Bare bones of yesterday
Have you ever travelled along a dirt road, passed an old abandoned building and wondered, “If these walls could talk…”?
Ghost towns are described as deserted settlements, with few or no remaining inhabitants. They are the skeletons of once-thriving communities, and are found all over the world. Most of us know the much-photographed ones such as Machu Picchu in Peru and Kolmanskop in Namibia, but there are many ghost towns on all seven continents, including Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands.
National Geographic quotes Thóra Pétursdóttir and Bjørnar Olsen, editors of the book Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past, to describe our interest in ruins: “Masked objects are unveiled, inside is turned out. Collapsed walls, broken windows and open drawers expose intimacy and privacy, recalling to light the previously hidden, forgotten or unknown.”
As for the ghosts… these are said to be seen from time to time.
“Sandy died of malaria, in Room 6,” Leydsdorp Hotel manager Margaret Locke says. “The prospectors put him on a cart and, halfway down to the cemetery, he fell off. Everyone was drunk,” she adds, painting a vivid picture of the debauched lifestyle during the late 1800s. “They brought him back here and stuck him in the corner of the bar. A few people have said they had seen his ghost sitting there.”
Come and walk with us through Leydsdorp in Limpopo and three other ghost towns in Mpumalanga.
A beautiful mess
What is it about ghost towns? I am in awe of the natural beauty surrounding Vaalhoek, but these shells of a lush life long lost make my hair stand on end. There is
