S1 - Ep 329 - Makhanda / Grahamstown - Magnificent Historic Buildings!
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- Опубликовано: 18 июн 2023
- Our visit to Makhanda was a captivating experience from start to finish. As we journeyed towards the town, our eyes were drawn to a stunning old church that served as a prelude to the wonders that awaited us. Upon arrival, the streets welcomed us with a nostalgic charm, adorned with magnificent historic buildings that whispered tales of bygone eras. The grandeur of the old church structures left us in awe, their intricate designs and timeless beauty speaking volumes about the town's rich heritage. Driving to the top of Gunfire Hill provided us with a breathtaking panoramic view, where we encountered remarkable monuments that added to the enchantment of our trip. Grahamstown truly embraced us with its historical splendour and created lasting memories. #DustBugs #adventuretravel #southafrica #southafricavlog #travelongravel #easterncape #makhanda #grahamstown
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Well...Grahamstown is a sad relic of the past. Fantastic classical architecture throughout the city, but little else remains.
It wasn't sad for us at all! We thought the architecture has been preserved phenomenally and loved every single one of those incredible old buildings! 🚙💒🏛️ Whatever decay there is, is certainly not exclusive to Grahamstown.
I also remember the old place ! Grateful to have been there in the 90's.
Yeah man because of corruption the roads are a disaster I fix my car every 2 months and the water crisis is out of hand. It's a shadow of its past.
My birth town, my dad was in the army for over 30 years but has retired. I don't remember much, but been there a few times. Buildings are in such a good condition and the detail of the churches and buildings give it a unique character beautiful. I have worked with a few people from different parts of Africa here in the UK and I can tell you they are the nicest and friendliest people to work with very pleasant. I love african people doesn't matter from which part of Africa, so friendly and joyest ❤. Thank you for taking me back to my childhood and sharing the beautiful history ❤
Beautiful old Makanda. Old structures but still in good state. Our Heritage our History
So rich in the most beautiful old buildings! I will need some time here
You will love it! The buildings are next-level and there seems to be hundreds of them! 😍🏰💒
One of my favorite Eastern Cape towns!❤🌹👏But that was quite a few years ago ...Not much left of the grandeur of the place.😢Look at the condition of the streets today...🤨
Oh, I happen to disagree with you! There is so much grandeur left, it's actually rather overwhelming! 🚙😍 The streets and the decay are by no means endemic to Makhanda, we see that everywhere we go. 🤷🏻♂️
@@DustBugsTravel everything is getting very old now.
Thank-you for this absolutely stunning episode and your showcasing of those beautiful buildings of the religious faiths. My Mother is from Grahamstown, my Grandfather built that entrance to Rhodes Uni. Her Great Grandmother lived in fort Selwyn. That shot of those 4 ladies from the other African countries standing in front of the statue with your commentary that you're from South Africa is absolutely priceless. I have to agree with Sonia, you arrived on a random day and met those ladies and filmed such an amazing occasion, now that was absolutely stunning. When I went a few years ago to visit my grandparents graves, I couldn't believe the shambles that the cemetery was in, tall grass, grave stones lying down, zero care for the place and very unsafe...I couldn't believe that a town's council would have such disrespect for the dead. I have heard that its been cleaned up and would have liked to have seen it. I cannot wait for your next episode. This one is a real treasure trove. 😊
So happy to hear that you enjoyed this episode! And that you have a personal attachment to this place. How cool that your Grandfather build that entrance! His legacy is for sure still being admired by thousands of people! 🤩 You could probably tell how utterly overwhelmed the two of us were as were driving through this town. The number of incredible buildings and monuments was just staggering! 🚙💒🏛️😍 This must be the town that we've received the most emails and messages about with requests to visit so many places and, like always, we were simply not able to get to everything in the limited time we had. We still had a long journey ahead that day, so had to push on. I'm glad to hear about the improvement at the cemetery though and hope that those reports are accurate. It has become the norm for us to see neglected graveyards on our travels with the well-maintained ones being the rare exceptions to this current unacceptable standard. Us arriving on Gunfire Hill on the day of the African Day celebrations, was a great end to our visit to Grahamstown! 🇿🇦🌍
Breathtaking Church! So stackingly white👌
Grahamstown is like going back in time. Amazing!
