It's heartwarming how you still appreciate the beauty and majesty of our town. We as residents see only the destruction ,corruption ,neglect and dilapidation.
Wowzer, those are indeed precious memories and we appreciate you sharing them with us! 💒📚 I'm glad that you visited Queenstown with the two of us again today! 🚙🤩
The old buildings in Queenstown are awesome. I have lovely memories of visiting my grandparents when they lived there. Lovely old town. Not so small anymore
Thank you for showing us one of the beautifully provinces of SA. Formally it was recently changed by the current government from Queenstown to Komani, but it was iKomani to black people who are the descendants of Africa and despite that some people came and changed it to Queenstown, it was always Komani. Fortunately when the name was changed we used both names because we are accomodative and flexible nature we used both names.❤
The Eastern Cape is indeed a beautiful province and not only because I was born there. 😁 I'm glad you enjoyed our trip through these towns, most of which we've only ever heard of before, but never visited ourselves. I take note of your comments about the name change. It was clear to me when we were visiting the town that the local folks still use Queenstown for the most part. I don't have as much against a name change in principle as I have a huge problem with the money it costs our country, which is already unable to provide basic and essential services to its residents. That's my main gripe with it. 🤷🏻♂️🇿🇦
My town where I grew up. Went to Sacred Heart Convent School. Sad to see the town hall being destroyed but loved all the beautifull familiar places and more. Curtis you are a star thank you.
Luckily there were many beautiful, still intact, buildings and monuments to enjoy. We did struggle quite a bit to come to terms with the sad sight of the Town Hall, such a majestic and stately old building. 🏛️😢 I'm glad you enjoyed visiting Queenstown again. We so appreciate you sharing your own memories of the town, thank you. 🚙😊
Indeed very sad to see gorgeous buildings destroyed, I agree. 🏛️😢 Hopefully, as some beautiful ones still remain, you still have some fantastic memories of your time spent in Queenstown. Thank you for visiting it again with us two! 🚙😊
We too have a Queenstown 2 hours drive from Invercargill. The NZ Queenstown however is full of tourists. So sad to see beautiful historic buildings being destroyed. Two different cultures I guess.What a nice road to Queenstown. I loved that the old steam engine was still in such a good condition. Beautiful stone churches .
@@annawitter5161 Yes I am happy to visit Queenstown for a day and admire the scenic beauty of the lake and mountains. Then after I cannot wait to get home to Invercargill and normality. You are so right about Queenstown NZ being so materialistic. Its disgusting.
@tonynz9954 Every time I hear of a town with the same name in another country, particularly New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, I'm fascinated all over again by the extent of the British influence across the world back in the day. 🇬🇧👑 We hope to one day explore those countries too and look forward to seeing towns abroad with familiar names with our own eyes. 🤩 I don't ever see myself wrapping my head around the destruction of buildings, let alone beautiful buildings with historical significance. In my mind, there is zero (as in absolutely not a single one) reason to do such a thing and it accomplishes nothing. It blows my mind every time I see it and saddens me deeply. 😢🏛️
Machinist Curtis achter het stuur, oh what a ride 🥳🚂. Als er een stoomfluit had gehangen om mee te ‘blazen’, had je die vast niet kunnen weerstaan! In die prachtige Luxe Molen hotelkamer was het goed vertoeven met sweet Dutch Dreams waarin je treintjes, molens en tulpen telde 🌷🚂🌷🇳🇱🚂😁. Wat een episode was dit, geweldig! Al snel had ik pen en papier bij de hand nodig om alles bij te houden. Zo apart van vorm die eerste 2 kerken, wonderbaarlijk. Tussen alle Britten heeft zich toch ook de NG kerk genesteld, met prachtig Voortrekkers monument met fraaie details rondom en de hoeksteen uit 1924 in keurig Nederlands. Inderdaad Curtis, de details are in de columns. Heel mooi dat orgel in de kerk waar je binnen was en het houten plafond, wow. Gelukkig bleek de vervallen City Hall geheel geen voorteken van wat volgde (nou ja behalve de sportvelden en zwembad). Deze stad ziet er keurig onderhouden uit. Zelfs het trein station heeft een goede volgende bestemming gekregen. Ook nog steeds duidelijk ‘liefdevolle zorgen’ voor de gesneuvelden uit vele oorlogen. Door de Boer-Anglo oorlogen en daarna de 2 wereld oorlogen zou je bijna vergeten dat voorheen ook velen stierven in plaatselijke (grens)conflicten. Ontspanningsgronde…. prachtig Afrikaans woord, die kende ik nog niet. DustBugs films zijn 100% ontspanningsbelevenissen 👍😍 Dat blijkt uit de inmiddels 17.000 abonnees, gefeliciteerd! Ticket vanuit Nederland voor jullie volgende reis is alvast geboekt dus tot morgen ziens 🎉. En uiteraard: veel dank aan jullie beiden voor alle prachtige avonturen van de afgelopen reis & altijd fijn dat jullie weer behouden thuis zijn gekomen!
I think almost every boy who grew up around the same time as I did, wanted to be a train driver or a pilot or a firefighter or something exciting like that! I personally could see myself easily as a conductor on a passenger train back in the day, asking folks for their tickets! 🚂😁 We did dream of some windmills and tulips for a while that night, until the young ones started partying very hard what sounded like just outside our door and then we counted hundreds of them, hoping that the sleep would come back! 🤣🌷Komani was crammed full of interesting and beautiful monuments, churches and other buildings and we're glad we got to see it. We're grateful that you, despite the lovely weather you've had lately, still took the time to hop on board each time we visited a new town or place and we can't wait to share the next adventure with you! 🚙🤩
Ek het die selfde probleem as ek een van my eie sien 5.07 en op n vrydag kuier hul graag in die Strand se omgewing. Dankie vir al die lekker videos. Have a good one and keep safe. Cheers Strand.😂😂😂😂💯
@rudiekeyser2495 Queenstown is quite a distance from Strand! I'm so happy that you left the Helderberg for a brief time this morning and visited Queenstown with the two of us! Thank you for coming along! 🚙😁
@miavos3610 You probably know by now that we inhale with delight quite a bit when we see magnificent old buildings, especially stone ones. So as the City Hall came into view, I inhaled and she then said she had been trying hard not to inhale every time she had seen one up to that point. 😍🏛️ We sometimes forget others have to follow along and just do our own thing, so I'm happy that you asked and I hope it makes more sense now!
