Well Hello There Fellow Travelers And Hivers!
Well we've made our way through most of what the monument has to offer, only a few more things to see besides the museum itself. Me and the Betty decided to come back at a later time to have a go at the museum, for now I'll wrap up with the last bit of stuff we saw at the monument. Not a whole lot left but surely some interesting things to see, there's a big train and an ever bigger ball of yarn with two knits in it made of barbed wire which I found kind of odd but it does make sense since it's a women's monument and back then the mothers knitted clothes for the children (Knitting is still a somewhat big thing here in South Africa.)
Last but not least there is a British Field Hospital that we'll be checking out with a lot of the old products they had in the early 1900's. Can you imagine that they had Eno's back then? I had absolutely no idea that was a product older than the granmums. 😂 Anyways, if it's that old it might be even older right?
A Train Ride Into The Past
As always I'm not great with entries so let's jump right in?
All Aboard!!!
The train, ironic that everything worked as planned, since this is built right next to a railway, I wonder if that was really happenstance or did they make their own little rail yard by putting down a few rails. It probably doesn't matter that much, but even though this was bigger than it looks in the photo it still felt like a toy train rather than a real train, it is a real train of-course it's just the colour combination wasn't really the best but then again back then everything was basic as hell (Advanced for the era, but now more than basic.)
I can't really remember seeing this when I visited before, but then again I've not been so far onto the monument grounds, it doesn't look fairly new at all though.
In a previous post I also shared a picture of a big cannon, although this one isn't as big as the previous one I shared it's still quite chunky in size to say the least. Imagine having to constantly reload this thing with heavy metal balls while bullets are flying over your head. I reckon these were painted cream to blend in with the colour of the "veld" to be more camouflaged.
Must have been terrifying in it's own way, but wars are something that you simply can't shift to the side.
The Bungaloos
Who knows what these are? I would reckon this was the start of the idea of having bunkers strategically placed in order to defend infrastructure more efficiently.
The reason why "The Boers" were so successful in the warring with The British was because we hit the railways which caused a huge disruption of transporting troops and supplies across the country as they saw fit, and when a railway was blew up it most likely caused delays by weeks so it was highly effective.
Until.
Until the British constructed these little bungaloo type buildings all across the country next to the railways, the one always in shooting distance range from the one next to it and on top of that they stretched barbed wire all across the railways as well therefore further restricting the movement of The Boers.
Again whether this one was moved here or was always here I don't really know. Might be that it was always here next to the railway in which the train sits, one can see the train in the background behind the bungaloo.
This specific bungaloo had a name as well so it must be that it was always placed here. The Staffordshire Regiment.
It's not much of a bunker as we know it nowadays but it did provide some sort of cover from both the enemy and the weather and harsh environment of Africa.
The firing holes weren't all that large to begin with, I think the main use of these were just to keep the enemy at bay long enough for reinforcements to arrive from other bungaloos I'd say. Although some of these bungaloos were double storied and as big as houses, this specific one is just a smaller type, but some oaks really lived in these for 2 years.
Can you imagine? They were mostly built with sheet metal so when it was cold the cold would come seeping through the metal and the same situation with heat, metal doesn't really provide much of hospitable living conditions.
The British Field Hospital
The British Field Hospital was something that was quite interesting to me and compared to what The Boers had it proved to be a major difference and that meant saving more lives than what The Boers were able to do.
Of-course everything looks old and outdated and no doubt it is but back then when it was used it was state of the art. I think back then they really relied a lot on the environment for herbs to create remedies and such, stuff that we've long forgotten!
A basic look at what treatment the average British soldier might have been giving if wounded in combat, although this might not have been a widespread thing over the entirety of the battlefield, you would most certainly not have been treated in such conditions on the very frontline of the war.
Although they did have some assurity that they might be taken care of if wounded and that alone can give a bit of a morale boost.
Notice all the tin cups and buckets by the bedside? They sure did build things to last back then since a lot of those stuff are still around, I know the grans has one of those washing bowls next to the nurse and we've a ton of those coffee cups that we still use when going out to camp.
They even had stretchers with wheels on them, so in case one lost a leg on the battlefield one might have been escorted out of there with haste, imagine that back in the day! They were far ahead of us to say the least, not by aiming though. 🤣
Inside the field hospital there were a lot of photos taken of the general staff of the hospital and so forth, now this might sound weird but all of the people in it looked so young, yet so old as well.
It's actually quite scary what war can do to a person, very scary and to think that was how our parents and their parents before them were raised
Just another British military field hospital that was located in Deelfontein.
Some of the medicine and remedies available back in those days, one can't think they even had little boxes like we buy pills in boxes nowadays, it seems so long ago but is it really all that long ago? I mean my great grandmother was born not long after the war ended and to think how drastically things changed during her lifetime is already quite scary in it own. Imagine what the next 80 years have waiting for us.
Remember earlier in the post I mentioned something about Eno's well although it was Eno's one would never have said so with the packaging it came in, but none the less it's still Eno's after all hey! I remember calling the Betty to show her, and it's not just Eno's there are a lot of similar stuff that we still use a lot in daily use today.
Along with a few other noteable items on display, of which I don't really have any clue what they might be
The Big Ball Of Yarn
Whelp I almost forgot all about the big ball of yarn!
I only saw this on our way out and somehow I'm glad I didn't miss it, even though I don't really clearly understand the significance of this at all but hey it does look very well done indeed!
The cool part is that it doesn't have any extra support it's standing all by itself, just the ball and the two knits holding it in place.
For the last statue I took I decided to use it as a sort of closure to the post, it appears to be a short man leading a horse on a leash. If I had to take a guess I'd say that is a "Boesman" if I had to judge by size, what the agterryers did was tend the horses and the basic chores around the camp sites that needed doing.
Now even though they were only "agterryers" it doesn't mean that there impact on the war was of less significance than those of "The Boers" who did the actual fighting. In war everything is of equal importance.
We decided to take a few random and silly photos with us and the monument I mean we can truely make the best of it all right?
Thinking of it now, we should set a goal to visit at-least one monument in every town we pass by on our road trip journeys, I mean this can only be a fun thing to embark on and experience right?
Dated 13/05/2023
Connecting the people of #HIVE across South Africa. #hive