Garden of Remembrance…..so special❤
Hi you two! This was again a fascinating trip into history. A heritage left to us by wars, religion and education. I hope the educational part (schools, varsity etc.) will be the main focus for the future. For a 200 year old town it does not look too run down. The Christ Church is amazingly impressive.
I hope you were not disrupted too much by the floods in the Cape.
There is something I had wanted to say before, but didn't think it appropriate: I am concerned about you leaving Sonia alone when doing your walks, sometimes out of sight of the car. Now that she mentioned it herself, albeit in the buzzing CBD, I just want to let you both know that I include this in my
Keep safe!
I appreciate your concern about our safety. Let me assure you that I take our safety and especially that of Sonia, extremely seriously and have never, nor will I ever, left her alone in the vehicle if we didn't both feel completely comfortable. We've now completed 18 seven-day trips and have only felt unsafe on two occasions and immediately left the area. No footage is worth comprising our safety for and I will always stand by that. We explore mostly smaller towns because it is so much quieter and it may not appear that way to you, but Sonia can almost always keep an eye on me when I wander away from the vehicle. That is the sole reason why I drive right up to places and refuse to park further away. I will rather forego visiting a specific place of interest, as is very clear in this particular video, than for Sonia to feel unsafe. I simply love her too much. 🥰 I hope this puts your mind at ease and I do appreciate your 'Keep Safe' after almost every singe comment of yours. 👌
Back to Makhanda! They certainly have enough spectacular education buildings to make education and training their focus. The buildings in this place blew our minds, over and over again! 💒🏛️🤯 We've seldom, if ever, seen such a concentration of incredible buildings on our travels thus far. It was FANTASTIC to see! We're safe and sound in Strand and the Lourens River has subsided dramatically from just a week ago. There are folks though who have suffered greatly as a result of the floods and have even been displaced, so we keep them in our thoughts all the time.
Stunning Anglican church right there! Loved those beautiful windows 👌👌👌
So many old but beautiful buildings in Grahamstown 👍
This was an excellent video guys , well done. It conjures up several emotions for me. Its the firs time seeing Grahamstown as I've not been there personally, and the architecture is inspiring and amazingly well preserved. The degeneration of the roads cannot be ignored sadly, and if not addressed , will inevitably lead to the the destruction of the buildings as well . This has to be addressed sooner rather than later. Lets hope sanity prevails. Thanks again .
Thank you, I'm very happy to hear you also found the buildings incredible! It was actually quite an emotional visit for us too and we were so happy to see so many of them well-preserved and in fantastic shape! 🚙💒🏛️ I know the roads are a contentious subject, but we honestly don't even notice the condition anymore, therefore don't mention them in every video. We can certainly not fix them, so we have two options. We accept them as they are and modify our driving style in order not to cause damage to ourselves and our vehicle. Or we stop travelling. We're not quite prepared yet to opt for the latter. 🤷🏻♂️🛣️
Wow thank you. You are opening my eyes to my beautiful country. And it's rich history.
But I will keep the name Grahams town. Respect to 1820 settlers.
I'm so glad you enjoyed our visit to historic Grahamstown! 🚙🤩 It was such an incredible visit, we're still reeling from seeing all the beautiful buildings in one place. It was such a pleasure visiting the Settlers Monument as a South African on the day of the Africa Day celebrations! 🇿🇦🌍
What a beautiful rich in history and rich in religion town. So much is going on in Grahamstown. It is like a huge city in a small environment. The structures are really so nice and well built. It also goes far back in history. Thanks guys this was well done and enjoyable. The Anglican church is stunning. One can just imagine the rich past that lies there.Till the next one seat booked and biltong already packed in!
So much is going on in Grahamstown! I agree! And so much beauty everywhere we looked in the form of incredible buildings, more than we ever imagined! 🚙🏛️💒 We're so happy you came along and even happier that you enjoyed it with us. I'm looking forward to Thursday and hope you have enough biltong to share. Dusty and I are hungry! 😁🥓
Wow 👏 thanx for taking me back to my roots where I was raised ,so much emotions 😢 sad and happy times .....❤
Would hv loved to see the museum and historical railway station........❤
Well the buildings are spectacular!!!