I'm happy to hear you enjoy travelling with us! 🚙😁 It's fantastic visiting these places which we've mostly only heard about, but never seen for ourselves.
I deliberately stopped commenting on the Eastern Cape trip because I knew my comments would be the same after every town visited would be exactly the same. Just WOW...WOW..WOW.... I would otherwise never have seen all the beautiful and VERY historic little towns that you visited on this very long trip.
So to you Curtis and Sonia a big thankyou. Enjoyed every minute of every video and all the effort and hard work you put into this trip. Enjoy your hard-earned rest and can't wait you see you on the next trip.
I'm so happy to hear that you also thought this part of the Eastern Cape was WOW! 🚙🤩 We certainly feel the same way. I saw you had gone quiet there for a while, but I also knew that you were still somewhere there on the backseat, checking everything out with the two of us. 😁 We can't wait to show you where we were headed to next and we hope you enjoy the next trip with all the towns and places we got to see just as much!
This truly was a fantastic trip, Curtis and Sonia! Hats off to you both for making it so enjoyable from start to finish and wow! What a long journey back home! I don’t know how you do it! I’m sure you speak for a great many of us when you say you are “beyond sad” at the wilful desecration of those beautiful old buildings, Sonia. None of us can comprehend the rationale.
We were rather saddened at seeing the destroyed Town Hall, still so painfully beautiful today. 😪 We had to make the most of our time in town though and fortunately there were many other ones left which we could admire. 🏛️😍 You watching each trip and enjoying all the sights and sounds with us, goes a long way towards making each one very special and we're happy to be sharing our experiences with you! 🚙🤩 It was a rather long trip back home, but we had to be ready to jump back in the saddle the next morning, so we just had to do it. It is becoming a little more difficult to manage the further we get from home though, but where there's a will, there's a way, they say! And the will is super strong! 😁
Hi guys that's some driving glad to see you arrived safely. A lovely Well established town. With an amazing amount of schools I think it's fantastic to see these schools thriving with work being done on already impressive sports fields. The drive in was interesting with all the car dealerships big private hospital the town hall was amazing imagine how it looked before the fire really loved the lamp post ( in the City of London there is a lamp post that supplied with gas from the sewerage!) The RC cathedral was strange architecture? Loved the steam train and how you could jump in the drivers compartment amazing. The Presbyterian church st calumba was the guy who brought Christianity to Scotland. Loved stone tower the war memorials are so interesting I'm going to find out more about the frontier wars st Michael's amazing interior and stone structure always surprises me in these towns the hotel was uber modern breakfast looked great 👍 DRF church was again an amazing stone building with ionic columns great to see the voortrekker monument! . Train station to bus station that's recycling well done always a record in these biggest dam wall in SA. After the last video I bought some biltong from my local supermarket so it is available in ordinary shops now!! .thanks for all the work you put into these videos. You have inspired me to start going out again and tomorrow I'm going to a village where one of my wife's ancestors came from. Amazing video thanks for taking me along cheerio till the next one
The Town Hall with the beautiful lamp posts was a sad sight. 🏛️😢 Fortunately plenty other buildings and monuments remain in good shape and that warmed our hearts again. How cool about the lamp post in London getting gas from the sewerage system! 💡😨 I agree with you about the RC cathedral, we've never seen one quite like that before. Quite a bulky building, I must say! It was fantastic to see two cathedrals in one town! 🚙💒 It was a rather long drive back home, but it was back to the grindstone the next day, so no options there. 🤷🏻♂️😁 I can't think of anything better to snack on than biltong while you sit back and join us in whatever town or place we're transporting you to that day! 🥓 I hope you have a fantastic day tomorrow, I can only imagine what you'll see on your wanderings. Have fun!
We lived in Queenstown from 1975 to 1980 and 90% of our friends were the farmers in the district, as we played sport at the Sandringham and Greydene Tennis club. Sadly, all the facilities have been destroyed. We still have friends who farm in the district.
Hi you two! Thank you for a very interesting trip, to Komani, starting with an old railway bridge (of course!). It is sad to see the Town Hall still not repaired after being set on fire during 2021 protests. The rest of the beautiful town looks peaceful and well kept. The number of schools and churches can only benefit the citizens. The stone churches are very beautiful, but the RC Cathedral is the most amazing. Somewhere in the back of my head (which is fast becoming a vacuum by the day) I recall that the Walter Sisulu varsity has a campus in Queenstown? If not, just ignore. That locomotive looks bigger than most. What a sight! It seems that the history of the town is well remembered if you see the monuments and memorials remaining after many years. Your stay over made me jealous. It is a great place for outside exploring and inside snoring. I hope you've had some rest at Strand, but I'm nevertheless waiting eagerly for the next trip! Keep safe!
I'm not sure that that gorgeous Town Hall will ever be repaired, me thinks it's most probably condemned already. 🏛️😢 Hopefully private investors may see the potential and repair and restore it, because it certainly deserves to be beautiful once more! You're indeed correct, Walter Sisulu University does have a campus in Komani. 🎓📚 The RC Cathedral was a most unusual building and I was eyeing it from quite a distance away already. Great was my surprise to see it's a church, unlike any we've seen thus far. Our accommodation was very comfortable, but rather noisy in the early morning hours as the partygoers enjoyed themselves in the passages! 🥳 I woke up a little cross-eyed that morning ahead of the 900+km drive all the way home. 😵 Thank you so much for taking the time to join us on this great trip through a part of the special Eastern Cape province. We look forward to showing you where we were headed to next!
I have been through Queenstown on numerous occasions travelling from OFS down to King Williamstown. But never actually visited. The road certainly is in excellent condition for eastern cape! It would be a stupendous idea to go on a blockhouse tour all over the country!!! Why didnt I think of it when I was still there! What a magnificent building the old city hall was. Pity they are scrapping it and not preserving whats left. The steam choo-choo made my day. Thank you. I can just picture the stoker loading that coal into the engine. What a job! Love to see all the beautiful churches. Especially the Wesley church, so special that you could show us inside. I could never eat all that for breakfast, would have had to take some for padkos.
