Tonteldoos XVIII - Hanover Foxhole Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

Knagur Green: Due to no response from the CO after the request to maintain or replace the cache, I am archiving it to, stop it showing on the listings and/or to create place for the geocaching community.

The Geocache Maintenance guideline explains a CO's responsibility towards checking and maintaining the cache when problems are reported.

Please note that if geocaches are archived by a reviewer or Geocaching HQ for lack of maintenance, they are not eligible for unarchival. This is explained in the Help Center

If the CO feels that this cache has been archived in error please feel free to contact me within 30 days, via email or message via my profile ,quoting the GC number concerned

Thank you for understanding

Knagur Green
Groundspeak Volunteer Reviewer

More
Hidden : 8/20/2008
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: not chosen (not chosen)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works
Looking for a different adventure?

Related Web Page

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:


From this site imagine 1901 when the town was placed under martial law by the British forces.

The Karoo was in the grip of a serious drought and had a shortage of drinking water. Martial law (known as “Martjie Louw” by the Boer people) had been proclaimed. The population of the town was being rationed with foodstuffs for 14 days at a time. All horses had been commandeered by the British army. Transportation for civilians was limited to ox-driven vehicles. Movement between the farms and town was by permit only. Boer commandos under the leadership of Wynand Malan, Kritzinger, Fouche and Hugo, among others, were active in the area.

At this "foxhole", picture a few British “tommies” in their thick serge uniforms - perhaps cursing the unrelenting Karoo heat or bitter cold; perhaps homesick in this foreign setting where the horizon reveals miles and miles of undeveloped plain dotted with large herds of springbok and other game. Bored or scared they keep watch, charged with preventing elusive Boer commandos access to the precious water source.

Look out away from the town and you will see " die oog" (the eye).

This fountain has supplied water to the busy little town since it’s establishment. Enclosed between four walls and roofed over, the British army have stationed armed guards around the walls on the inside, their view of the Karoo through the narrow gun slits in the walls.
Perhaps a mini-military town surrounds the water source, men and animals moving between the tents flapping in the dry breeze.

To the west of the water source, the town, established by the Dutch Reformed Church in approximately 1856, goes about it’s daily business. Daily life bubbles with people ever on the move - farmers and gentlemen stopping to exchange news, ladies greeting each other outside the shops; servants running errands between the hustle and bustle of the scores of large cumbersome transport wagons moving in and out of the town.

School boys and dogs noisily follow behind the small detachment of British guards marching through the tree-lined streets, passing by the house where Olive Schreiner writes another letter to the British press attempting to waken the British public to the reality of the war situation. A political activist who fights for the rights of women and opposes racism, Olive Schreiner and husband Cron live in the town from 1900 to 1907. She is scorned by the British command because of her public support of the Afrikaner cause.

To come back to the present:
The hotel was first established in about 1864 by Mr. Bill Ford.
Once you have found the cache, please pop in at the Hotel for a cup of tea or a cold beer and come chat to us and hear more stories about this interesting town...

Hanover is also a geographic oddity and claims to be the country's most central place. It is equidistant from Cape Town and Johannesburg, centrally positioned between Cape Town and Durban as well as Port Elizabeth and Upington and it is the hub of an arc formed by Richmond, Middelburg and Colesberg.

The irrigation furrows, or "leivoortjies", were built from "Die Oog" to take water to the village vegetable gardens. The system started working in 1870, and has never changed, water flowing in the furrows day and night. All the original plots still get two irrigation turns a week, strictly according to the distribution chart drawn up in 1870.

In the cemetery on the outskirts of town a pyramid of stone marks the grave of three young men executed during the Anglo-Boer War. The people of Hanover were deeply touched by this event. A train had been derailed and plundered at Taaibosch, 20km from town. Shortly afterwards several young men sleeping in the outside rooms of a nearby farm were taken into custody. They were charged with ‘maliciously assisting Boer forces’, robbery and the deaths of passengers. Tried on somewhat dubious authority by a military court at De Aar, the three: Sarel Nienaber, J. P. Nienaber and J. A. Nieuwoudt, were shot. They protested their innocence to the end.
In H. J. C. Pieterse's book on General Wynand Malan's Boer War experiences, the general states that his commando was responsible for the derailment. The general says the young men were not involved at all. The British, in fact, had sent them to the farm to collect fodder for horses. After the war General Malan joined Olive and Cron Schreiner in a lengthy campaign to have the names of the three cleared. The pyramid of stone over their grave bears this inscription: ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord’.

We hope you enjoy this spot and the town of Hanover. Please make sure that the cache is well hidden when you're done.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

fgnaq va gur sbkubyr, pnpur vf uvqqra haqre ebpxf haqre gur ohfu

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


Advertising with Us