Driving east on the N2 between Bot River and Caledon, there's a turn off onto the R406 and a big arrow painted on a container pointing the way to Greyton, a popular weekend escape for Capetonians. But before you get to Greyton, you'll see another sign - one that looks like a church bell tower that welcomes visitors to Genadendal, a village with a rich spiritual history that is still evident today. This is where the Moravian missionary Georg Schmidt and a group of Khoekhoen established the first mission station in South Africa in 1738.
Today, it's not hard to picture the sight of a German missionary arriving here on horseback 284 years ago. Many Genadendallers, or "Genalers", as residents often refer to themselves, still travel by horseback.
The settlement, then named Baviaanskloof, developed quickly, and by the end of the 1700s it had grown to become the second-largest settlement in the colony after Cape Town.
In 1806, Jan Willem Janssens, the governor of the Cape at the time, visited the mission station and decided to rename it, so Baviaanskloof became Genadendal (Valley of Grace).
The community thrived, and there was an influx of residents when slavery was abolished at the Cape in the 1830s. In 1838, Hans Peter Hallbeck, a Swedish missionary, established a seminary for the training of teachers and pastors. It was the first institution in the country to offer formal teachers' training.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Winter 2022 من go! Platteland.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Winter 2022 من go! Platteland.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
There are few secrets in Verlorenvallei
All platteland towns have that one famous (or infamous) character who knows everyone's business. Meet Livia Hoogenboezem, the keeper of every piece of gossip in Verlorenvallei...
To the babbling brooks of Sabie
Roughly every five years, Jaco and Jens Reverchon get itchy feet. They hopped around Cape Town, moved up north to the Greater Kruger and then, recently, put down roots next to the Sabie River where they live a peaceful life with their animals.
Willie Strauss Never an idle moment
A variety concert... that is how to approach your life and career when you want to survive as an artist living in the platteland. So says singer, lyricist and radio food expert Willie Strauss, who entices visitors to Die Sinkstoor in Cullinan with traditional offal and his mother's Bushmanland boerekos.
To die for
How do you avoid the tourist avalanche if you live in an Afromontane forest where holidaymakers descend in December? You drive to lonely outposts in the mountains of the Cape, says photographer Obie Oberholzer, and you make pictures rather than take them.
The art of small talk
In the city, a glib smile suffices when it comes to interaction with any stranger that crosses her path. Yet a visit to Struisbaai taught Elizabeth Wasserman that small talk is no small matter
Find wisdom in the forest: It all starts with soil
A tree is an investment in any garden, even though patience is required to pluck the (figurative) fruit. When you plant several trees together to create your own forest, the reward is much greater. They offer shade, they support life… and they improve your soil. We spent time reflecting in our white karee“forest”– and learnt a lot
Ohrigstad's tiny big farmer
Agriculture courses through the veins of the Els family, who have been farming in the Ohrigstad valley in Limpopo since the 1930s. And they are getting younger and younger: Grandfather Jan Els was 36 when he set out, father Dewald 27… and littleWaldo got behind the wheel of massive machines at the age of 6!
On mountains and moments
On a trip in the southern Drakensberg, a torrential downpour and a field of prickly thistles got acclaimed photographer Obie Oberholzer thinking about the power of perspective
Spring on a stick
Expand your braai repertoire by serving a side dish of flavourful spring-vegetable kebabs cooked to perfection over the coals.
Postcards from the Tankwa
The R355 between Ceres and Calvinia is the longest stretch of gravel road between two towns in South Africa. And if you find yourself on this route, you're in the Tankwa Karoo. From the road, the surrounding plains seem lifeless and dull, but when you stop your car, sit quietly and breathe in the atmosphere, you realise there might just be much waiting to be discovered here.