Fair comment . In life we should always look on the bright side . Keep the good stuff rolling , you are doing a wonderful job!
I appreciate that, thank you so much! 🚙👌🏻 We shall certainly keep the wheels and the camera rolling!
Beautiful historical buildings,hope it will be well preserved and looked after🌺🙏
This is another town to add to your list, you will absolutely love, love, love all the old buildings! They are incredible and so wonderful to see them still looking so great! 🚙🏛️💒
Absolutely beautiful. A must visit for me
Wow you did a stirling job of capturing this very beautiful town in the EC. Like i said its the gem of the EC....with all those old buildings you get the mother city vibes.....well done....ugh you guys 😂❤❤😂🎉🎉🎉🎉
Wow, we got all kinds of vibes in this historical town! It is certainly a gem in the Eastern Cape crown and we loved, loved, loved it! Every single building was crazy beautiful and awesome to see. We were told to expect unbelievable architecture, but never expected it to be on this level. I'm so glad you approve of our explorations that day! 🚙😍💒🏛️
@@DustBugsTravel i have been waiting for these places.....such a lovely part of the world....even in the winter it is green. 🚙🚙🚗🚗💕💕💕🚙🚙🚗🚗
Thank you for the visit to my Town. I am born in Grahamstown and still stay here that was my first time seeing the inside of the Anglican Church and i am also Anglican (ST Clements)and the Cathedral is St George and St Michaels. I think the Cathedral is the tallest church building in South Africa. My church is close to the old railway station and just opposite my church stand an old Train where i used to play inside of before and after our church service starts. A part 2 of Grahamstown is must and maybe you can visit the deeper parts of the town. I saw you were afraid of stepping out of your car in the middle of town,but we don't have car jackings as the other towns. When I was younger I used to walk to all corners of Grahamstown with my friends, but I did not know any history about the town. You gave me a small history lesson and i will have study my towns history. I so wished you went inside the Cathedral as i was watching this episode with my 2 daughters and they never saw the inside yet.
Love the trees.
The roads! OMG
Yup, they were really bad in places! 😨🛣️
Amazing town lovely old buildings and churches ❤❤❤
You said it! I'm sure you heard us being rather taken with all the incredible architecture. No matter where we went, we were confronted by more beautiful buildings. It was fantastic! 🚙😍
You have eyes for beautiful buildings. That was absolutely fantastic! Thank you. I felt like I was there.
And our hearts stopped every time we saw another one and they just kept on coming! 🚙🏛️💒 I'm so glad you enjoyed the incredible buildings too. Oh, and you were there! Right on our backseat! 😁
At last, a real town with people everywhere and difficult parking !
All the other towns we've visited, were 'real' too, just a lot less people around and much more parking! 🚙😁
Fantastic, another place we used to frequent while hubby worked there, thank you for bringing back many memories, 🚗😁
Many happy memories, I hope! 🚙😊 Thank you for visiting Makhanda with the two of us today!
Thankyou for being so enthusiastic about the special G city and her architectural treasures!
We couldn't be anything other than enthusiastic about what we found in this town! And each one of them was a treasure! We were quite overwhelmed by it all, in the best way possible! 🚙💒🏛️😍
Hi guys a little bit of England in Africa it had country town in uk and clouds set the scene what a very historical place the town square would not be out of place in the UK the Drill Hall stood out for me and St Patrick's with the castleted roof was medieval amazing the synagogue opposite and the name Bender resonates as one of my wife ancestors married a Jewish guy called Bender in East London UK. The cathedral was amazing. Too much to take in then monument looks like Stone henge a place with such an abundance of old interesting buildings and history and education loved the Fort and cannon what a name gun fire Hill. The 1820 settlers buildings impressive the twist at the end four young ladies from four different countries and yourself the South African absolutely brilliant an amazing video only in South Africa thanks for taking me along cheerio till the next one
I'm glad you enjoyed the encounter I had with the four African ladies, it made me quite proud to be an African too, despite the many challenges this continent of ours faces! 🌍🤩 Such interesting info about your wife's association with the Bender surname. We haven't seen many synagogues on our trips, so found that building fascinating too. You know the Drill Hall got to Sonia, but little did we know at the time that it was just the start of it! It was just incredible building after incredible building and our heads were literally spinning! 🚙💒🏛️ Gunfire Hill with the fort and the Settlers Monument were two delicious cherries on top of the Makhanda cake! Thanks for joining us!
