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Kgalagadi’s Auchterlonie museum

16/4/2014

27 Comments

 
Picture
By Roxanne Reid
You’re in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, hugging the dry Auob riverbed north of Twee Rivieren looking for cheetah when you notice the ruins of  stone buildings along the calcrete ridge. Further you turn off to Auchterlonie picnic spot to enjoy your coffee. Before you leave, wander around Kgalagadi’s Auchterlonie museum and discover what it was like to live here 100 years ago.

The restored stone-and-thatch cottage stands on a windswept ridge surrounded by blue skies and semi-arid Kalahari duneveld. It’s dark inside, with only two small shuttered openings for windows. There’s room enough for  a table and a few riempie chairs in one half and a bed with a patchwork quilt in the other.

As you look around the interior of the little museum, which documents the pastoral lifestyle of the people who used to live here in the old days, you’ll realise what hardy, independent people they had to be. 
Auchterlonie, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
Nearby the museum are some picnic shelters where modern-day visitors to the park can stretch their legs
Auchterlonie, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
Auchterlonie perches on a calcrete ridge overlooking the dry riverbed with its borehole
First they had to make the walls of mud or, in Auchterlonie’s case, the local calcrete stone. They had to cut camelthorn branches – just about the only tree of any size that grew here – to make rafters. They had to collect duinriet grass to thatch the roof.

To get the thongs to tie the whole caboodle together, they’d first have to shoot a gemsbok or red hartebeest, then prepare the hide by soaking it in lime and water to get the hair off, then wash the lime off with salt and work it by hand to soften it before cutting it into strips. For a touch of luxury, they’d shovel dung onto the floor and burnish it until it was hard.
Auchterlonie, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
The very simple living room
But why would anyone want to live here in the middle of the boondocks, where the living was hard, the climate fiercely hot and dry in summer and icy cold on winter nights?

It all had to do with the assassination of an Austrian archduke in faraway Europe, an act that sparked the First World War. Germany had colonised what was then South West Africa (now Namibia) long before, in 1884. But when war broke out 1914, the British-aligned government of the Union of South Africa got their knickers in a bit of a twist. What a catastrophe it would be if the Germans invaded the Union from their base in South West Africa!
Auchterlonie, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
A tiny bedroom takes up half of the little cottage
So they drilled a series of boreholes along the Auob River to provide their troops with water if they had to be sent here to fight off the Boche invaders. Those who lived at Auchterlonie – and similar cottages all along the riverbed towards what is now Mata-Mata on the border with Namibia – were put here to look after the boreholes. Many were recruited from the local community and allowed to ‘settle’ next to the borehole with their families and livestock.

Of course, history tells us that the South African invasion of South West Africa eventually took another route. But the borehole guards stayed on, largely forgotten by the authorities.
Auchterlonie, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
Some of the typical blacksmith's tools of the era
If you wander around the site, you’ll find a reconstructed animal kraal, a cooking shelter, a smithy and a tan pit, where animal hides were treated to be used for bridles, saddles and clothes. There’s also a well, which would have been dug by hand. There’s an info panel in the museum, quoting sheep herder Karel Raats, who explained that dynamite would be put in the hole and lit – kaboom! Then someone would have to lower himself down to the bottom of the well to put all the loose rocks in a bucket that would be hauled to the surface by a pulley.
Auchterlonie, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
The tan pit where animal hides were soaked and treated
After the war ended in 1918, few people were willing to settle on these dry and desolate ‘farms’. In 1931 the area was proclaimed a national park and the existing farmers were resettled along the Kuruman River. Their basic little homes along the Auob were abandoned – until SANParks restored Auchterlonie in 2004. 

Next time you make pit-stop or picnic stop at Auchterlonie, thrilled with your experience of game viewing in the park, try to imagine what it must have been like to live there 100 years ago.

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Auchterlonie museum in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa shows what it was like to live here 100 years ago #travel #nationalparks
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Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without written permission from roxannereid.co.za
27 Comments
di brown link
19/4/2014 11:41:21 am

So much fascinating history. We really do have it easy.Lovely post

Reply
Roxanne link
19/4/2014 02:31:43 pm

Thanks Di. Yes, when the cold wind blows up there I wonder how they didn't go bonkers. Tough bunch.

Reply
Becky Padmore link
19/4/2014 03:06:50 pm

I love stumbling across places like these, very interesting!

Reply
Roxanne link
20/4/2014 02:11:18 am

Thanks Becky, it's like tumbling down a wormhole into the past in fact!

Reply
Angus Auchterlonie
1/7/2014 05:38:29 am

Hi Roxanne, you may guess my interest by my surname. Lovely photos, but do you have any background as to the first names or any other details of the original Auchterlonies to live here?

Reply
Roxanne link
8/7/2014 09:25:41 am

Wow, Angus, I'd be intrigued if I were you too! As far as I know, no one called Auchterlonie ever lived there. The place (waterhole) was named by the Scottish couple called Jackson who were charged with setting up the waterholes along the riverbed in the early 1900s. They had Scottish ancestry (I think the wife had been born there - it was earlier thought Roger Jackson was too, but his grandchildren have recently confirmed that he was born in Knysna in South Africa) so they gave a few places in the area Scottish names out of a kind of homesickness, or perhaps as a tribute. Other such names in the area include Dalkeith and Craig Lockhart which, together with Auchterlonie, are very strange names to find in the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa.
Does your family have its roots in a place in Scotland called Auchterlonie?