A blockhouse tour is indeed a fantastic idea, I could do that as well! I was shocked to hear that there are still so many left and I do hope they are being preserved by the local authorities of the areas they fall under. They're fascinating structures indeed! The City Hall left us shocked and saddened, all at the same time! It was clearly a magnificent building and actually still is, even in its stricken state. 🏛️😢 I thought you may enjoy the choo-choo! We couldn't believe it when we just happened to drive past it, in the grounds of the casino no less! 😁🚂 Dinner was a little sparse the previous evening, so the breakfast went down a treat! 🥓🍳
Queenstown still has its glory of the years i visited it. The religious buildings are indeed in pretty good condition. Sad that such a majestic building llike the city hall burnt down. It is such a beautiful building with a rich history. A very nice trip. Thanks for sharing it. The next one is coming up and you need an interdict to keep me from joining!
It was my first visit to the town as an adult and I was blown away by the gorgeous buildings, so I can only imagine what it must've looked like when you visited and buildings were generally better cared for than they are today. 🏛️😍 The churches were phenomenal and two cathedrals in this town were a fantastic surprise too! We always love those! 💒 Thanks for joining us on every single leg of this trip, it means so much to us. I chatted to the judge about an interdict, but he said no chance, he ordered you to join us again on the next one, so you better be there! 😁⚖
Wow, what a delight, spent many a week ends there in our younger days partying, had 2 sisters living there & oh boy did we party😅, so nice seeing it after having been there many many yrs ago. It is really seeped in history & it has grown, wow, sincere thanks to the both of you. Truly blessed 🚗🚗🚗❤
It certainly sounds like you've got all sorts of memories of Queenstown. From sports matches to parties, I love it! That sounds like a life well-lived to me, you must have a treasure trove filled to the brim with memories. 👌🏻🏏🎾💃🏻🕺🏻I haven't visited the town as an adult before, it's a rather big place now! 🚙😳
First and foremost congratulations on your 17K subscribers milestone, and also for the fantastic series that you have both put together for our enjoyment. Your enthusiasm and unbiased commentary whilst communicating exactly what our thoughts are is unsurpassed. Driving back from Queenstown to Strand in one shot is also a feat on its own. I was in similar awe as you were for Queenstown, an impressive place by far. The Eastern Cape boasts stunning landscape and beauty...they should be really proud and you have showcased it in all its glory. You're really great ambassadors for our country, definitely not perfect (not you 😂...SA) however, we all have a lot to offer. I cannot wait for your next installment tomorrow 😊
Thank you! 🕺🏻😎 It's quite cool every time we reach another nice round number! So happy to hear you enjoyed this Eastern Cape trip. It truly is a stunningly beautiful province which holds so much promise. It was a rather eye-opening trip in many respects for me personally since the province will always have a special place in my heart. You know the drill, it was back in the saddle that Monday morning, so there was no dawdling along the way and we had to push through to Strand. It was easier a few years ago when I was a young lad, let me tell you! 😁🛣️ Our gratitude to you for joining us on this trip and we look forward to sharing the next one with you, starting tomorrow! 🚙🤩
I agree with you. Majestic is the perfect word too. 🏛 Senseless. The destruction is totally and utterly senseless and there is no reason that can justify it. 😢
The Town Hall made for a very beautiful, but very sad, sight. 😢🏛️ Thank you for sharing your Saturday with us to take a drive through Queenstown. I think it may be a tad bigger than you remember, its size certainly surprised me! 🚙😱
There are so many fabulous buildings, monuments and schools in this town and most of them date back to before 1981, so I have no doubt that you'll remember a lot of the Queenstown of yesteryear. 🚙😊
Thank you for talking me on the trip to Queenstown! Oh Sonia, I could feel how sad you were about the town hall 😔 They have beautiful churches and educational facilities. In a way, that makes up for the burnt down town hall. Congratulations on the amount of subscribers you have now. So happy I am one of them ❤
I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed our visit to Komani. If you haven't seen it already, we visit your other hometown of Whittlesea in Episode 338. Thank you for watching our videos! 🚙😁
I note you didn't see Dale College , a very famous school as well . I was wondering if it still exists. . The potholes really are upsetting and I hope they don't eventually prevent visiting these wonderful historic towns. Once again , well done and thanks
I see online that Dale College is located in Qonce, formerly King William's Town. 🤷🏻♂️🎓 We didn't visit Qonce this time around, but may do so in the future. Their website indicates an active school which is very much still in operation. We were very impressed with the approach road to Queenstown and we're so used to potholes by now, that we almost don't notice them anymore, unless they're really, really bad. 🚙🛣️
@annawitter5161 That's a hard one for sure, and I was able to speak Xhosa before English! 😆 I suspect we may just stick to KWT when we do visit the town one day! 🤷🏻♂️
Those places are all on our very long list already and we hope to include them in future trips back to the Eastern Cape. When that will be, I'm not sure yet. 🚙🤷🏻♂️
Stutterheim is on our very long list of places to still visit. 😁 We did make it to Cathcart on this trip though and you can check it out in Episode 337. I don't know if we got to the pine tree drives you'd like to see, but our visit to this pretty country town was a great one all the same. Enjoy! 🚙🤩
This trip was in May already and we were heading home after Queenstown because we were due to start working again the next day. We'll be back to the Eastern Cape again in the future and hope to include some of the places you mentioned in our route then. Thank you for the suggestions. 🚙👌🏻
If local authorities don't even have sufficient funds to maintain roads and other essential services, I don't think there's much hope for swimming pools, I'm afraid. 🤷🏻♂️
Say *Queenstown* and we know. "Komani" I'm afraid does nothing 🥴😉 Mind you, I truly do not understand why towns, airports, provinces have to be changed (yes I get the politics) but I always think what if *PARIS* (landmark) was changed to something else ... just not the same in my old fashioned book😂 I heard the weather can really dip down🌬⛄here too - glad you saw plenty of sunshine!
I hear you and I agree with you about the name changes and what struck me on this trip, was how few people call the towns by their new names. 🤯 I'm not as opposed to the actual name changes as I am to the huge amounts of money it must cost us as taxpayers while the country can't even afford to provide its residents with uninterrupted life-giving water and essential electricity supplies. That is completely and utterly beyond me! 🤷🏻♂️💡🚰 It became rather chilly once the sun hid behind the clouds and went to the other side of the world at night, but for the most part we were actually quite OK with the weather. 🚙😁
The destruction of such a beautiful old building is completely unfathomable to us as well. And, even if they build a new one in its place, it can never be replaced. 😥🏛
One thing to take into account when following history is how much of it has been deliberately erased (often in a pretty much Orwellian way) throughout the ages. I think it might be an impulse a certain kind of mind has, still, today. There was at least one Chinese emperor who set about hunting down all the old manuscripts, for them to be destroyed, and replaced with writings acceptable to him. And at least one of the Roman emperors after Diocletian did this (deliberately set about the organized destruction of the parts of history he didn't want to have existed.) But you guys aren't into the history, so I suppose this doesn't really fit in with today's theme, again. (And the history I give is so vague that it doesn't mean much, anyway.)