To give you an honest answer: We played every year in the Grahamstown Festival ( I am a classical pianist) .And a lot of time was spent to explore the whole place! We actually walked from our sleeping area in the Varcity to the Monument....!! Quite a distance!❤❤
Those must've been fantastic experiences! 🤩 I would've loved to walk up to all those beautiful buildings, but it was just too busy to leave Sonia in the car by herself.
Was in Grahamstown/Makhanda in August of 2016, staying at a game farm on the outskirts of town…… just beautiful everywhere. Stunning big church in the middle of town, the Rhodes University……..Wow👌👍👍 Thanks for taking me back there 👏👏👏👏
I'm so happy to see you return to our channel every so often to catch up on a few more videos each time. 🚙😁 Thank you for sharing your own memories of the towns you've visited, you seem to have done quite a bit of travelling yourself. 😍🇿🇦
@@DustBugsTravel Thank you! I love your channel and it takes me back to my few travels in SA. Its a beautiful country despite some troubles, but where in the world is a perfect place without its own troubles! I do keep going on with the catch ups as and when I can due to work etc but I’ll not miss any as I follow your sequence 👍 I’m in the Kwid with you guys wherever you go🥰🥰🥰 And Sonia is such a laugh! Love all her commentary, such a collection of facts etc! Well done you 2👏👏👏👏🥰
I agree! The perfect place doesn't exist. 🤷🏻♂️ Sonia for sure keeps me on my toes and it really is a laugh a minute with her. 🥰 Here's to sharing many more kilometres with you on the roads of SA! 🇿🇦
Wow that was a lovely trip/day, I have been there years ago. I cant rmember but I think in the Medthodist chuch in Grahamstown , my family tree is on the wall there. Miles family, Robert Miles and and Anne Dick. Thanks.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed our visit to Makhanda! Super cool that your family tree is in one of the churches there, thank you for sharing that! 🚙💒 Perhaps you're able to visit the town and that church again one day.
Grahamstown is always busy with the festival each year.
What an interesting place with so many awesome buildings! The Anglican Church is so beautiful. Thank you for showing it to us. 😊
Indeed! I'm sure you heard how blown away we were by all the incredible buildings and there were so many of them! 🚙💒🏛️😍 Thank you for accompanying us on this memorable trip to Makhanda!
Thank you for the tour of Grahamstown - the Easter Star Newspaper published the first edition of The Eastern Star in Johannesburg 17 October 1887 - then became The Star Newspaper .During the late 1980's early 1990 's all Editions of the Newspaper were transferred by road to Grahamstown to a Museum to preserve & archive under controlled conditions .The Star Newspapers kept the History on Micro- Fisch . I own a original PRINTERS TRAY Imported from Sheffield 1887.
Our pleasure, it was a memorable visit! 🚙😁 I remember The Star newspaper very well from our time living in Gauteng. 📰 What a prized possession that printer's tray must be! Thank you for sharing that with us! 👌🏻
You mentioned Lukas Meyer-he's my direct ancestor!
Thank you. I have never been there.
If you visit Bathurst, don't miss the Toposcope, to the east of the town. Its a monument which shows which settler families settled where. I hope they are looking after it.
