Oudebosch Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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A nice quick cache just off the N2 and opportunity to stretch legs on the eastern side of the Tsitsikamma known as Oudebosch. This is a muggle zone but the cache is secure. Owners know about the cache.
The word Tsitsikamma is a Khoisan word meaning “place of much water”, and over the millennia, ancient rivers have carved dramatic gorges through the coastal plateau on their path to the sea. The area is covered in large tracts of Afromontane forest, mountain and coastal fynbos, as well as commercial plantations. When the first white colonists to reach Mossel Bay in 1711 they discovered the magnificent forests and as there was a huge demand for wood in the Cape they started exploiting the forest. During the 1850s the forests around the Humansdorp area were already being chopped down but it was not until a road was cut through to the Keurbooms River in 1867 that the Tsitsikamma forest came under threat. In 1880, Comte De Vasselot de Regne, a French forestry scientist of international repute, introduced the idea of preserving the indigenous forest. However, it wasn't until 1938, when all remaining woodcutters were pensioned off, that over-exploitation ceased to be a problem. The first exotic species were planted in 1891; red gum and cluster pine were planted near Bloukrans to replace sections of the forest damaged by the great fire. The supply of timber for the industry is now based entirely upon fast-growing exotic species such as slash pine, monterey pine, karri gum and Australian blackwood. Today only 65,000 ha of the original forest remain along the Garden Route, most of which is in Tsitsikamma National Park and around Knysna. The Great Fire of 1869 was the first fire in South Africa to be officially declared a disaster. It was extremely widespread and raged across almost the whole area from Swellendam to Uitenhage and inland to Meiringspoort, through the Langkloof and over the mountains almost right to the sea at Great Brak River, Victoria Bay and Knysna. Ash fell on ships far out to sea. This huge fire thinned out the entire forest, distroying most of it in the Humansdorp area and Oudebosch section of the Tsitsikamma.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nobir gur erq cbfgobk
Gb bcra, 15367