Kloof Walk 219

This is not my first walk down into our gorge this year but this morning Kenmare Kloof Conservation Association organised the first Kloof Walk of the year and 219 nature lovers turned up. Awesome.

At first when the numbers started coming in of over 150 bookings, I was skeptical and a little concerned of fitting so many people in such a small space. Matthew and I arrived early and parked at Manie Mulder and walked up the Kenmare Kloof side to meet our visitors. Yip it was confirmed 219 people signed up and a lot arrived with majority of the visitors never in their wildest dreams thought that this beautiful gorge existed and yet here it is.

Baby Moses

 

This morning I went down to the stream below my house to meet one of my inspirations, our mayor Herman Mashaba on one of his A re Sebetseng clean up Saturday Projects but I did not find our honorable mayor, instead I found these children parting the bulrushes. The mayor had been called away on an urgent matter and the Baby Moses Children's Sanctuary stepped up to the plate. They are a children's home for abandoned and abused children. 

It is a pity the mayor wasn't there as our kloof needs all the publicity and protection it deserves. At least it is in good hands with all the children I saw down in the kloof today.

Workers' Day

Workers' Day 1st of May is here, and we celebrated it by sleeping in. After finally getting going for the day, we tackled the garden and swimming pool. Many hands make like work and it wasn't long before the garden was back on track.

To make most of the holiday, I found myself taking River Song for a walk down into the kloof in the late afternoon. The water was pristine and clear, a big thanks to all the efforts of Andreas of the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch Conservation Group. As you can see the rocks look jagged and sharp, this is from the blasting that was done along the side of the gorge to make a way for a sewerage line. This sewerage line is now old and under a lot of pressure as more and more homes are connected. The sewerage can and would overflow many times into the stream only to wash down into the Botanical Gardens below.

With the early warning system of measuring the oxygen levels of the water down at the Bot Gardens which was helped sponsored by the RNW Conservation Group, this stream has been clean for quite some time now. So much so that talk has started the ball rolling in the idea of restocking the river with fish. Now wouldn't that be lovely.

Living on the Edge

Everyday now, I've been taking River Song for walks on the lead and I try take different routes to make it exciting for her. I think she is enjoying it. Today I walked the side of the gorge and took this photo facing north towards the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens which is downstream. It is there that the famous Black Eagle pair nest just 2km from where I am currently standing. Every now and then they drift up the gorge looking for food.

To the right off camera of course is my house at the edge of this beautiful area, and to the right also off camera is the deepest gorge in Gauteng, the Witpoortjie Kloof.

Night of the Dead

Okay now this is a sore point for me. I think I am a moderate person, and I tolerate different peoples, cultures, and beliefs but last night, well it was too much. Lets call it the Night of the Dead, as I am dead tired writing this but it needs to be told. Let me start from the beginning. A neighbour who is a South African Police member approached me about 6pm with whom I believe was a family member and 2 other men.

The neighbour wanted access into the kloof or gorge through the gate at the end of our road for the 3 men who wanted to collect holy water. The gate is locked due to security reasons, so I directed them to a public entrance a few kilometres away but they weren’t happy using that entrance due to it being unsafe for their car which was a black VW Polo. Understandable as Polos are targeted by criminals but they wanted to park on my property. It was getting dark and because it was my neighbour asking I gave the go ahead, it was only for a few hours while they hike down into the kloof and back. I expected them back by latest 8pm. Yes I was concerned and I voiced my concern that walking at night in the veldt with its dangerous cliffs was not the wisest thing to do. But they were adamant.

I had Connect Group meeting yesterday evening, so I asked my tenant if she could open the gate when they returned. But when I got back from Connect at about 10 o’ clock and the 3 men were not back from fetching holy water, I started to get worried, so I phoned my neighbour who was on duty. At first he thought I was joking, but I was serious, he rushed over from work. Once here, he tried to phone his family member but no answer; he then called the wife to get the cell numbers of the other 2 men. When the wife heard that the men had not returned, she started crying over the phone. Cellphone reception is virtually non-existent deep in the kloof. So with the police lights flashing at the end of my road, my neighbour and I went into the veldt and hiked to the edge of the kloof overlooking the closest holy water sources to my home. We shined our touches down into the gaping chasm, my neighbour called out to them, but no answer. It seemed dead below us.

It was way too dangerous to go down further into the kloof in the dark, so our only bet was to wait till first light and if they still had not returned, then our option was to bring out the dogs and form a search party. I remember saying to my neighbour, that either they lied to us and planned to sleep over night in the kloof or they got hurt somehow.

My neighbour then drove over to the public entrance and found some Zionist Christian Church (ZCC) religious pilgrims hanging about there, at this time of night? After questioning them, it was discovered that a ZCC ceremony is being held in deep the kloof near the holy waters and is planned to end at midnight. I was very upset when I heard this because this meant they lied to us big time.