Off to a good start! Thats a beautiful church! I have always enjoyed visiting Grahamstown. So many beautiful old buildings. Wow! The donkey art is total amazeballs! That must have been done recently. So glad to see someone thinks enough of donkies to do this. Blown away by the school buildings...if words fail, and music wins, make like a kettle and sing!! You can be glad you cant hear me right now. What a sweet little dam! I bet that forttress on the hill is an institute for computer/business studies, or something boring!Pity there is so much traffic, one wants to pull in and have a closer gander at all those amazing buildings, hey! One could spend a good few weeks there just exploring. I really would love to see the inside of some of these places.But I understand the situation, and please stay safe! Wonderful that we did get to see the inside of Christ Church, the stained glass is especially beautiful. So glad to see the fort has been preserved and Not altogether turned into a modern institution. Lovely to see Africa day celebration
I think the fort is these days some sort of holiday accomodation.....
@Anna Witter I'm glad you came back to Grahamstown with us! And to be greeted by painted donkeys on a wall, was the perfect welcome. You know how we feel about donkeys! 🐴❤️ An absolute overload of historical and incredibly beautiful buildings here, we were quite overwhelmed at how gorgeous they all still are! The town was really busy that day and I'm never comfortable wandering too far away from the vehicle and especially not with so many people milling about. 🤷🏻♂️ We were lucky enough to get close to a few though and they were absolutely wonderful to see! We knew you'd love those stained glass windows, they're certainly some of the beautiful ones we've ever seen! 😍💒 We also happen to love the fort and the Settlers Monument on Gunfire Hill and so fitting that they overlook the city. It was such a coincidence that we were there on the day they were having Africa Day celebrations! 🌍🇿🇦
I did my 2 years army training at 6SAI Grahamstown in 1980. I use to drive big trucks through town and the roads was a pleasure to drive on. I see it look like an obstacle course at the moment. Grahamstown brought a lot of memories back to me and I could almost taste and smell the "Army compost(Food)". That was a terrible part of my life. The best part was when I finished up and returned to Strand where I grew up. Thanks for your time making this video. 👌🏼
Greetings to a fellow Strand resident! 😁Thank you for sharing those army day memories with us, it kind of takes me back to my own, albeit not in Grahamstown. The roads you're referring to in downtown Grahamstown, were really in bad shape. Even us couldn't help but notice that! 🤷🏻♂️🛣️ We love travelling, but we're always happy to return home to Strand, so I can fully understand your joy when you returned after your stint in the army. 🤩🌊⛰️
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I was enthralled. Attitude is everything. There is still much to be thankful for.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed Makhanda with us! We certainly beheld many beautiful buildings that day! 🚙😍💒🏛️ It was an absolute joy to visit this town and to share our experiences.
Simply WOW! So much beauty to absorb!
I think we must've said 'wow' 500 times off camera that day! Makhanda is WOW indeed! Glad you enjoyed. 🚙🤩
Great video, that's my home town. Pity about its sorry state as "they" see the need to rename it but little consideration for the upkeep of such a wonderful town
Hi. Just watched this video again. I worked there in 1983 and I knew the area well back then. If you're in the area in future, may I suggest you visit the villages of Bathurst and Salem. Beautiful part of the world with plenty of history. Regards, Neil Rumsey.
We didn't make it to Salem, but we visited Bathurst just before Makhanda in Episode 328. It sounds like you haven't seen that one yet, I hope you enjoy. 🚙😁
Arts festival is on in Grahamstown from the 22nd of June to 1st July in case anyone wants to come
Great stuff! We sadly missed it by a month. It must be quite an event for it to last that long. I'm sure you and many visitors will have a blast, enjoy! 🎭🎷🖼️
Thank you for showing my home town! What a trip down memory lane 🤩
You certainly come from a very beautiful town! 🚙😍 It was our pleasure to visit. I hope all those memories are good and special ones! Thank you for watching!
Sad state of little old Grahamstown, a waste of all those fine buildings , I was based there during my national service, my wife nursed at Settlers Hospital in the 70's . Thanks again for a lovely tour of a town I last visited in 1979.
Thank you for watching our video! 🚙💒🏛️ We actually thought the buildings and most of the town that we saw, was in good shape. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this beautiful town with its gorgeous architecture. It lived up to every single expectation we had and much more. I'm sure it looks much different from what you remember in 1979, but that most certainly doesn't only go for Grahamstown.
Was there 2 months ago. Was harassed where ever we we went. The place will not see me again….