You're dead-wrong when you say we're not into history. We wouldn't be bothered to visit the old buildings, monuments, schools, churches and such if we weren't. 🤷🏻♂️ I've always loved history, but one thing we're most definitely not into, is the attempts at erasing history and the dissecting of the history of every single place we visit. As our channel name clearly indicates, we travel and we do so for our own enjoyment and to enrich our knowledge of the places we visit in the broad sense of the word. History is by no means the focus of our channel and will never be, our knowledge is way too limited for that. So we choose not to clutter our experiences with the how's and the why's of history, we prefer living in the moment while enjoying the remnants and evidence of what happened in the past. That's why we prefer historical landmarks being preserved rather than destroyed. 🏛🏰
@@DustBugsTravel I like the way you present what you find in these towns. If you find sad facts anyone can draw their own conclusions from (and draw their own conclusions), you just show the fact (like another burnt out public building), express your regret, and leave it open at that, and move on. As far as your "not being into history" goes, that's just a combination of stating things very badly, and getting what you've said in replies to me on the topic a bit mixed up. (So thanks for the clarification.) I suppose one thing to note is that the vandalism sometimes committed officially or semi-officially against the past is something people like the Americans have done, too. (And gutting old town centres to make way for lots of modern, brutalist disposable buildings has been going on in this country for a very long time. Much longer than 30 years.) I can remember Newcastle as an old small town "off the main road", and how it was transformed into something ugly and "American" (or "Earth-anywhere" since you can find the same in e.g. Australia). There were characterful old buildings, such as the ones you find in the best of your small towns, and very little survived. In more recent towns, there's been "the tragedy of Vrede". Just 15 years ago it had lots of real old Victorian era shops (with wide stoeps where half the goods might be displayed, and decorative features on the pillars, etc), and a lot of that has been replaced with things that can't be distinguished from warehouses. (Very ugly.) (When you guys go there, one day, though, you'll keep the bright side up. Emphasize what's still good. A much better approach than mourning what's lost and cant' be retrieved.)
Ek volg julle al van die begin van jul DustBugs Travel , dit net fantasies en nogmaals fatasties . Ek en my vrou het begin toer in 2014 die land vol , wil en gaan nog verder toer as alles goed gaan wag net vir pensioen daar is nog baie wat ons wil sien en beleef . Sterkte verder en geniet dit wat ñ voorreg .
@mzoxolomdiza2649 I simply don't understand why such beautiful buildings have to be destroyed in the name of politics. It's beyond me and it always will be. 🤷🏻♂️🏛️ Fortunately many beautiful buildings, churches, schools and monuments remain and the town can be very proud of those.
It's heartwarming how you still appreciate the beauty and majesty of our town. We as residents see only the destruction ,corruption ,neglect and dilapidation.
Thanks so much for the memories. Went to the Girls High School. Married at the St Michaels Anglican church 52 yrs ago this month.
Wowzer, those are indeed precious memories and we appreciate you sharing them with us! 💒📚 I'm glad that you visited Queenstown with the two of us again today! 🚙🤩
Stunning Dutch Reformed! Love the churches yhoooooo🥰
Thank you so much for this great video of Queenstown. I am secretary at the Wesley Methodist church and was so glad you were able to get inside.
I live in Australia. I went to school at Queen's College in the 1970s. I love Queenstown.
Wow! I could sit in that Wesley church for hours for the tranquility 👌👌👌
Queen's College is a beautiful school, first time seeing it. Very big also
The old buildings in Queenstown are awesome. I have lovely memories of visiting my grandparents when they lived there. Lovely old town. Not so small anymore
Thank you for showing us one of the beautifully provinces of SA. Formally it was recently changed by the current government from Queenstown to Komani, but it was iKomani to black people who are the descendants of Africa and despite that some people came and changed it to Queenstown, it was always Komani. Fortunately when the name was changed we used both names because we are accomodative and flexible nature we used both names.❤
The Eastern Cape is indeed a beautiful province and not only because I was born there. 😁 I'm glad you enjoyed our trip through these towns, most of which we've only ever heard of before, but never visited ourselves. I take note of your comments about the name change. It was clear to me when we were visiting the town that the local folks still use Queenstown for the most part. I don't have as much against a name change in principle as I have a huge problem with the money it costs our country, which is already unable to provide basic and essential services to its residents. That's my main gripe with it. 🤷🏻♂️🇿🇦
My town where I grew up. Went to Sacred Heart Convent School. Sad to see the town hall being destroyed but loved all the beautifull familiar places and more. Curtis you are a star thank you.
Luckily there were many beautiful, still intact, buildings and monuments to enjoy. We did struggle quite a bit to come to terms with the sad sight of the Town Hall, such a majestic and stately old building. 🏛️😢 I'm glad you enjoyed visiting Queenstown again. We so appreciate you sharing your own memories of the town, thank you. 🚙😊
I was born and bred in Queenstown and left there i 2001. Sad to see some of the places burnt down, but thanks for the memories.
Indeed very sad to see gorgeous buildings destroyed, I agree. 🏛️😢 Hopefully, as some beautiful ones still remain, you still have some fantastic memories of your time spent in Queenstown. Thank you for visiting it again with us two! 🚙😊
Hi there enjoy Dustbugs very much. I WAS BORN THERE very shocked went to school there new Queenstown very well thankyou very much what you both show.
We too have a Queenstown 2 hours drive from Invercargill. The NZ Queenstown however is full of tourists. So sad to see beautiful historic buildings being destroyed. Two different cultures I guess.What a nice road to Queenstown. I loved that the old steam engine was still in such a good condition. Beautiful stone churches .
