AT FIRST glance, Fraserburg in the Karoo appears lost in time, its wide dusty main street almost deserted except for the occasional farmer’s bakkie, scattered shops offering essential provisions and groups of locals taking refuge from the heat beneath one of the few trees.
At about 200km from Beaufort West, the nearest town of any size, and more than 100km from the N1, Fraserburg is not on a route to anywhere except other even smaller towns and vast sheep farms. It is not a common destination, save for those who come to delve back in time and witness one of the most spectacular palaeosurfaces in the Karoo.
We arrive largely by chance while travelling in the Karoo and having met a Capetonian who owns a house in the town and recommended we visit the dinosaur footprints on a nearby farm. Don-Pedro Malan, curator of the museum and in charge of tourism, is accommodating and offers to show us around.
According to Malan, visitors come from all over the world and he proves it by showing us entries in the museum’s visitor’s book from Hawaii, New Zealand, Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Jamaica, and the list goes on.
Together we head out of town on a gravel road for a few minutes until we reach the farm of Gansfontein, where Malan unlocks the gate and directs us along a farm track until we come across a fenced-off outcrop of flat rocks. Here, Malan points out a clear line in the rock, which he refers to as the tail drag of a dinosaur. Not far off are several trackways of large four-footed, five-toed mammal-like reptiles known as dinocephalians and a single set of stubby-toed prints probably made by a primitive reptile known as Bradysaurus. He kneels down and pours water into the print to make it stand out clearly from the surrounding rock. In other areas the surface is so trampled that individual trackways are not as clear, although another section clearly displays “squelch prints” of a large reptile that walked through a patch of soft mud.
Apart from the numerous trace fossils, an array of other structures can be seen as a result of flooding in the area. These include ripples from the current, prod and scrape marks and patches of small pebbles caused by run-off.
Malan explains that these surfaces were originally deposited about 250-million years ago. It is difficult to imagine these primitive creatures roaming what is now a harsh and flat Karoo Hoogland landscape with no living creature to be seen other than sheep scratching among the dry clumps of grass. However, the discovery of the site is much more recent, having been made only after a farm dam burst to reveal the surfaces. Geologists excavated the area in 1984 and it was opened to the public in 1990. Fraserburg authorities are trying to preserve the area and hope to build a covered boardwalk to protect the surfaces from wear and from the rain. Malan says they are “actively looking for funding and hope to interest the private sector in the project”.
Of course nothing else in Fraserburg dates back as far as the dinosaurs but there are other objects of historical interest. The pepperpot, so named because it has the appearance of a giant pepper shaker, is a hexagonal structure that is unique in South Africa and has, as a result, become the symbol of Fraserburg. About nine metres high and made of stone, it was built in 1861 and is now a national monument.
The bell that once hung in the tower is long gone, although the crossbar that supported it can still be seen.
The building served at various times as a magistrate’s office, the market master’s office, was the first library, and the town clerk worked from the building. Next to the pepperpot is the infamous curfew bell, used to sound the beginning and ending of curfew hours for the coloured people of the town during apartheid.
While we photograph the buildings, a curious resident emerges from a house across the road. Daniel Johnson-Barker has lived here with his artist partner, Debbi Morkel, for four years, having left Cape Town’s city life for the peace of the country. However, he bemoans that they are the last English speakers in the town. “All the others have moved on, finding life in Fraserburg too quiet and remote for their liking.”
He had hoped we were looking for property so that the English-speaking population would double.
However, it was the remoteness that appealed to retired neurologist Roland Eastman, who owns a holiday home in town and enjoys the company of colleagues who have bought in the same street and find it the ideal getaway. “The area is referred to as ‘die harde man se Karoo’ (hard man’s Karoo) due to its low rainfall and harsh conditions. But we found its sedimentary geology and consequent plant and bird life interesting,” he says.
A different kind of house is to be found in the park in the centre of town.
This is a corbelled house, which resembles a weaver bird’s nest. It was removed from the veld and rebuilt in the town as an attraction.
Based on a Mediterranean design, it is made entirely of flat stone, including the roof. Such houses were only built in the Karoo by trekkers when there was no timber available for trusses. Visitors can stay in restored corbelled houses on nearby farms. The old vicarage, built in 1856, where Malan is based, is a museum and national monument and still has its original yellowwood floor and some of the original yellowwood ceiling boards.
The energetic seeking a challenge should consider visiting Fraserburg in August, when there is the opportunity of taking part in the annual ice swim in the nearby Nuwe Dam. According to competitive rules, the one-mile swim has to be undertaken in water colder than 5° C. Last year it was 3,9° C.
For those needing to warm up after that, Fraserburg, despite its small size, is not without comfortable accommodation, with several guest houses competing for overseas and local visitors’ business, and two restaurants offering basic local cooking.
• To visit the palaeosurface at Gansfontein farm call Fraserburg Info on (023) 741-1012. The cost is R10 a person. Entrance to the museum is R5 a person.
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Article source: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=165194