Category: Archives

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the year 1661, nearly 10 years after Jan van Riebeeck established a refreshment station at the foot of Table Mountain. You are standing on the slope of a hill, with grasslands and shrubs, and in places taller trees, as far as you can see. No buildings at all. However, the tracks of ox wagons and carts in the grass tell you that human beings had been here. You follow these tracks down the hill and see a few ox wagons standing near a stream running into a small natural dam, the oxen grazing in the fields. A lush patch of pumpkins grows next to the stream. You walk up to the ox wagons and introduce yourself to a man called Pieter Meerhof, sitting around a small fire with his fellow travellers, drinking coffee and smoking their pipes.

DHS Keipraatjie deur Hennie Meyer: 21 Augustus 2012

Download for interesting reading on previous DHS excursions.