Yes, it's such a beautiful town and a bunch of totally materialistic people have spoiled it
I mean NZ Queenstown
@@annawitter5161 Yes I am happy to visit Queenstown for a day and admire the scenic beauty of the lake and mountains. Then after I cannot wait to get home to Invercargill and normality. You are so right about Queenstown NZ being so materialistic. Its disgusting.
@tonynz9954 Every time I hear of a town with the same name in another country, particularly New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, I'm fascinated all over again by the extent of the British influence across the world back in the day. 🇬🇧👑 We hope to one day explore those countries too and look forward to seeing towns abroad with familiar names with our own eyes. 🤩
I don't ever see myself wrapping my head around the destruction of buildings, let alone beautiful buildings with historical significance. In my mind, there is zero (as in absolutely not a single one) reason to do such a thing and it accomplishes nothing. It blows my mind every time I see it and saddens me deeply. 😢🏛️
@@DustBugsTravel yep, me too😓
Machinist Curtis achter het stuur, oh what a ride 🥳🚂. Als er een stoomfluit had gehangen om mee te ‘blazen’, had je die vast niet kunnen weerstaan! In die prachtige Luxe Molen hotelkamer was het goed vertoeven met sweet Dutch Dreams waarin je treintjes, molens en tulpen telde 🌷🚂🌷🇳🇱🚂😁. Wat een episode was dit, geweldig! Al snel had ik pen en papier bij de hand nodig om alles bij te houden. Zo apart van vorm die eerste 2 kerken, wonderbaarlijk. Tussen alle Britten heeft zich toch ook de NG kerk genesteld, met prachtig Voortrekkers monument met fraaie details rondom en de hoeksteen uit 1924 in keurig Nederlands. Inderdaad Curtis, de details are in de columns. Heel mooi dat orgel in de kerk waar je binnen was en het houten plafond, wow. Gelukkig bleek de vervallen City Hall geheel geen voorteken van wat volgde (nou ja behalve de sportvelden en zwembad). Deze stad ziet er keurig onderhouden uit. Zelfs het trein station heeft een goede volgende bestemming gekregen. Ook nog steeds duidelijk ‘liefdevolle zorgen’ voor de gesneuvelden uit vele oorlogen. Door de Boer-Anglo oorlogen en daarna de 2 wereld oorlogen zou je bijna vergeten dat voorheen ook velen stierven in plaatselijke (grens)conflicten. Ontspanningsgronde…. prachtig Afrikaans woord, die kende ik nog niet. DustBugs films zijn 100% ontspanningsbelevenissen 👍😍 Dat blijkt uit de inmiddels 17.000 abonnees, gefeliciteerd! Ticket vanuit Nederland voor jullie volgende reis is alvast geboekt dus tot morgen ziens 🎉. En uiteraard: veel dank aan jullie beiden voor alle prachtige avonturen van de afgelopen reis & altijd fijn dat jullie weer behouden thuis zijn gekomen!
I think almost every boy who grew up around the same time as I did, wanted to be a train driver or a pilot or a firefighter or something exciting like that! I personally could see myself easily as a conductor on a passenger train back in the day, asking folks for their tickets! 🚂😁 We did dream of some windmills and tulips for a while that night, until the young ones started partying very hard what sounded like just outside our door and then we counted hundreds of them, hoping that the sleep would come back! 🤣🌷Komani was crammed full of interesting and beautiful monuments, churches and other buildings and we're glad we got to see it. We're grateful that you, despite the lovely weather you've had lately, still took the time to hop on board each time we visited a new town or place and we can't wait to share the next adventure with you! 🚙🤩
Ek het die selfde probleem as ek een van my eie sien 5.07 en op n vrydag kuier hul graag in die Strand se omgewing. Dankie vir al die lekker videos. Have a good one and keep safe. Cheers Strand.😂😂😂😂💯
@rudiekeyser2495 Queenstown is quite a distance from Strand! I'm so happy that you left the Helderberg for a brief time this morning and visited Queenstown with the two of us! Thank you for coming along! 🚙😁
@miavos3610 You probably know by now that we inhale with delight quite a bit when we see magnificent old buildings, especially stone ones. So as the City Hall came into view, I inhaled and she then said she had been trying hard not to inhale every time she had seen one up to that point. 😍🏛️ We sometimes forget others have to follow along and just do our own thing, so I'm happy that you asked and I hope it makes more sense now!
Thanks guys for showing us how beautiful is our country 🎉🎉🎉❤❤
Thanks for the videos, really enjoy them. You guys really get around.
I'm happy to hear you enjoy travelling with us! 🚙😁 It's fantastic visiting these places which we've mostly only heard about, but never seen for ourselves.
Very interesting video.
Brings back many memories of my numerous visits to Queenstown over the years. Before it was Komani!
Beautiful Cathedral of St Michael and all Angels👌👌👌
I deliberately stopped commenting on the Eastern Cape trip because I knew my comments would be the same after every town visited would be exactly the same. Just WOW...WOW..WOW.... I would otherwise never have seen all the beautiful and VERY historic little towns that you visited on this very long trip.
So to you Curtis and Sonia a big thankyou. Enjoyed every minute of every video and all the effort and hard work you put into this trip. Enjoy your hard-earned rest and can't wait you see you on the next trip.
I'm so happy to hear that you also thought this part of the Eastern Cape was WOW! 🚙🤩 We certainly feel the same way. I saw you had gone quiet there for a while, but I also knew that you were still somewhere there on the backseat, checking everything out with the two of us. 😁 We can't wait to show you where we were headed to next and we hope you enjoy the next trip with all the towns and places we got to see just as much!
This truly was a fantastic trip, Curtis and Sonia! Hats off to you both for making it so enjoyable from start to finish and wow! What a long journey back home! I don’t know how you do it!
I’m sure you speak for a great many of us when you say you are “beyond sad” at the wilful desecration of those beautiful old buildings, Sonia. None of us can comprehend the rationale.
