As with many of the smaller Free State towns, there’s plenty to discover when you peek under the covers of Kroonstad, writes Alan Valkenburg.
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Maokeng, or Kroonstad, two hours south of Johannesburg, is one of the Free State’s largest towns. This is Jukskei country – that most South African of sports that is to our country what Gaelic football is to the Irish and baseball is to Americans. The South African Jukskei Association has its headquarters here, and the Vals River flows through the town, providing plenty of sporting opportunities, river-based and otherwise. Fishing and golf enthusiasts will love it here.
DAY 1
The town boasts many historical monuments, among them an impressive Sarel Cilliers Monument, which must be the most-photographed spot in the town due to A), its beautiful NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed church) backdrop and B), its location in the town centre NG-Kerk-Kroonstad-Moedergemeente.
What makes Kroonstad unique is its graveyard that commemorates those who died in the British-run concentration camp during the Anglo-Boer War.
Strangely, the monuments are not well signposted and difficult to find. My initial attempt using Google Maps led me to a locked graveyard, which I circled, walking across an overgrown field before I found a gap in some broken fencing where I could enter. While beautiful, it soon became clear this graveyard was for British soldiers, not Boers. Google Maps had directed me to the wrong place. I mean, if you can’t trust Google Maps, who can you trust? I doubled back and headed towards a, how shall I put this, less desirable part of town. It was dry, deserted and through what could’ve been an industrial area next to an old railway line and beneath power lines.
Once I found it, I contemplated – not for the first time on my local travels – that if this were overseas, there would have been a ticket office, a coffee shop, something to make you realise that what stood before you was worth appreciating, worth taking note of, a big freaking deal. Sadly, this was not the case.
I learnt later that volunteers maintain the graveyard, and considering that, hats off to them. It is no doubt a mammoth undertaking to keep a place that size neat with little to zero budget. It was a bit rundown, weeds poking their way through the paving, but despite its condition and location, it nevertheless conveyed a sense of terrible loss and tragedy, particularly the children’s graves, marked with a carving of a pair of tiny shoes. More than 1 280 names are commemorated here, although estimates from the time have the number of deaths from the gruesome British concentration camps closer to 1 600.
Having explored enough history for one day, I headed to my accommodation, Sewende Hemel Guest House, which was just far enough out of town to be quiet and close enough to be, well, close. I enjoyed a run around town as the sun was setting, and while there was a riverside path that looked pretty, I wasn’t brave enough to attempt it alone at dusk, instead running through town, past the golf course and campsite and back ‘home’.
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DAY 2
The following morning, Sewende Hemel delivered an unbelievable breakfast to keep me going until lunch. I checked out Jukskei Park, where several matches were underway. If you haven’t seen Jukskei before, you might be tempted to make light of it, but make no mistake, this is a serious sport with serious competitors. As with darts players in the UK, it was clear fitness was not a prerequisite to skill, and it was worth noting that players came in all shapes and sizes, from small to XXXL.
After a few hours of checking out the sport’s ins and outs, I returned to the town centre to enjoy a short walk, picking up packets of sunflower seeds for next to nothing – this is sunflower country, after all. Architecture is hardly my area of expertise but the Post Office, Standard Bank building and the City Hall are considered fine examples of Herbert Baker’s architecture. Now you know. Even if, like me, you’re no expert, you can still appreciate them. After a pit stop at Plumbago Coffee Shop PlumbagoCoffee), I was off again. I returned to photograph the fields of sunflowers I had spotted just before entering the town.
Stay Here
Sewende Hemel Guest House
This is in the beautiful, quiet neighbourhood of Wilgenhof in Kroonstad, just off the N1. It has five luxury en-suite bedrooms, each with air con, DStv and free, uncapped Wi-Fi. There are in-room tea- and coffee-making facilities, and an English breakfast is served daily for an additional fee.
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