Forgotten Towns of the Karoo - a photojournalistic essay

Loxton
Day 3: 18 December 2005 SUNDAY

Imagine massive trees that cascade every street, with little Victorian houses snuggled in fairytale gardens, and people strolling peacefully along the streets with their dogs trailing behind, sniffing scents only enticing to themselves. That is Loxton, a stunning, beautiful little town with large green trees that stretch throughout it.

I loved the wooden lanes the most, casting shadows over the whole width of the road. Our first encounter with a local was a group of children walking with an adult. One youngster was jumping and skipping his way, stirring up a cloud of dust behind him. They brightened up the grey road with their colourful clothes.

When we drove further through Loxton, we saw an old woman who walked around with her dog. She looked a bit disorderly, but when we talked to her, we discovered that she was actually from England. We found it difficult to hold a conversation with her, or maybe it was that she just didn’t want to have a discussion with us, because she just walked, or actually strolled on forwards to wherever her wobbled feet were taking her.

If we hadn’t stopped to talk to an old lady, who seemed to be absorbed in her own thoughts, Etienne wouldn’t have caught sight of old odd-looking machinery protruding over a fence. He was immediately very curious to find out what it was and searched for the entrance to the property. Somehow he had a nose to sniff out the oldest things, because we were blown-away with what we found. We found ourselves surrounded by massive war tanks and trucks that were parked under sheds to provide shading. Most of these vehicles were from the period of WWII, some of these machines where old Chevy’s. It was very impressive to see the variety that had been collected in one area and the impeccable condition they were in.

While we looked at the vehicles from the gate, we asked some workers who were hammering sheets onto the sides of a shed if we could look around. They assured us that it would be all right. So we walked inside and started talking and looking at what we were seeing, when suddenly to our left from inside the shed an old man came charging up to us. Very aggressively he accused us of not introducing ourselves. I was a bit flabbergasted by his accusations, because we simply hadn’t seen him standing behind vehicles in the shed. But when Etienne assured him we meant no harm by walking and looking around, he decided he liked us and started explaining to us what their aim was with the collection. They planed on opening a museum to attract more tourists to Loxton. It was very impressive, for one, to be able to find so many old artefacts and that some of the vehicles still work! If I’m not mistaken, I think almost all of them actually still work.

He told us how difficult it was for them to import some of the machinery, because the government would sometimes get suspicious of their intensions. At one stage they thought he wanted to start a mini war with all the things he had there, and I’m sure it would actually be possible! But he assured them that his only intension was to build up a collection of war vehicles.

They had obviously put a lot of planning into the museum, because a guest house had been built right next to the would-be museum, and they were very friendly and invited us to tea, which we unfortunately had to decline because we had just eaten some snacks on the road to Loxton.

The old man had a lot of things to attend to, so he excused himself and went on to do what he had to do. Another younger man, Kevin then came over to talk to us. He told us that the Karoo was the ideal setting to preserve artefacts, because it doesn’t rain which causes erosion. He showed us a tank which they were busy restoring. They were actually planning on fixing it so that it would work again. I was quite impressed, and would have liked to see this massive tank strolling through the sleepy streets of Loxton. What an image that would have been! They would just have to mind the telephone poles, which for some or other reason stood in the centre of all of the roads. These poles standing in the middle of the road could be seen in most of the Karoo towns.

We left them to carry on with their work to drive through Loxton. The centre of town boasts a beautiful church made of stone cladding with a creeper growing on it. Since it was Sunday morning, we stopped so that I could take a photograph of the church and we heard the church bell ring and the congregation left the building. We saw a family driving very slowly in their car down the streets, and funnily enough, a young boy was running after them trying to catch up to them. They were obviously teasing him, because whenever he nearly reached the car they drove faster and the boy just laughed. He saw us looking questioningly at him, but he just laughed and shrugged his shoulders and ran on. It was clearly a town with a lot of spirit and determined people. The only thing they did lack was supplies in their café. This was a constant drawback throughout our excursion, but we somehow managed to find what we looked for just before we completely run out of stock.

It was approximately 103km from Loxton to Fraserburg.

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A Short History:

In 1899, Loxton was established as a Ned. Geref. Churchtown in a (duik) in the Sakriviervallei and in 1905 became a municipality. Although it’s usually a warm, sleepy place with a shortage of water, a flood in 1961 caused so much damage that three quarters of the buildings had to be rebuilt.

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