We were rather saddened at seeing the destroyed Town Hall, still so painfully beautiful today. 😪 We had to make the most of our time in town though and fortunately there were many other ones left which we could admire. 🏛️😍 You watching each trip and enjoying all the sights and sounds with us, goes a long way towards making each one very special and we're happy to be sharing our experiences with you! 🚙🤩 It was a rather long trip back home, but we had to be ready to jump back in the saddle the next morning, so we just had to do it. It is becoming a little more difficult to manage the further we get from home though, but where there's a will, there's a way, they say! And the will is super strong! 😁
Hi guys that's some driving glad to see you arrived safely. A lovely Well established town. With an amazing amount of schools I think it's fantastic to see these schools thriving with work being done on already impressive sports fields. The drive in was interesting with all the car dealerships big private hospital the town hall was amazing imagine how it looked before the fire really loved the lamp post ( in the City of London there is a lamp post that supplied with gas from the sewerage!) The RC cathedral was strange architecture? Loved the steam train and how you could jump in the drivers compartment amazing. The Presbyterian church st calumba was the guy who brought Christianity to Scotland. Loved stone tower the war memorials are so interesting I'm going to find out more about the frontier wars st Michael's amazing interior and stone structure always surprises me in these towns the hotel was uber modern breakfast looked great 👍 DRF church was again an amazing stone building with ionic columns great to see the voortrekker monument! . Train station to bus station that's recycling well done always a record in these biggest dam wall in SA. After the last video I bought some biltong from my local supermarket so it is available in ordinary shops now!! .thanks for all the work you put into these videos. You have inspired me to start going out again and tomorrow I'm going to a village where one of my wife's ancestors came from. Amazing video thanks for taking me along cheerio till the next one
The Town Hall with the beautiful lamp posts was a sad sight. 🏛️😢 Fortunately plenty other buildings and monuments remain in good shape and that warmed our hearts again. How cool about the lamp post in London getting gas from the sewerage system! 💡😨 I agree with you about the RC cathedral, we've never seen one quite like that before. Quite a bulky building, I must say! It was fantastic to see two cathedrals in one town! 🚙💒 It was a rather long drive back home, but it was back to the grindstone the next day, so no options there. 🤷🏻♂️😁 I can't think of anything better to snack on than biltong while you sit back and join us in whatever town or place we're transporting you to that day! 🥓 I hope you have a fantastic day tomorrow, I can only imagine what you'll see on your wanderings. Have fun!
We lived in Queenstown from 1975 to 1980 and 90% of our friends were the farmers in the district, as we played sport at the Sandringham and Greydene Tennis club. Sadly, all the facilities have been destroyed. We still have friends who farm in the district.
Very sad, beautiful building 😢
Hi you two! Thank you for a very interesting trip, to Komani, starting with an old railway bridge (of course!). It is sad to see the Town Hall still not repaired after being set on fire during 2021 protests. The rest of the beautiful town looks peaceful and well kept. The number of schools and churches can only benefit the citizens. The stone churches are very beautiful, but the RC Cathedral is the most amazing. Somewhere in the back of my head (which is fast becoming a vacuum by the day) I recall that the Walter Sisulu varsity has a campus in Queenstown? If not, just ignore.
That locomotive looks bigger than most. What a sight! It seems that the history of the town is well remembered if you see the monuments and memorials remaining after many years.
Your stay over made me jealous. It is a great place for outside exploring and inside snoring.
I hope you've had some rest at Strand, but I'm nevertheless waiting eagerly for the next trip!
Keep safe!
I'm not sure that that gorgeous Town Hall will ever be repaired, me thinks it's most probably condemned already. 🏛️😢 Hopefully private investors may see the potential and repair and restore it, because it certainly deserves to be beautiful once more! You're indeed correct, Walter Sisulu University does have a campus in Komani. 🎓📚 The RC Cathedral was a most unusual building and I was eyeing it from quite a distance away already. Great was my surprise to see it's a church, unlike any we've seen thus far. Our accommodation was very comfortable, but rather noisy in the early morning hours as the partygoers enjoyed themselves in the passages! 🥳 I woke up a little cross-eyed that morning ahead of the 900+km drive all the way home. 😵 Thank you so much for taking the time to join us on this great trip through a part of the special Eastern Cape province. We look forward to showing you where we were headed to next!
I have been through Queenstown on numerous occasions travelling from OFS down to King Williamstown. But never actually visited. The road certainly is in excellent condition for eastern cape! It would be a stupendous idea to go on a blockhouse tour all over the country!!! Why didnt I think of it when I was still there! What a magnificent building the old city hall was. Pity they are scrapping it and not preserving whats left. The steam choo-choo made my day. Thank you. I can just picture the stoker loading that coal into the engine. What a job! Love to see all the beautiful churches. Especially the Wesley church, so special that you could show us inside. I could never eat all that for breakfast, would have had to take some for padkos.
A blockhouse tour is indeed a fantastic idea, I could do that as well! I was shocked to hear that there are still so many left and I do hope they are being preserved by the local authorities of the areas they fall under. They're fascinating structures indeed! The City Hall left us shocked and saddened, all at the same time! It was clearly a magnificent building and actually still is, even in its stricken state. 🏛️😢 I thought you may enjoy the choo-choo! We couldn't believe it when we just happened to drive past it, in the grounds of the casino no less! 😁🚂 Dinner was a little sparse the previous evening, so the breakfast went down a treat! 🥓🍳
@@DustBugsTravel I am trying to do some blokhuis paintings.
Swimming pool brings back many memories so sad they let it go.
Queenstown still has its glory of the years i visited it. The religious buildings are indeed in pretty good condition. Sad that such a majestic building llike the city hall burnt down. It is such a beautiful building with a rich history. A very nice trip. Thanks for sharing it. The next one is coming up and you need an interdict to keep me from joining!