That's crazy! Who were you harassed by? Beggars?
@@mrpeery1 Outside Checkers. Again at Spar. Not a safe place to visit . We are from Gauteng and we never get bothered like that here. I go most everywhere in Gauteng and I don’t get harassed here like that.
Your experience certainly doesn't sound like a pleasant one. 😕 The centre of town where the biggest concentration of these incredible buildings are, is crazy busy and I only got out where it was on the quieter side. Fortunately we were still able to observe the buildings from our vehicle. And they were awesome! 🚙💒🏛️
I grew up in Grahamstown. I have wonderful memories of the town. The building on top of the hill is the Settlers monument. My father was a minister in Grahamstown for 11years.
The dam you rode past is most probably Grey dam.
I can imagine you have many special memories of your time here, it's certainly a great and historical town! 🚙🙂 I'm not sure whether you watched our video until the end, but we ended our visit to the city at the fort and the Settlers Monument on Gunfire Hill. Our thumbnail pic was taken there as well. 🏛️ The dam was a beautiful and unexpected sight we happened upon on the outskirts of town, we loved it!
I matriculated at Victoria girls high school in 1972 and started at the primary school in std 4 ... Was in boarding school from then. We had our celebration of 75yrs when I was in std 7 ..most of that road was a row of our school and Graham collage and a convent school. I am told that our school took of the buildings of Graham college in later later years. The main big church in the center of town is the Anglican church . Grahamstown has a beautiful botanical garden and a fort at the top of the hill . Great town to be educated in as everything to do with education is available and near at hand. If you wanted to do a subject that was not a regular subject at our school , our headmistress would get a teacher from Rhodes university to give private lessons to you. Thanks for the tour. That was St Andrews College for Boys.
Thank you for coming back to Grahamstown with us! 🚙😁 It certainly sounds like the city has always had education very high on its priority list, which is absolutely fantastic. 📚 The Botanical Gardens sound gorgeous and I do hope they get many visitors. 🌳🌵 You may not have watched our entire video, but we did visit the fort on top of Gunfire Hill. It was great to see.
The oldest mailbox in south africa is also found in this beautifull city
this channel was recommended to me by an elderly married couple 🥺
The famous story of Elizabeth Salt has a monument in the city centre honouring her bravery
Interesting. I'm sure we barely scratched the surface of all the monuments in this great city! 🚙🏛️
Christ church was built with funds donated by my great great great grandmother Rosa Wright my dad will love this video
How amazing! 🚙😍💒 Thank you so much for sharing this with us, I so appreciate that. I do hope your dad enjoys the footage of the church. It is incredibly beautiful, inside and out. It was such a privilege to walk in and around that magnificent building.
That other side of the Cathedral is the last remaining side from the old church before they rebuild it as a the Cathederal of Saint Michaels and Saint George. I was 12/13 years old in the around 2001 used to attend bel ringing classes on the top level of the Cathedral.
I was a little bit daunted by the length of this episode, but it was justified, thank you for sharing your experience of Grahamestown. I unfortunately never had the opportunity to visit the place, which I now regret. There is a lot to see and to take in, I am tempted to spend a little time with google street view to get an understanding of how the place fits together.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed Grahamstown with us! 🚙😁 These videos are essentially our memories of our travels and when we see as much as we did in this incredible place, it becomes very difficult to keep the episodes short and leave amazing stuff out. You're so right, there is so much to experience here and the town is well worth a visit. Google Street View will certainly give you an understanding of how big the town is! 💒🏛️🛣️
Yep, thats what ou country has cone to, you dont feel safe walking on the streets in many places!🙃🙄
A good nine out of ten places we visit, are small or smaller towns with not that many people about and I'm more comfortable leaving Sonia in the car there. In the bigger towns and cities, we do most of our exploring by vehicle since we feel the safest that way. 🚙🤷🏻♂️ We won't let that stop us from visiting the occasional big town or city, but we have a special fondness for the smaller ones. 😍
@@DustBugsTravel hope you can see your way clear to vist Bela-Bela (Warmbad) in Limpopo at some stage. Enjoy your travels,thank you for sharing.🙃🙏
I don't know why so many negative comments . The place still looks great to me. I visited my place of birth in KZN recently and must say that town was was in rapid decay. This is still good, nothing to complain about.
