Dams of plenty
Nick Yell explores the ghosts of a prosperous Northern Cape operation
IT’S a crisp morning in the Bokkeveld between Nieuwoudtville and Loeriesfontein. In front of me, the remnants of a large, rusted machine — one that looks like a modestly improved Stephenson’s Rocket — rises incongruously from the Karoo veld. Drawing closer, I become fascinated by the different cylinders and compartments that make up its arcane structure. I hear a mysterious yet mellifluous hum emanating from its bowels; then bees start to issue from a vent nearby and the mystery is solved.
My travelling companion, Harvey, and I have been walking along the dry beds of a series of overflow dams adjacent to our secluded cottage. These smaller dams — some 15 in total — are filled once the main containment dam, Driekop (150ha), overflows after being fed by the waters of the Hantam and Koringhuis rivers.
Of course, to fill all the overflow dams (200ha plus) requires excellent summer rains and the last time this happened was in 2006. To plant a successful crop of wheat or lucerne in these dams, once the waters have sunk into the thirsty soil, the timing of the rains needs
to be just right. Ideally, they need to come at the end of the summer season around April so that the young shoots can receive another good watering from the winter rains from June to August.
When the Driekop Dam was built in the early 1900s, donkeys first pulled ground scrapers. Later, two imported Fowler steam tractors — I stumbled across the remnants of one on my walk — were used to speed up the process.
Back then, the dam held a lot more water than it does today. It was after the floods of 1961 that the silt-filled waters raised the foundation of Driekop Dam by 4m, meaning the dam could then only hold water for two days before it overflowed.
During the system’s heyday, there was a man employed solely to regulate the flow of this water by means of a complex network of channels and sluice gates — Koos van Taak.
The system apparently worked so effectively that wheat and lucerne were seen here almost all year around. In fact, so well did the syndicate that owned the dams
I thought I heard a taxi’s subwoofer, but it was just my heart
prosper that plans for a town nearby and a railway line from Calvinia to Bitterfontein in the Knersvlakte were set in motion. But both these initiatives came to nothing.
Having explored the neighbouring quiver tree forest before lunch, I read for a while and then took a nap in the heat of the afternoon. Refreshed, I decided to get a better look at the vast spread of dams by climbing what looked like a small cinder cone koppie nearby.
Three-quarters of the way up, I thought I heard the booming beat of a taxi’s subwoofer on the wind, but it was just my heart protesting — the gradient was far steeper than it looked from below.
The home erected to house Van Taak remains. And it’s in this charmingly renovated cottage that Harvey and I were staying. Sitting on the stoep, overlooking the parched bed of the dam, we found it hard to imagine the vast, yet temporary lakes of water Van Taak would have often gazed out upon, or the expanses of verdure provided by the young wheat and lucerne that would have sprouted soon after the seeds were sown.
But we were both hugely content with our arid vista. Drinking cold beer, we revelled in the perfect isolation and the myriad stars that slowly revealed themselves as the sun’s last rays ebbed.