It was my first visit to the town as an adult and I was blown away by the gorgeous buildings, so I can only imagine what it must've looked like when you visited and buildings were generally better cared for than they are today. 🏛️😍 The churches were phenomenal and two cathedrals in this town were a fantastic surprise too! We always love those! 💒 Thanks for joining us on every single leg of this trip, it means so much to us. I chatted to the judge about an interdict, but he said no chance, he ordered you to join us again on the next one, so you better be there! 😁⚖
Wow, what a delight, spent many a week ends there in our younger days partying, had 2 sisters living there & oh boy did we party😅, so nice seeing it after having been there many many yrs ago. It is really seeped in history & it has grown, wow, sincere thanks to the both of you. Truly blessed 🚗🚗🚗❤
Also did many day trips to watch son & daughters play sport matches🏑🏉
It certainly sounds like you've got all sorts of memories of Queenstown. From sports matches to parties, I love it! That sounds like a life well-lived to me, you must have a treasure trove filled to the brim with memories. 👌🏻🏏🎾💃🏻🕺🏻I haven't visited the town as an adult before, it's a rather big place now! 🚙😳
So beautiful and well looked after ❤ thanks guys 🎉
I'm glad you enjoyed Queenstown, a town full of beautiful buildings. We loved it! 🚙🏛️😍
First and foremost congratulations on your 17K subscribers milestone, and also for the fantastic series that you have both put together for our enjoyment. Your enthusiasm and unbiased commentary whilst communicating exactly what our thoughts are is unsurpassed. Driving back from Queenstown to Strand in one shot is also a feat on its own. I was in similar awe as you were for Queenstown, an impressive place by far. The Eastern Cape boasts stunning landscape and beauty...they should be really proud and you have showcased it in all its glory. You're really great ambassadors for our country, definitely not perfect (not you 😂...SA) however, we all have a lot to offer. I cannot wait for your next installment tomorrow 😊
Thank you! 🕺🏻😎 It's quite cool every time we reach another nice round number! So happy to hear you enjoyed this Eastern Cape trip. It truly is a stunningly beautiful province which holds so much promise. It was a rather eye-opening trip in many respects for me personally since the province will always have a special place in my heart. You know the drill, it was back in the saddle that Monday morning, so there was no dawdling along the way and we had to push through to Strand. It was easier a few years ago when I was a young lad, let me tell you! 😁🛣️ Our gratitude to you for joining us on this trip and we look forward to sharing the next one with you, starting tomorrow! 🚙🤩
Loved your comment @ funkdunk and agree with everything you articulated so well!
You know i really enjoying watching your videos on RUclips thanks guys ❤❤❤❤ I love it.
what better way to start my Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and touring Komani, thank you
And we so appreciate you checking out Komani with us two, we certainly had fun exploring our way around town. I hope the coffee was good too! 🚙😁☕
So sorry about the beautiful burnt buildings.
Thank you, thank you!!!🙃🙏👍
Our pleasure to have you along on this trip, thank you for joining us! 🚙😍
That majestic town hall building, the beauty shining out even in its destroyed state 🙆♀️ But why🥲
I agree with you. Majestic is the perfect word too. 🏛 Senseless. The destruction is totally and utterly senseless and there is no reason that can justify it. 😢
This afternoon i drove to Komani through Cathcart i took a look at that railway tunnel i am now in bed in my house in Komani watching thi video
That tunnel is really something else, I'm glad you went to have a look! 🚙🚇 Thank you for visiting Komani with us too, we appreciate that! 🚙😁
Bowkers Kop cant remember but something to that effect. Great jogging to top and looking down Haig Ave
Finally Queenstown ❤
Thank you so much
You're so welcome. I hope you enjoyed the visit. 🚙😍
Only just driven through Queenstown but pleased to see all those old historic building they are really amazing. Pity about the town hall. Thank you. ❤
The Town Hall made for a very beautiful, but very sad, sight. 😢🏛️ Thank you for sharing your Saturday with us to take a drive through Queenstown. I think it may be a tad bigger than you remember, its size certainly surprised me! 🚙😱
I was 1981 last time at Queenstown .My uncle lived there . I look what I can remember of Queenstown
There are so many fabulous buildings, monuments and schools in this town and most of them date back to before 1981, so I have no doubt that you'll remember a lot of the Queenstown of yesteryear. 🚙😊
Thank you for talking me on the trip to Queenstown! Oh Sonia, I could feel how sad you were about the town hall 😔 They have beautiful churches and educational facilities. In a way, that makes up for the burnt down town hall. Congratulations on the amount of subscribers you have now. So happy I am one of them ❤
Also a beautiful game drive, along the mountain, little game reserve which you could look down on the town of Queenstown.
Lovely church!!!
That is my Home town...Queenstown!
So enjoyed travelling with you
Thank you, we appreciate that! 🚙😁 We enjoyed it that you jumped on board and joined us. 👌🏻
Woww! Love it. Thanks guys nice work. My other home town. I am from Whittlesea...!
I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed our visit to Komani. If you haven't seen it already, we visit your other hometown of Whittlesea in Episode 338. Thank you for watching our videos! 🚙😁
@@DustBugsTravel Thank you...!
Wow!!! The steam engine👏👏👏👏
Beautiful Loved it ❤❤❤❤❤
So happy to hear, thank you kindly! 🚙😍
Thanks for taking my request.
Anytime! 🚙🤩 We were there in May already, but I wasn't going to spill the beans that we'd already been there. I never do! 😁
I note you didn't see Dale College , a very famous school as well . I was wondering if it still exists. . The potholes really are upsetting and I hope they don't eventually prevent visiting these wonderful historic towns. Once again , well done and thanks
I see online that Dale College is located in Qonce, formerly King William's Town. 🤷🏻♂️🎓 We didn't visit Qonce this time around, but may do so in the future. Their website indicates an active school which is very much still in operation. We were very impressed with the approach road to Queenstown and we're so used to potholes by now, that we almost don't notice them anymore, unless they're really, really bad. 🚙🛣️
@@DustBugsTravel Qonce! Wow that's a hard one to say! Two different clicks. I have been trying and getting a lot of What? ...pardon? from around me 🤣
@annawitter5161 That's a hard one for sure, and I was able to speak Xhosa before English! 😆 I suspect we may just stick to KWT when we do visit the town one day! 🤷🏻♂️
Dale College is in King William's town not in Queenstown.
I never heard that name before.Beautiful Road and that's something because my husband built roads and bridges (civil Engineer
This was very interestting, next time you must venture towards Dordrecht, Barkley East, Rhodes, Lady Grey, Aliwal North etc...
Those places are all on our very long list already and we hope to include them in future trips back to the Eastern Cape. When that will be, I'm not sure yet. 🚙🤷🏻♂️
I’m saddened by the destruction of beautiful buildings 😕
The name "Komani " had already been there for years. It's a Xhosa name for the town.
Please do Stutterheim? And Cathcart would be nice too i need to see beautiful pine tree drives please
Stutterheim is on our very long list of places to still visit. 😁 We did make it to Cathcart on this trip though and you can check it out in Episode 337. I don't know if we got to the pine tree drives you'd like to see, but our visit to this pretty country town was a great one all the same. Enjoy! 🚙🤩
Awesome. Are you guys heading through Elliot/Rhodes/Barkley East? If so, please take lots of videos on the Barkley Pass!
