Introduction
The Elsieskraal Power Walk Series of geocaches has been prepared as an educational initiative to introduce young people to two things: types of geocache hides that they will encounter in an urban environment as they start geocache activity; and to some interesting facets of Pineland history encountered along the walk. It may assist Scouts in obtaining their geocaching badge and may be suitable as a small-group youth activity: either school of faith based.
The Power Walk is a circular trail of just under 6 km along the walkway that goes along both sides of the canal. For its entire length the walk is in a proclaimed green recreational zone.
The walk can be started at any point and the caches don't need to be found in any particular order. There are many convenient parking spots on the roads that run adjacent to the canal.
Before the Cape Town suburb of Pinelands existed or the expression “Garden City” had been thought of, the old Cape Colonial Government laid out a forestry estate on the outskirts of Cape Town. The farm was called ” Uitvlugt” and extended for several thousand acres across the sandy unpopulated Cape Flats. Here the Forestry Department carried out its task of planting pine trees— tens of thousands of them in an attempt to make the Cape Colony self sufficient for timber. From an economic point of view their effort was not a success, but it led to greater things and accounted for the name now bestowed upon the place, namely Pinelands.
In the 1880’s, what is now Pinelands was all sandy waste, sporadically covered with scrubby vegetation. Chief Langalibalele, a tribal Chief of the Hlubi of the Utrecht district of the Colony of Natal, and leaders of the Langalibalele Rebellion, was sent to the Cape where he was imprisoned between 1874 and 1887. He was held on the farm Uitvlugt on the Cape Flats. When the Zulu War came to an end Cetewayo, King Panda's son, was captured and brought to Oude Molen, adjacent to Uitvlugt as a prisoner of the Colonial Government. The farm Uitvlugt was later earmarked as a Forest Reserve by the Cape Colonial Government and tens of thousands of pine trees were planted to control the drifting sands from the Cape Flats.
In 1900, on the northern border of Uitvlugt were a number of wood and iron hospital huts that had been used by the Cape Government to accommodate bubonic plague patients. During the Anglo-Boer War (1898-1902), Uitvlugt was used as a camp by the British Army who used not only horses and mules, but also camels. (The camels were later trained for postal duties in the Kalahari Desert by the South African Postal Service.) A Police Training Depot was based on the site of the present “Oval” cricket field. The deaths, from plague, of two Uitflugt based British Army nursing sisters was immortalised in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Dirge of the Dead Sisters" in which one stanza reads:
Yet their graves are scattered and their names are clean forgotten,
Earth shall not remember, but the Waiting Angel knows
Them who died at Uitvlugt when the plague was on the city.
Immediately after the First World War, conditions in the urban areas of South Africa were deteriorating rapidly. The diamond and gold rush had brought many people to towns, the First World War had caused sharp rent increases and the influenza epidemic had killed thousands of people from Cape Town. This was the position when Richard Stuttaford became interested in Garden Cities. Stuttaford was the wealthy head of an important departmental store, and one of the most progressive farmers in the country. He later became a Cabinet Minister. On a visit to Britain at the end of World War I, he studied Howard's "new Towns" at first-hand and came back to South Africa resolved to start the Garden City movement here. As a consequencwe of his lobbying, the Union House of Assembly passed a resolution authorising the grant of “Uitvlugt” to a new body which was to be called “The Garden Cities Trust”. This was on January 13,1919.
Starting in 1920 roads were laid out in Uitvlugt plantation and wherever possible the original pines were preserved. Great care was taken to ensure that even the smallest lanes should offer a beautiful vista—either a distant view of Table Mountain or perhaps an attractive cluster of trees. A complete departure was made from the usual South African chessboard street layout. Where possible, roads followed the contours of the ground, so as to ensure the most economical cost of construction; traffic was concentrated on arterial avenues and maximum safety ensured for children by setting back as many houses as possible in lesser thoroughfares. The business region was carefully defined, so that the shops would be near at hand without being obtrusive. Above all, the houses were designed to combine attractive appearance with comfort and low cost.
The first plots were sold for as little as £20 each. Electric power and water lines were brought from Cape Town into the area while a new station was laid out on the Cape Flats railway line. The first houses in Pinelands were mostly thatch-roofed.
Although the new township was to be called Midwood, Pinelands was considered more appropriate. Mr Ross, the Chief Conservator of Cape Forests, lived in the Uitvlugt Farm House in what is now Homestead Way. Mr Logan, who managed the development, lived in a shack on the corner of Forest Drive and Alice Ride which had previously been a brick makers home. Opposite the shack, on the Oval, was a police camp.
Despite the huge role that Sir Richard Stuttaford played in founding Pinelands, his name is not found anywhere in the suburb. In the early days of Pinelands, Richard Stuttaford had agreed that Garden Cities could name a road in his honour. Three nameplates were erected in the road. Soon all three plates were vandalised and Garden Cities received a letter from a resident in the street, objecting to the Stuttaford name being used. The road was renamed Central Avenue. Since then the Stuttaford family has declined requests to use the Stuttaford name in Pinelands.