Reply
Bryan
28/8/2015 09:58:53 am

Interesting history indeed. My mom (ne Jackson) tells me that we are related to Roger "Malkop" Jackson but I am not sure how distant.
Apparently his wife, Eileen, was apparently a feisty one and her mount of choice for hunting was an OX. This seems to be confirmed by this http://www.geni.com/people/Eileen-Jackson/6000000004960281260

Helen Walker
9/6/2018 09:18:02 am

I too have Auchterlonie ancestors and when I visited The Kgalagadi saw this farm and was intrigued. I have been trying to find out if any Auchterlonies lived there. Finally came across your article which is most interesting.

Roxanne Reid
9/6/2018 01:16:50 pm

So interesting, Helen. Glad my article was of some use to you.

Roger Jackson
31/10/2024 06:22:52 am

Hi Roxanne. Yes Roger was very much South African. We believe it was my Grandmother, Eileen (nee Brock), who gave many of the bore holes and wells the Scottish names. Roger was the surveyor who divided the land along the Nasob into land parcels.

Roxanne
29/8/2015 07:36:18 am

Fascinating family to be related to, Bryan!

Reply
Roger Noel Duke Jackson
2/12/2020 03:50:26 pm

Hi Roxanne.
I am the offspring of the legendary Roger Duke, I can pass on info to Bryan if you wish and try and answer any questions about Roger and his dad Max

Reply
Roger Jackson
23/9/2021 08:30:30 am

Try and get a copy of Go Kgalaigadi magazine, we worked on a story about the Jacksons in it.

Reply
Roxanne Reid
23/9/2021 08:45:28 am

Do you mean the 2021 issue, Roger? I know there have been quite a few over the years.

Philip Caveney link
29/12/2018 02:43:17 pm

Hello all Jackson enthusiasts,
Roger Duke Jackson was indeed born in Knysna to Knysna Civil Commissioner and Resident Magistrate (1880-1901) Maximilian James Jackson and his wife Martha Bertha nee Brink. If you think Roger Duke Jackson was extreme then you should have met his father Maximilian. After a few years he had driven the Knysna people to distraction and they called for his resignation and dismissal, but when he finally left Knysna in 1901 they had recognised his valued contribution to Knysna and sangs his praises. A man for all seasons! A very committed and dedicated civil servant of the old order. I am busy putting a story together about his time in Knysna. Philip

Reply
Roxanne
11/1/2019 02:30:40 am

What a fascinating addition to the info about Roger Jackson, thank you Philip. His dad sounds like quite a character too.

Reply
Philip Caveney link
11/1/2019 05:07:19 am

Thanks Roxanne,
Busy researching Roger Duke's father for a talk I plan to give to the members of the Knysna Historical Society next month.Please pester me for a copy of my research report towards the end of February. Keep up the good work!

Philip Caveney
9/2/2019 05:06:15 pm

Hi Roxanne, Maximilian Jackson's wife was Maria Bertha Jackson (born Brink), not Martha. Sorry for my typo.

Reply
Roger Jackson
31/10/2024 06:26:15 am

Hey Phillip.
I trust you are well. I am not sure if you are aware that Maria Bertha was the legendary Jose Dale Lace's sister.

Reply
Estelle Haasbroek link
3/3/2020 12:06:38 pm

I am giving a talk on the history of that early days tonight , starting with Hendrik Witbooi and the battle of Grootkolk

Reply
Roxanne Reid link
3/3/2020 12:22:41 pm

Sounds fascinating.

Reply
Sibu
28/8/2020 11:20:09 am

Hi Rox.....Do you perhaps have more pics of this place, if so, would you mind sharing them ?.....The history is mind blowing !!!

Reply
Roxanne
29/8/2020 01:57:20 pm

No, Sibu, these are all I took. I agree the history is fascinating.

Reply
Donna Auchterlonie O'Connell
23/9/2021 01:56:49 am

I'm related to the Auchterlonies of Arbroath, Scotland. I was facinated when I saw the name of the musuem and also thought someone named Auchterlonie was the original settler. The article was very interesting and I loved the pictures.

Reply
Roxanne
23/9/2021 08:07:21 am

How interesting, Donna, I'm glad you enjoyed it. This place was named by the Scottish couple called Jackson who were charged with setting up the waterholes along the riverbed in the early 1900s. The wife had Scottish ancestry so it's not surprising they gave a few places in the area Scottish names. Other Scottish names in the Kgalagadi include Dalkeith and Craig Lockhart waterholes, which are also rather odd names to find in the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa.

Reply
Linda Auchterlonie (maiden name) Berube
6/8/2023 11:27:41 am

My maiden name is Linda Auchterlonie. My father's name is John Auchterlonie. His parents' names were Alexander and Hughina (Neisch) Auchterlonie. They were both born in Scotland and came to America in the 1800s. I heard that there was an ice cream store in Scotland named Auchterlonie's. Does anyone know about this store?

Reply
Roxanne Reid
8/8/2023 03:07:29 pm

How interesting. I don't know the ice cream store jin Scotland but maybe someone else here does...

Reply

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    I'm an independent travel writer and book editor with a passion for Africa - anything from African travel, people, safari and wildlife to adventure, heritage, road-tripping and slow travel.
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