Port Alfred, Makhanda get some TLC
Mandela Day presents an annual opportunity to reach out to others in altruism. Both in the public eye and behind the scenes, there are many whose work benefits citizens sometimes altruism is the driving force; sometimes entrepreneurship.
In December 2018, guests at a special Christmas Tea-in-the-Garden enjoyed tea and cake in the shade on a well mowed lawn on the north side of the railway tracks at the Port Alfred station. Billed as a ‘relaxing morning under the trees and a fascinating stroll around the museum’, the museum’s volunteers recall the occasion with pride.
Three and a half years later, and the wheels of an old wagon on the tracks were submerged in a small lake of algae covered water. Another small lake west of the building had become home to a family of Egyptian geese and there was grassland rather than lawn.
If that sounds like an idyllic return to nature, you should know that feeding Port Alfred’s new wetland has been not sewage, as many residents assumed, but clean, treated potable water, leaking from a broken pipe at the back of Station Hill.
The good news is that a team of volunteers has taken on the site and is determined to restore it to the tourist attraction it used to be. According to Museum volunteer and retired curator of several museums Bugs Wilmot, TripAdvisor rates the Station and the museum as one of the four top tourist attractions in Port Alfred.
“I can’t just watch this lovely old building go down,” said businessperson Don Broedelet. “I’ve seen too many towns deteriorate.”
He has very big plans for the precinct but first, the water leak must be addressed.
“There is clean water running into the station. We are draining it from the area, but it’s coming in at twice the volume,” he said.
Another volunteer, Don Fryer, engaged with Ndlambe officials to have the leak stopped and was this week waiting for an update.
Broedelet envisions trips on a type of truck that gets lifted on to train tracks.
“We’re going to do it up to look like a railway carriage,” he says.
Tourists would be able to take a trip along the railway line on this truck-train to a Bush Braai destination.
Taking on the work of repairing and maintaining state owned property whether it’s under the jurisdiction of national, provincial or local government, or a state owned enterprise, is always going to be controversial, especially with grand State Capture as the backdrop.
But perhaps on the basis you can neither eat nor drive on a principle, there are businesses and private indviduals who take on projects anyway.
Makhanda’s current branding as a city of potholes is under serious threat from businessperson Jon Campbell and the pothole-repair operation he has assembled through a partnership with Makana Municipality, Caltex, Pick n Pay and Vox.