I showered and called it a night. While trying to find sleep, I remembered that tonight is the eve of All Saints, or Halloween as it is called in the Western world. Oh dear, this is now serious. A secret religious ceremony is being held in the kloof on the Night of the Dead.

Now I know that the ZCC mixes the Christian beliefs with African traditions such as ancestor worship. The ZCC stem from the Apostolic Faith Mission and I never thought that the Catholicism beliefs of honouring the dead saints especially today, All Saints Day, would be celebrated by them in the form of ancestor worship in the dead of the night, excuse my pun.

The 3 men finally emerged from the kloof about 02:30am in the morning. Talk about the dead rising from the hole in the ground, I was not a happy chappy but remained cool and collective, well as best I could in the wee hours of the morning.

Dominie se Visit

Jon, the pastor at Centre Church, came a house calling this morning at 8am. Now I don’t have a Dominie se Kamer, an Afrikaans traditional 2nd sitting room in the house that is set up for visitors especially the dominie or in English the pastor. A large family bible is normally on display open as if being read and the special room is never used other than for visitors. Now we don’t have one of these special sitting rooms as we live life warts and all.

I did say to Jon, "anytime", and when he said 8am, I answered "how about I do a breakfast?" Awesomeness! Okay I usually cook an awesome breakfast in bed on the weekends, but "in bed" won’t do for the dominie, now will it. So I set up a table on the deck which turned out neat, well in my books it is especially for breaking bread with the dominie.

Once Jon arrived, I made him a lekker cup of Nespresso coffee with frothy milk, then proceeded to rustle up some breakfast while we chatted, before moving onto the deck. It was like all the birds in the area seem to know that Jon is an avid birdie and came to visit. Okay not all but quite a few.

Two hours later, as Jon drove off to his next dominie’s visit, I suddenly realised that I enjoyed the visit so much that I forgot to take a photo of Jon for my daily blog. Eish I am getting slack in my old age. Oh well 2nd prize, a photo of the simple table setting with the view.

Mamlambo

Remember I wrote before about naked men in our river and that over the last few years 12 naked bodies have been fished out of the stream that flows in the kloof below my home. Well today we dive in deeper which reminds me, that I still want to write an article about the different religious groups that congregate here at the holy waters, and today I start with the Medicine Man.

This morning Andreas, Suzanne, Lynda, and myself, went down into the kloof to check on the state of the stream and good news, the air was clean and fresh with no more sewerage odour hanging in the air. Only problem, is that there is still a lot to do as there is plenty of litter still down there which are being left behind by the religious groups. Andreas explained to me that the solution might be with bringing in school project trips down into the kloof to help clean up.

I enjoy going down the kloof, talking to the various religious groups represented down there, learning about the different practices that are being performed at this most holy site. And sometimes, yes sometimes coming across a naked man bathing in public is not a pleasant sight and something you simply can't unsee in a hurry but this time I got a talking to Hubert, the slave name of the traditional medicine man shown above, who hurriedly got dressed as not to offend me and the other hikers after his naked dip into the holy waters. I used to call this water, the holy sewerage due to the high sewerage content in the water and even though the water looked crystal clear and very cold now, I wasn’t 100% sure it was safe to bathe in let alone drink even though to the pilgrims this water is holy.

In my conversation with Hubert, we broached the subject of the 12 naked bodies that were found over the years drowned in about a foot of stream water. He then went on to explain to me the story of the Mamlambo, the spiritual water snake or mermaid that lives in the water especially by the waterfall where most of the bodies have been found. At first it was hard to believe that a large water snake the size of a large African Python or even a mermaid living in the pool below the waterfall. I know that with my Christian upbringing that the spiritual world actually exists and is very dangerous to meddle in but I wanted to know why Hubert still wanted to bathe in this water knowing that there is this Mamlambo killing people. Hubert's faith in the traditional African ways mixed with Christianity is strong even though I don't believe that the 2 can be mixed, it is either 1 or the other.

While Hubert explained, a man on the other side of the stream started cracking a whip as if to chase away demons. At first I thought it was some sort of self flagellation but noticed that he was whipping the air. Hubert went on to clarify that if you go into the water and you are not right inside, that is when the Mamlambo comes and claims you, eish yet you still go into the waters, and he smiled.

Most of the pilgrims are here for the holy water. One person who I met about 2 weeks ago down here and again today, calls himself a prophet, he comes here, prays a lot and afterwards he collects the holy water in large 2l and 5l containers which he takes back home. He then bottles the holy water into smaller containers which he then sells for R80 a bottle. Uhmmm, I wonder, is there a market for this holy water? Are there any medicinal properties or is it a placebo? I need to collect some testimonials from these pilgrims and also get the water tested, sounds like a plan but I don’t want to offend the Mamlambo, if she exists.