I'm glad you enjoyed Makhanda! 🚙😁 We also thought the town looks in good shape for the most part and we thoroughly enjoyed all the architectural splendour it had to offer. Thank you for travelling along! 👌 We plan on visiting KZN later this year and look forward to that very much!
Lots of churches that's why it's called city of saints
The cathedral used to ring the bells on a Sunday afternoon and one could go and watch them ring the bells..
Now that must've been an incredible experience! 💒🔔
E building you called a science building was/is the Drosdyt was a prison.
Interesting, thank you for the info. 👍🏻
We went to Grahamstown last year, and stayed for a week doing research on our family. We were shocked at the state of this historic city. The roads were in a terrible state, verges and parks were not mowed, the cemetery had fences broken down and was overgrown and unkempt. So sad to see the decay.
A historic city it is indeed! There's no denying that the roads were in very bad shape, but for us the overwhelming beauty of the historical buildings, of which most remain in great shape, was very encouraging to see. 🚙💒🏛️ Let's hope they clean up the city soon, it certainly deserves some love and attention and all that history needs to be preserved for future generations. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I have a photo of tte laying if the foundation stone.
That must be a prized possession of yours! 👌🏻
You missed the Observatory Museum😢
Apparently the new name ,according to google,means " mango".....
I have in all my years in that area NEVER seen a mango tree.... Perhaps it means something else in Isixhosa....!?Someone told me just now that is called after a prophet and warrior.....
It doesn't sound like you've watched our entire video. We do mention where Makhanda gets its name from. 😁 We didn't know about the mango association with the name. 🤷🏻♂️🥭
Grahamstown had SABC buildings and library for the blind
Interesting. Some more family history connections seen here. (That artillery fort on the hill was where one of my ancestors worked when he was a young man. They had a battle there in 1819.)
I try to imagine how brave a Xhosa warrior attacking a cannon had to be, but I don't think I can.
I also think I know how they could've solved their frontier problems more peacefully - not that it's an easy solution, just one with less bloodshed: "simple"; don't keep cattle. If the indigenous people had just been given a monopoly on the keeping of cattle, that would've forced all settlers into complementary instead of competitive places in the society of that world, and would've left the core of the indigenous worlds - most of them, anyway - intact. It would've preserved what wealth they had, too.
If you look into the finer details of how various individuals "fitted in", there's a lot of variety. Wagon makers from England were a big factor in the Trek, for instance. (Quite a lot of skilled artisans settled there, often bringing new skills or better training - gained in England, at a time when England was becoming a world leader in such things - to the colony. Looks like there must have been a few masons at least eventually - and it would've been people who'd had some experience around masons who found the freestone in the area - with nice cleavage planes, so it can more easily be shaped into nice blocks.)
In one ancestors party, there were men who just used the excuse of "farming" to get in, whose real aim in life was to go and join a "Native" tribe, and bring the news about Jesus to them, who sold their allotments soon after arriving, and headed off over the frontier to try and do good, according to their own ideas of that.
The missionaries, the carpenters, the coopers, the teachers, the wool farmers and textile makers, the pineapple farmers (which I've now learned of), those planting fruit trees -- and so on -- bringing something new to the land with them were of benefit to everyone there, then and in the long term. (Yes, our history says in the end, and in the aggregate, this added up to, at best, a very mixed blessing, but there's this aspect of "making a contribution" that is also part of the story if it's told, true.)
Mostly without any bad intentions, the cattle farmers brought problems - sort of by accident, largely - by the accident of birth, and the huge pile of "normal" circumstances the event of being born loads up onto anyone. But they brought problems. Their life was in direct competition with Khoi Khoi (Khoe Khoe is a dumb spelling, because it's almost guaranteed to be mispronounced in just about any language, whereas Khoi is written like it sounds - so the Khoe-academic can stick his or her new word wherever his or her common sense is locked away ... er ...) cattle, Khoi Khoi, direct competition that almost guarantees war or downtreading (and yes, with the Xhosa, too, who had iron and military organization, so a greater capacity for participating in more bloody wars.
