June 6th History at Pilgrim's Rest (Jim's Entry)

Jim's Point of View

Today we went to a historical site called Pilgrims Rest, a place made as home, rest stop and trading post for miners during the South African gold rush. We took the same road route from the other day so there wasn’t much new to see.

When we arrived at Pilgrim’s Rest, I was kind of disappointed. The site looked like a typical tourist trap you would find in the states. Pretty much every building was a store, while some claimed to be museums and had some historical objects and information, almost all of them had some type of store. Those that were not stores were hotel annexes so pretty much a room for rent place. It was sad to see that commercialization was everywhere and not just the States. For those of you that complain about people profiting from tourism in the States just know that it is pretty much everywhere now.

As a history junkie, I tried to make the best of the situation by learning as much as I could about the history of the place whether it was trying to read every bit of information I could find about artifacts or general historical facts. I picked up some flyers that provide brief but interesting history and facts about different places in the area.

I thought it was cool to learn more about my Dutch heritage in this place. I knew the Dutch traded and settled in ports of South Africa but I had no idea how far inland they went. I found out that Afrikaans is actually a dialect of the Deutsch language.  I thought that fact was very interesting and it made me proud that I was walking in a part of the history of my Dutch heritage even here.

After we left Pilgrim’s Rest, we went to a nearby Digging Site camp. There I had my fix of history for the day. The site was a preserved Miner’s camp with most of its original equipment and buildings up. Some buildings were restored and some equipment was replaced with similar machines that were used by the miners. We learned a brief history of the camp and Pilgrims Rest. Then we went down to a stream where Becky and I unsuccessfully tried to pan for Gold.

Later, I got to visit my first African grocery store and it was interesting to see all the different things they had there than the states. Overall, the day was quite fun and I think both Becky and I enjoyed the historical sites we got to visit today. I know I did. I don’t know how much we are going to do tomorrow. We are just going relax but we will see what comes up.