Holy Sewerage

The title says it all, holy sewerage. A month ago I wrote about raw sewerage flowing into the stream that flows through the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens and I also mentioned about the itinerants cutting down trees in the area.

The biggest problem is that this stream forms the boundary between 2 municipalities, Mogale City and City of Joburg which causes jurisdiction problems and this stream is very critical in terms of bio habitats as well as religiously. It is the source of the Crocodile River and the biodiversity in this area astoundingly exceeds all expectations for such a small area. Both my articles got a lot of exposure with the media getting hold of them. The first one even reached the desk of the mayor of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba. It even got me into environmental circles that I would have never dreamed of being in. What next, I suppose next is Green Peace.

Firstly a report back on the raw sewerage. We were told by the council members and heads of sanitation of both Mogale City and City of Joburg that the leaks have been fixed. With a lot of people watching, Andreas Oberlechner, chair person of the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch organised a walk down into the kloof this morning hoping lots would attend since it being a public holiday. He invited all the necessary people along so that they can see for themselves the beauty of the Witpoortjie Kloof, which I am told that this kloof is called, and inspect the repair work. But sadly the offer was not taken up by many and only the Friends of Kloofendal and myself took up the offer.

Okay that was the bad news now for the good, the kloof is sewerage free, yay! All the leaks have been repaired and unblocked. New manhole covers have replaced the broken and missing. The broken sewer pipe has been repaired. Good news everywhere we checked. All we need now is some good rains to wash the residue build up away. Never has so much been done, so quickly by so few. Now for some more name dropping, thank you to the councillors Suzanne Clark and Antoinette Fourie from City of Joburg and Mogale City along with the respective environmental and water management teams for getting their hands dirty and fixing the environmental mess, South African Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), the community forums, environmental groups, and the media. A big thank you to all as no more raw sewerage is flowing into the National Botanical Gardens. We will keep monitoring the situation.

Now for the Holy part of my article today. Since it is a public holiday, pilgrims came flooding into the kloof to drink and fetch the holy water of the springs that are at the head of the kloof. Yes we have Holy Water flowing out of the rocks. Previously I thought it was just the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) coming down to the water but today my eyes were opened as I questioned a lot of the pilgrims. They were from all different types of faith, not only the ZCC but the apostolic faith churches, and even the Emmanuel Mission from Soweto were represented. I have seen the traditional healers, sangomas, and inyangas here too but not today.

This pilgrim just came out of the old flooded mineshaft fetching freezing cold Holy Water

Now I don’t mind the pilgrims because the water is for all South Africans, as long as we keep it clean. I must say that the pilgrims were very thankful that the sewerage spills had been fixed but my problem now is the amount of litter left down in the kloof, cutting down of indigenous trees for firewood, and the invasive alien plants.

As for the indigenous tree cutting, I even saw some pilgrims bringing in their own firewood from outside which is good, even better is to cut down all the invasive wattle trees. I asked about the litter and they fervently denied they were the culprits, but okay never mind who is doing it, let’s find a solution to clean it up and prevent it from happening. Another question which I never asked the pilgrims but voiced my concern with my fellow hikers, what about the pilgrims ablutions. Where do they go? In the holy waters?

We can only do this together. We need to work together with the pilgrims, the political parties in charge of Mogale City and City of Joburg, SANBI, the community forums, environmental groups, and the locals living in the area such as myself. We can do it. We can make this kloof along with its holy waters a place for all to come and find God in whatever form they believe even if their god is nature and mother earth.

And Down Goes Another Tree

Even while I write this blog post, down goes another tree! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the raw sewerage flowing into the Botanical Gardens from this very spot. Thankfully the councilors, conservationists, and concerned citizens, from City of Joburg, Mogale City, ARMOUR, Proteadal Conservation, and the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch, all jumped and as the result, the flow of pollution into the Bot Gardens has stopped. And now this.

In Cape Town they call them the Bergies, here in the upper reaches above the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, I have heard them been called the Mountain men by the police or the Church people by the locals. Whatever you call them, they live in the cracks and crannies of the ridges running between Roodepoort and Mogale City.

There are quite a few of them, some permanent, some only come over the weekends, they mostly men that live like hermits in either make shift shelters or holes dug in the sides of cliffs. The worst part is that it looked like a swarm of locusts came through, cutting down the indigenous trees, digging up medicinal plants, and leaving behind them a wake of destruction and not to mention litter.

When we confront these itinerants, or whatever you call them, they say that they are here for religious purposes, as they are the ZCC or the Zion Christian Church, but what religion allows to their devotees to wantonly destroy the nature around them, please pray tell.

