Hectorspruit – a town named after a dog. Traditional Cache
surreptitious007: Too many muggles in area.
Hectorspruit – a town named after a dog.
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Well actually, the stream (a tributary of the Crocodile) was named after the dog, and the town was then named after the stream.
This is what happened:
In October 1874, President T F Burgers was appointed by the Volksraad of the Transvaal Republic to confer with the Portuguese Government with regards to establishing a rail link from Lorenço Marques (present day Maputo) to the South African highveld.
By December 1887, the line was completed from Lorenço Marques as far as Komatipoort. The team of Steinmetz, Bruguere and Bouten were given the task of surveying the route of the Eastern Railway Line (as proposed by Major Machado) from Komatipoort onwards.
They eventually came to a tributary of the Crocodile River which had no name. Their dog, named Hector, had the misfortune to be stung by a tsetse fly and died. They buried him on the bank of the stream and called it Hectorspruit. The town has since developed at this site.
(Pioneers of the Lowveld – Hans Bornman 1995, ISBN 0-9583165-8-9)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
N ovfba ghor unatvat va gurer.
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures