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| << November21, 2005 - Turtle Essays Edition no 156 dated 21.11.2005 |
December20, 2005 - Turtle Essays Christmas edtion >> |
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Turtle Essays Edition no 157 dated 28th November 2005. ** For tours around Cape Town and its surrounding areas or a private tours including walking tours of the city centre of Cape Town Contact me : Geoff Fairman at mailto:Tourinfo@turtlesa.com ** Do you enjoy this weekly ezine? Please tell your friends about it and send them to http://www.zinester.com/mpb/ml_fs.cgi?topic=50058 to become regular readers ** In this edition: Editor's Blurb The history of copper mining in Namaqualand The Cape Gannet. ** Editor's Blurb. Hi folks. Welcome to all my new and regular readers. As I mentioned last week this edition will be the last for the year 2005. It's been a busy year for both me and my wife and we are both in need of a rest. To recuperate we will be leaving for a weeks holiday on the island of Mauritius in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It will be our first visit there so am looking forward to it. As this is the last communication for this year I would like to thank all my readers for being so loyal and allowing me to send you my weekly mailings. I would also like to wish you a blessed Christmas and a prosperous 2006. Hopefully we will all meet again in the new year. I have put together two articles for you this week, one about copper mining and the other about the beautiful Cape Gannet which is coming under threat from the Cape Fur seal here in the Cape Waters. I trust that you will enjoy them. Thats enough from me for 2005. See you soon. Geoff Fairman. ** The history of Copper in the Western Cape When the Dutch arrived in Cape Town in 1652 they had no idea of what riches the land they were entering held. With the arrival of Simon van der Stel things started to change as he explored the countryside and started opening it up to farmers. At that time the Namas an African tribe lived in what is now called Namaqualand. They had somehow discovered metals and used them to produce tools, weapons and ornaments which they bartered with neighbouring tribes for goods. It was in 1681 that a group of these Nama miners visited the settlement at the Cape and came into contact with Simon van der Stel. When he saw their excellent samples of copper goods he immediately took some of them and despatched them to the directors of the Dutch East India Company in Holland who instructed him to find the source of the copper. Van der Stel sent out many expeditions to the north and eventually in 1685 he undertook an expedition himself and discovered the Copper Mountains of Namaqualand. Mining of the copper began but soon faded out as there was no suitable harbour to export the copper from. Attempts had been made to send the copper by wagon to the mouth of the Orange River but this proved to be an impossible task. The copper mines of Namaqualand lay idle for another 150 years until in 1846 Thomas Grace, a ship??™s captain discovered a small natural harbour on the west coast about a 100 kilometres from the town of Garies. Grace established a trading station there and as there was a big rock in the bay which resembled a dog he called it Hondeklipbaai. (Dog stone bay) Four years later the copper mines once again went into production and on the 31st August 1852 the first eleven tons of copper ore was shipped directly to Wales aboard the ship Bosphorus from Hondeklip Bay. The opening up of Hondeklipbaai as a harbour also increased trade between the Cape and Namaqualand. The little village of Hondeklipbaai soon grew and as the Magistrate of Springbok was unable to exercise proper control over the area it was decided to establish a Magisterial district in the village. This happened on the 26th November 1862 and Arthur Richard Orpen was appointed as the resident magistrate. In the meantime the copper mines at Okiep had come into full production and ore was being shipped to Hondeklipbaai by means of ox wagons across the mountains and deep, sandy plains on roads that were almost non-existent. It was obvious to all concerned that this could not go on so the authorities decided to build a road from the mines to Hondeklipbaai. Prisoners were used in the construction of this road. Unfortunately work on this road was discontinued in 1871 when it was decided to develop the port at Port Nolloth instead of the one at Hondeklipbaai. The town at Hondeklipbaai soon emptied of people who moved to Port Nolloth to continue in the copper trade. Today after the passing of more than a hundred years Hondeklipbaai is still on the map. Over the years a crayfish factory was established which was later mothballed, diamond mining on its beaches came and went and left the town with series of large excavations and overburden dumps which still have to be made safe by the mining companies. Today Hondeklipbaai is setting up a Nature Reserve which will hopefully attract tourists to its shores. In the meantime however the copper mining companies still had problems shipping their ore. They decided to build a narrow guage railway line (two feet wide) from Okiep to the port at Port Nolloth which was opened on the 1st of January 1876. This line operated for 68 years until 1942 when road transport took over. The railway line however has an interesting history in that for the first 23 years of its life mules were used to pull the coaches