"OUMA" The General's great Love

The General and his Isie

His life was full of ups and downs, but at least they could grow old together... 
Jannie and Isie - the love story
JAN SMUTS was maried to Sibylla Margaretha Krige, known as Isie Krige.  A simple woman that enjoyed the simple things in life and saw herself only as the wife of a "Boer".  The rest of South Africa knew her as "Ouma" a name that she was very fond off.  They met at the University of Stellenbosch when he was only seventeen and she only sixteen, but it took quite a while before this somewhat shy young man put the wedding ring on her finger.  He first attended the University of Cambridge where this special rare "Boertjie" with the Malmesbury accent excelled.

Here in a foreign country, far away from home he wrote many a love letter to his great love back in South Africa.

“Is this the issue of mere chance?
Is it chance that we lived for such a long time only a few paces from each other without getting acquainted and that we suddenly met some time ago and that we felt a mutual liking?
No, this is certainly not change.
It is our Heavenly Master who has brought this about, that we may help each other onward on the path of holiness and love, and that in loving each other we may learn to love Him more intensely.
Whatever the whispering tongue of the world may allege, let our love never be romantic or sentimental, but the deep love of truth which stickeths closer than a brother and is only purified, never dissolved, by adversity.”

The Cache

The cache is placed on a circular route at a well known picnic spot in Irene. The trading hours: Monday to Friday from 09:30 to 16:30; Sat/Sun & Public Holidays from 09:00 to 17:00
The route itself is not difficult and actually quite scenic. The route will take you a few meters from cache (GC3055) , a well known cache for placing trackables

The sunset and surroundings from this trail can be very spectacular:

• At the specified location (S25 53.271 E28 14.442) you will find a monument dedicated to the Smuts familly.
  On this monument are plates giving the names and birth/death dates of family members.
• Find the saddest plate, the one with the persons that only lived a month and use these dates:
  Bd = Birth Day; Bm = Birth Month; Byy = Birth Year (only the last two digits)
  First Name: Kdd = Day; Km = Month; Kyy = Year (only the last two digits)
  Second Name: Jd = Day; Jm = Month; Jyy = Year (only the last two digits)
  to determine GZ
• GZ=S25 (Bd)(Bm).(First Digit of Byy - 7)(First Digit of Byy - 6)(Second Digit of Byy)
  E028 (Second Digit of Kdd)(Jm).(Jd)(Second digit of Jyy-1)(Km)
• The GPSr reception at GZ is quite poor and might be slightly off, please step carefully and try not to disturb or disrubt the surroundings too much