December 11, 2025
Rest day in Oudtshoorn
A heat surge was forecast for this afternoon where the temperature would reach 42 degrees. These heat surges are rare but familiar to the people of the Klein Karoo. I was very glad to be having a rest day in Oudtshoorn to recharge a little before heading towards Cape Agulhas.
Oudtshoorn is the capital of the Klein Karoo and is famous for Ostrich farms which produce meat, skin and feathers. In the late 1800s, Ostrich feathers were the height of fashion, sought out by royalty, maharajahs, emperors and fashionistas all over the world. Early Lithuanian Jewish settlers in Oudtshoorn started the Ostrich industry, and it flourished for the next century. The first world war ended the frenzy for Ostrich feathers, but it never really diminished completely. Even today, the Ostrich industry is big in Oudtshoorn, and there are ample opportunities to see, touch and feed the birds at various tourist attractions.
I started the day with a self guided walking tour of the town. Magda, my host, gave me a laminated card with a historic buildings tour of Oudtshoorn. I love looking at ar hitecture, so this walking tour was right up my street. Many of the older building are built of Sandstone, with attractively decorated trellises, gables, spires, pillars and carpenter's lace along gutter lines. These buildings, together with the main synagogue, the Dutch Reformed Church, St Jude's church complex and the ladies' jail all made for very interesting sight seeing.
The CP Nell museum, housed in a magnificent building which was once Oudtshoorn Boys' school, was my next stop. CP Nell was a British businessman who started running a business in Oudtshoorn with a bicycle selling and repair shop! He later bequeathed his large collection of historic artefacts to the public interest and the museum was born. The building was declared a national monument in 1979, and the displays inside were magnificent, covering a lot of Oudtshoorn's history including many very interesting photographs from the 1800s. I particularly enjoyed a display about the forced displacement of the indigenous African tribes from these lands by British and Dutch settlers. I was upset after reading the accounts of specific families who were forced off their ancestral land and made to resettle and rebuild their lives in arid, non fertile areas specifically designated for Africans. Sadly, for economic reasons, the effects of this forced displacement are still evident today, with displaced people still living where they were displaced to. It would appear that forced displacement was not reversed as part of the dissolution of the Aparteid government. I find this fact disturbing, and it will continue to linger with me for the remainder of my time in South Africa.
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