Anyway, that's not how things happened, hey? So it's pretty pointless thinking about what might've been. What was, was. That's the way we all go.
Thank you for watching our video of Makhanda. We're simple folks who travel for enjoyment and enjoyment only and not to dissect, question and analyse every little bit of history. I think you know that by now. That's just not our vibe. 🤷🏻♂️ And if we read online again that a word originates from the Khoekhoe or Khoekoen language, we'll continue saying that, no matter how dumb it may sound to you! 😁
@@DustBugsTravel No criticism of you intended, there. You're not the one who went and changed the spelling of the words to make them more difficult to use, and more likely to get mangled by casual users.
(It's not a big issue, but it's a little bugbear. Changing the spelling of something changes nothing of its substance, so when they go and change an old spelling that works for a new one that doesn't, it strikes me as meddling for the sake of meddling - or maybe even plain old "being difficult".
I have another little bugbear like this, to do with the common names of birds. For the scientists and serious birders there have always been Latin names that are "exact", so there's no need to find a better way of describing birds by name, but there's a certain kind of person who will meddle with the old common names of birds as if they're "official names" that need to be "corrected". Someone who doesn't understand that if you really insist on pushing the issue, "common names are meant to be wrong". The effect is to take away the name you always knew for the bird, give it a new one that's not better, just newer, and all for no good purpose, since the accurate name is meant to be the Latin one anyway. ... Yes, a whole new can of worms, but I think it's the same kind of meddler with things of no import, ignoring practicalities who "fixes things" that way.
It's a little bit irritating having a name you knew for something taken away from you - especially when the new replacement looks like a load of junk.
But I know you guys don't get irritated by little things like this, so why am I going on like this? :D
Just to be clear, again, though, I'm not taking a swipe at you. It's the people who keep taking away useful words for nothing of substance that I would like to take a literal swipe at. Clip them on the ear. Wash out their dirty mouths with blue soap, too, because Sies, man.)
Actually, we allow almost nothing to irritate us on our travels. 😁 There would simply be no point then.
@@DustBugsTravel It would just spoil the trip. Very sensible!
Look what Makhanda has done to Grahamstown! All over the world cities and towns maintain their original names for hundreds of years and people actively preserve their buildings, in SA they get renamed to honour people who had nothing to do with building its infrastructure, at great cost i might add. We need to honour history and add to it by building our own NEW places to honour our new history, rewriting history doesnt make it our own. My opinion....
That place was not called Grahamstown before the settlers arrived there, so if the name was maintained like you suggest it wouldn't have been called grahamstown either
@Vry Thank you for your opinion. We had nothing to do with the changing of the name, but will call it Makhanda since that is what it is now called. We were there to honour the history of the place and that's exactly what we did, in our own way. The buildings are fantastically-preserved and they were a joy to see! 🚙🏛️💒 I think you know by now that we leave all cynicism and skepticism behind when we travel, it's not worth it otherwise.
Can you please focus a little bit longer on the corner stones so that us slow reader's can read it 😊
I really try to do that already if I don't read them out loud. If i'm too quick, you're also welcome to pause your device while you read. I'll try my best to remember to focus on them for longer, but often get caught up in the excitement of the moment because there is so much I'd like to see and show. 🏛️💒😍
@@DustBugsTravel just luv your program
Please show us the indigenous architecture of the African city ('Makwananda', or something) that existed BEFORE Grahamstown was founded🙏
You're welcome to visit Makwananda or something and let us know how it was! 🚙😁 We were there to visit Grahamstown or Makhanda as it is now known and that's exactly what we did.
As far as I know there was no town where the city is. As far as I know the local community stayed some distance from the town.
Never knew there were such a rich heritage in architecture in Grahams Town. It looks like the architect's were trying to out do each other.
I had to chuckle, it certainly does look like that and the best thing is that even if there were a competition, the judges would've had a very tough time deciding on the winner! We didn't know either just how spectacular the buildings would be! It was a fantastic visit to a fantastic town! 🚙💒🏛️