This trip was in May already and we were heading home after Queenstown because we were due to start working again the next day. We'll be back to the Eastern Cape again in the future and hope to include some of the places you mentioned in our route then. Thank you for the suggestions. 🚙👌🏻
That could be a great swimming pool for the community eishhhhhh
Why can’t some of these necessary places be repaired🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️🙆♀️🙆♀️🙆♀️
If local authorities don't even have sufficient funds to maintain roads and other essential services, I don't think there's much hope for swimming pools, I'm afraid. 🤷🏻♂️
@@DustBugsTravel it is disheartening but we live in hope! Hoping for a big change that will come but not in our lifetime! Sad really🥲
Say *Queenstown* and we know. "Komani" I'm afraid does nothing 🥴😉 Mind you, I truly do not understand why towns, airports, provinces have to be changed (yes I get the politics) but I always think what if *PARIS* (landmark) was changed to something else ... just not the same in my old fashioned book😂 I heard the weather can really dip down🌬⛄here too - glad you saw plenty of sunshine!
I hear you and I agree with you about the name changes and what struck me on this trip, was how few people call the towns by their new names. 🤯 I'm not as opposed to the actual name changes as I am to the huge amounts of money it must cost us as taxpayers while the country can't even afford to provide its residents with uninterrupted life-giving water and essential electricity supplies. That is completely and utterly beyond me! 🤷🏻♂️💡🚰 It became rather chilly once the sun hid behind the clouds and went to the other side of the world at night, but for the most part we were actually quite OK with the weather. 🚙😁
@@DustBugsTravel 🌄🌅🌞🥰
Those historical buildings were burnt down in anger by the local population .
Its sad such a beautiful building why must everything be destroyed.More money to build anotherhall that money could have been used for something
The destruction of such a beautiful old building is completely unfathomable to us as well. And, even if they build a new one in its place, it can never be replaced. 😥🏛
It makes me so sad😢
The mentol home is cold Kumany.
One thing to take into account when following history is how much of it has been deliberately erased (often in a pretty much Orwellian way) throughout the ages. I think it might be an impulse a certain kind of mind has, still, today. There was at least one Chinese emperor who set about hunting down all the old manuscripts, for them to be destroyed, and replaced with writings acceptable to him. And at least one of the Roman emperors after Diocletian did this (deliberately set about the organized destruction of the parts of history he didn't want to have existed.)
But you guys aren't into the history, so I suppose this doesn't really fit in with today's theme, again. (And the history I give is so vague that it doesn't mean much, anyway.)
You're dead-wrong when you say we're not into history. We wouldn't be bothered to visit the old buildings, monuments, schools, churches and such if we weren't. 🤷🏻♂️ I've always loved history, but one thing we're most definitely not into, is the attempts at erasing history and the dissecting of the history of every single place we visit. As our channel name clearly indicates, we travel and we do so for our own enjoyment and to enrich our knowledge of the places we visit in the broad sense of the word. History is by no means the focus of our channel and will never be, our knowledge is way too limited for that. So we choose not to clutter our experiences with the how's and the why's of history, we prefer living in the moment while enjoying the remnants and evidence of what happened in the past. That's why we prefer historical landmarks being preserved rather than destroyed. 🏛🏰
@@DustBugsTravel I like the way you present what you find in these towns. If you find sad facts anyone can draw their own conclusions from (and draw their own conclusions), you just show the fact (like another burnt out public building), express your regret, and leave it open at that, and move on.
As far as your "not being into history" goes, that's just a combination of stating things very badly, and getting what you've said in replies to me on the topic a bit mixed up. (So thanks for the clarification.)
I suppose one thing to note is that the vandalism sometimes committed officially or semi-officially against the past is something people like the Americans have done, too. (And gutting old town centres to make way for lots of modern, brutalist disposable buildings has been going on in this country for a very long time. Much longer than 30 years.)
I can remember Newcastle as an old small town "off the main road", and how it was transformed into something ugly and "American" (or "Earth-anywhere" since you can find the same in e.g. Australia). There were characterful old buildings, such as the ones you find in the best of your small towns, and very little survived.
In more recent towns, there's been "the tragedy of Vrede". Just 15 years ago it had lots of real old Victorian era shops (with wide stoeps where half the goods might be displayed, and decorative features on the pillars, etc), and a lot of that has been replaced with things that can't be distinguished from warehouses. (Very ugly.)
(When you guys go there, one day, though, you'll keep the bright side up. Emphasize what's still good. A much better approach than mourning what's lost and cant' be retrieved.)
Old days
Gotcha! I knew that was what you meant. 👍🏻
hi i liv in queestown :)
There's a video here on RUclips of Queenstown in the 1950s. Check it out.
So you didn't make it to Bongolo Dam?
Uhm, I can assure you that if we had, the footage would've been included in our video. I hope you saw all the other things we made it to! 🚙😁
@@elizabethterblanche5311me here thanks for their sharing
Nevertheless
But like 10 hrs straight back drive gotta be really something isn’t so?
Ek volg julle al van die begin van jul DustBugs Travel , dit net fantasies en nogmaals fatasties . Ek en my vrou het begin toer in 2014 die land vol , wil en gaan nog verder toer as alles goed gaan wag net vir pensioen daar is nog baie wat ons wil sien en beleef . Sterkte verder en geniet dit wat ñ voorreg .
what camera do you use?
I film with my regular everyday cellphone, a Samsung S22 Ultra. 📱
@@DustBugsTravel thank you, video quality is amazing, maybe i need an andriod 🤣
Thanks for not showing the CBD
Else
In the days Komani was the name of the mental institution. They used house alcoholics there.
Interesting. So I would imagine the institution you're referring to and now the town was named after the Komani River on which the town lies. 🚙🌊
All gone to pot.Sad sad.
Unfortunately the town is so rundown a victim of political squables
That's why all old building are burned.
@mzoxolomdiza2649 I simply don't understand why such beautiful buildings have to be destroyed in the name of politics. It's beyond me and it always will be. 🤷🏻♂️🏛️ Fortunately many beautiful buildings, churches, schools and monuments remain and the town can be very proud of those.
@@DustBugsTravel they try to eradicate colonialism or any attachments to it it seems whether they'll be successful is another story
not small spur wimpy nandoo kfc dud
I got you, dude! So if a town has all of those, then it's not small. 🤣
Definitely not a small town, I really do hope they sorted out the water feature in the town square, what an eye sore.