More than one occasion has evidence of petty crime such as house breaking been found in the veldt overlooking the kloof and it is easy to put these two groups together as one and the same or are there rouge elements posing as ZCC? Last week a huge veldt fire raced up the kloof towards the houses, most likely from an un-attended camp fire. Luckily no properties were destroyed although my home came close and if it wasn’t for my neighbours and the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch it would have been a different story.

Today 2 itinerants were seen carrying freshly cut protea tree branches down towards the kloof. The problem is that these trees are not easily replaced. When are they going to stop? When there are no more trees left to support them?

My neighbour decided to confront them and I had to race after him with my camera in case he got into trouble. By the time I got half way down I heard his voice booming up the sides of the kloof as he demanded to know why they were cutting down the trees. The itinerants simply shrug their shoulders as if they did nothing wrong.

When will the authorities do something? Will the leadership of the ZCC do something? I can only guess NOTHING will be done. And down goes another tree.

Raw Sewerage into the Botanical Gardens

They say that the grass is greener on the other side but it is usually because it is over a septic tank. In this case it is not far from the truth.

I moved to the Roodekrans area of Johannesburg last year because of the beautiful views into the kloof above the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens and the very rare flora that is found here and nowhere else. It was these wilds inside the city limits that attracted us to move here in the first place. Soon it became apparent that not all was rosy as it looked or smelled.

Soon after moving to Roodekrans, we found itinerants living up in the kloof, knowledge of which the estate agent and seller kindly hid from us. Some of these itinerants were religious people coming for the holy waters of the 3 springs that are the source of the stream which eventually becomes the Crocodile River. It is this stream which flows down the magnificent waterfall and through Botanical Gardens. Some itinerants are digging into the sides of the cliffs, for what we can only speculate as there is no gold in these hills so say the police to whom I report it to. All of them cut down the Protea trees for firewood and dig up medicinal plants in a protected biodiversity area that can’t be quickly replaced.

A lot of Johannesburg residents like myself are very proud of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens with its astonishing waterfall set in a stunning landscaped garden and not to forget the Black Eagles that nest there in the cliffs. Well sorry to burst that bubble as like the saying goes it is green because it is over a septic tank. Yes raw sewerage is flowing at a steady rate directly into the stream that flows through the Botanical Gardens.

Just under a month ago during a Joburg Photowalkers hike into the kloof above the Botanical Gardens, a raw sewerage leak flowing directly into the stream was discovered and duly reported to the City of Joburg, and today I was tasked to take a walk down into the kloof to see if anything has been done about the sewerage leak. What I was hoping to find was that the leaking sewer pipe had being repaired but sadly this was not the case as nothing had being done to rectify the leak. As you can see in the very top photo of this post, that the grass is very green grass by being fed from all the pollutants this has been going on for a very long time.

While we were down here in the kloof, we decided to walk up past the Manie Mulder Waterfall to check on the conditions further upstream and on the 3 springs which form the source of the stream. Along the way we saw itinerants living in hovels dug out into the sides of the cliffs and even had the pleasure of witnessing an exorcism of a demon possessed person in the stream by 2 priests. I kid you not. I did not take any photos of the exorcism but I asked a lot of questions about the plastic covered person standing naked in the stream.

At one of the springs, we sadly watched a woman with a baby on her back drink and collect holy water from the rubbish littered water source that was sweeping out of the rock cliffs. I have been told that these holy waters bring in bus loads of people and I wonder if polluted water have healing powers that I don't know about.

But the worst was yet to come. To our horror we found a major sewerage pipe blockage which was overflowing into the stream above the source where the woman and her baby were drinking from and where the demon exorcism was taking place. This sewerage was flowing at a steady pace down a small valley between Jarrah Street and Albida Place, Breaunanda, a suburb of Krugersdorp in Mogale City, into the small stream that then flows through the kloof, over 2 waterfalls and into the Botanical Gardens below before becoming the Crocodile River.

Forget exorcisms, tree cutting, and squatters, now I was so filled with mixed emotions, from anger to crying in shame for the human race. I could handle the religious fanatics even with their associated litter but the raw sewerage flowing into this beautiful kloof was the last straw. Time to make a stink about this, like that Aussie song How can we sleep when our beds are burning? The first raw sewerage leak was reported to the City of Joburg and yet nothing was done, this new bigger leak will be reported to Mogale City but unless we all make some noise, I expect nothing will be done.

Sunset Competition

After Matthew’s awesome photographs on Sunday with the sunsets in the kloof, I would be hard pressed to compete but today’s sunset just happened to present itself to me and I could not help myself.

Makaranga

Off Igwababa Street in Kloof just inland from Durban is the botanical gardens of Makaranga that is littered with stone art by Zimbabwean sculptors. 30 acres of enchanted gardens that you just want to find rest and allow the days to pass on by.

Even the neighbour’s cat thought of passing up his time here as mischievous fairies danced along bubbling brooks enticing the little boy which was bitten by a crab.