to and fro along its 146 kilometre course. As the line was downhill for most of the way the trip to the coast meant little work for the mules as gravity was used to move the trains along. The mules were required to work harder on the return trip as they had to pull the empty coaches back up to the mines. Teams of mules were placed every couple of kilometres along the line and the incoming team was replaced by a new team when the train arrived at the mule station. For the last 43 years of its life this narrow guage railway line used steam to move its trains and today the last steam engine "Clara" can be viewed in Nababeep where it is on display. In 1937 the two companies that had mined copper in the area eventually merged forming the Okiep Copper company which is still in operation today. Copper has become a major economic factor in Namaqualand over the years. Two million tons of ore are produced annually by the mines and through a smelting process is turned into copper bars. The bars are then transported to Cape Town by rail before being exported to markets all over the world. The history of copper mining has not been forgotten and many relics of the olden days have been preserved. The original mine shafts sunk by van der Stel are still in existence and are now National Monuments. To see them and some of the relics of the past visitors have to visit some of the mining towns of Namaqualand. I'm sure the Namaqualanders will welcome you with open arms. Geoff Fairman. ** The Cape Gannet The Cape Gannet is a beautiful seabird which lives and breeds along the African coastline. It can be found from the Western Sahara coastline in the north, round the southern shores of South Africa and as far north as the Gulf of Zanzibar (Tanzania) and Mombasa (Kenya)on the east coast. There are a number breeding grounds on the west coast with two of them near Cape Town, one near Lamberts bay called Bird Island, and the other, Malgas Island near Saldanha Bay. Birds hatched on the islands leave and return after three years to breed. The first bird to return is the male who after arrival seeks out a nesting spot for himself and his partner to be. When the females arrive the males through an intricate process have to impress the females. This is done by means of calling, head shaking and bowing. Once a mate has been found the pair first bond and then complete their nest of guano and other bits and pieces of rubbish before the female lays a single egg which is incubated by both partners.. The egg is incubated by the adults placing their webbed feet over the egg and keeping it warm. When the chick is ready to hatch it starts to piep in the egg. This is the signal for the egg to be moved onto the foot of the adult where it is kept warm in the feathers of the parent bird until it hatches. This is called brooding. After 42 to 46 days of incubation the egg hatches and a black and blind featherless chick sees the light of day. It rapidly gains weight and over the next three weeks it makes terrible demands on its parents. The chick feeds by pushing its beak into parents beaks from where food is regurgitated by the adults and transferred directly to the young chick's throat. Its hunger is insatiable. Once the chick has grown all its brown feathers it is ready to leave the nest. It wanders off down to the shoreline and there with all the other fledgelings will swim and follow the adults into the air down a runway used by the birds. This is a most risky period for the birds as they are attacked by seals who catch and eat them while they are swimming. Once the birds can fly they migrate northwards to the fishing grounds. Gannets are spectacular fishers diving from heights of thirty metres they enter the water with their wings closed and either grab an unsuspecting fish on their way down or an the way back to the surface. Fish caught are immediately swallowed so it is unlikely that you will see a surfacing bird with a fish in its beak. When there is a large shoal of fish about as there was at Cape Point the other day it was interesting to watch as the birds rained down on the sea like bombs and then surfaced, took off only to dive on the shoal again. The Cape coastline has many surprises for visitors who keep their eyes open when driving along it. There is however concern at the Lamberts Bay breeding colony. A seal population that was introduced to the area in 1965 has grown rapidly and is threatening the gannet population on the island. In fact it has become so dangerous for the gannets that they have left the colony altogether. Seals have become more vicious and don't only kill the gannets in the water but come ashore and raid the breeding grounds both in the day and at night. Reports state that about 8000 birds have been killed since 1998. The locals in Lamberts Bay are worried and plans are afoot to somehow protect the gannets from the seals. If the birds which are an important tourist attraction in the area should disappear so will the incomes of the locals as the fishing industry in the area has collapsed. We hope that a solution to the problem can be found. Geoff Fairman. ** For my personal details, contact address, and warnings regarding products advertised in this ezine please read the disclaimers which can be found at: http://www.turtlesa.com/Disclaimer.html ** |
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| << November21, 2005 - Turtle Essays Edition no 156 dated 21.11.2005 |
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