Travel Guide Mansdal

Leave Louis Makhado by (Street, and take the R 522 west over 10 km. Turn left into The Schoemansdal Open-Air Museum (8 h/16 h), the ghost city of ivory merchants. Andries Hendrik Potgieter founded his independent republic of Zoutpansberg in 1848. A restive and rich republic around a village simply named Zoutpansbergdorp, whose population will reach the 1 500 souls in 1855. Elephant defences were routed to Delagoa Bay on the Mozambican coast, where they were sold to Portuguese wholesalers. But the gold coins gathered by the adventurers of Schoemansdal (in 1854, the village was renamed by Stephanus Schoeman, the new leader of the Republic) were no useful when the Portimão went to the attack. On 15 July 1867, following fierce fighting, the indigenous people incendièrent the small village, undermining the ambitions of the Republic. Schoemansdal had lived for nineteen years. Only one resisted: Joao Albasini. Captain's son, this volunteer Portuguese who had decided at the age of 18 to become elephant hunters, had made the long journey to Mozambique to settle in Schoemansdal as a merchant. In a few years, he became the personality of the region. The Portuguese Consul had the right idea to build a fortified farm, Goedgewensch. Behind his high walls, Albasini had held good during the fire of 1867. He lived in his fortress until his death in 1888. Today, on the right of the access trail to the museum, look for the Folles national cemetery in Schoemansdal where trekker Hendrik Potgieter rests. You may have, like me, the thrill, walking through this place where history has passed, this place out of South African collective memory. Yet here is one of the crucial stages of the white adventure in the south of Limpopo, the illustration now of the greatness of sacrifice and ambitions, of African violence. See how nature devours what men have done. The museum itself, a few hundred metres from the cemetery, does not seem to be really maintained. Moreover, during my passage, there was not a cat; completely ghostly atmosphere.Take the R 522 to the west and drive about 80 km. We reach the point of Buysdorp and Mara.It was in this lost corner of the Transvaal, not far from the salt lake that had to give its name to the mountainous massif of the region, that was established by Coenraad by Buys. Born in Cape Town in 1761, this giant dissenters, a great amateur of coloured women, married a beautiful Xhosa, Elisabeth. In 1819, his head was set up, he made his suitcases and took women and children as far as possible north. Here too. Considered a traitor to his community, which could count on his own forces, Coenraad was going to establish a kind of personal republic in the heart of Bush. At the death of his wife, in 1823, he abandoned all his little world for another life, first in Mozambique, next to Warmbaths, where he distinguished himself in the siege of Buyskop. His descendants remained on site and were always protected by the Voortrekkers. Today, there is little trace of this métissage, but Buyskop seems - ironically - to be in tune with the new South Africa. Nobody ever goes there; this is therefore a good reason to travel.Take the R 522 to Vivo, turn right on 6 km, then turn right again to Louis Makhado by R 523. This path (139 km) allows you to move near Salt Pan to Waterpoort, and then to the (poorly lit) tunnels of the N 1.