1815 a Frontier Boer mistreats his Khoikhoi-worker, a Hottentot; sorry I use this word in these days of correctness. Bezuidenhout, that is his name, refuses to appear in court. When the British go and get him, he fights and is shot... by a black soldier. His brother wants revenge and there is a rebellion. The Brits impose themselves and sentence five Boers to death. Four of them will be hanged twice because their ropes break… Some historians see this as the start of the Great Trek. What a story. We drive West on the R63 to Graaff-Reinet and the sun is strong, low and in our face. Visibility zero. When the sky turns orange and red, we can start to enjoy this magnificent landscape, thinking how brutal life must have been here in 1815. We check into the Drostdy hotel, formerly the local administrator’s or ‘landdrost’s’ residence. Tomorrow we go to Camdeboo National Park.

The R63 in the Eastern Cape, the sun sets on a road that goes on forever (FDC)


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