Adam’s Calendar and Stone Circle Ruins in Waterval Boven, Mpumalanga

What Others are Saying

1. 
   April 27th, 2011 at 14:42
   Deon van Onselen says:

   Me and my wife recently vis­ited the Waterval Boven area for busi­ness and had some spare time on hand. I noticed the inform­a­tion sign at the turn off from the N4 dir­ect­ing us into town to find the Stone Circle Ruins. After a full circle tour of the town we found no fur­ther dir­ec­tions point­ing us to this attrac­tion. As this was a pub­lic hol­i­day (27 Apr) the tour­ism inform­a­tion centre was closed. We there­fore enquired from a local shop wheer we could find these Stone Circles. We were dir­ec­ted to a site on the Schoemanskloof road and were quite happy to find the site some 1 km after the N4 split. We were quite lucky to find some other tour­ists on the site as well but was told by a local tour­ist guide that we are tres­passing on private land and should not visit the site without prior book­ing of a guide.
   What frus­trates me is:
   The lack of inform­a­tion on the nature, loc­a­tion and his­tory of these Stone Circle Ruins avail­able for cit­izens like myself who show an interest in our cul­tural her­it­age.
   The arrog­ance of the local tour­ist trade to reserve this cul­tural site for them selves as a busi­ness.
   The lack of inform­a­tion on the site.
   If this is Sappi ter­rit­ory, I chal­lange Sappi to take up their social respons­ib­il­ity and turn this poten­tially most inform­at­ive site into a furher tour­ist attrac­tion for our beau­lt­i­ful coun­try.
   If there are some­body out there who share my frus­tra­tion with a back­slid­ing tour­ism trade please con­tact me.
2. 
   October 12th, 2011 at 18:35
   Di de Villiers says:

   Hello — I abso­lutely have to agree with you. This should be a National Heritage Site and open and avail­able for ANYONE to visit.

   I have vis­ited ALL the major stone circle sites in UK, and while one has to SOMETIMES pay to get onto the site — it was for the upkeep and pre­ser­va­tion of said site, so you didnt mind pay­ing. NOT to line the pock­ets of some "Tour" group who want to keep it for their own per­sonal money trove !!!!

   It is a dis­grace that people are try­ing to cap­it­al­ise on and profit from some­thing that belongs to the coun­try as a whole. Who gave them the right to do this ? And Yes if the prop­erty does belong to Sappi, they have a respons­ib­il­ity to not dis­crim­in­ate against people of this coun­try who have an interest in such places.

   I look for­ward to hear­ing if any­one else has strong feel­ings on this mat­ter, and what we can do to rec­tify the situation.

   Regards — Di
3. 
   November 22nd, 2011 at 18:55
   Avalokiteshvara says:

   Perhaps the reas­on­ing behind this goes deeper than either of the pre­vi­ous com­menters are acknowledging.

   Adam's cal­ender is an incred­ibly import­ant site, the belongs to no one. It con­tains a lot of inform­a­tion about the capa­city of man­kind — our ancest­ors had a much greater intel­li­gence than we do now. Perhaps the cur­rent sys­tem is in place to ensure that vis­it­ors come to the site with the appro­pri­ate respect and under­stand­ing and grat­it­ude for the experience.

   And if a group of people, who has undoubtedly bore the brunt of mod­ern­ism and indus­tri­al­iz­a­tion — sac­ri­ficed their land and their way of life so that you may have the priv­ilege to earn a salary, to fly to South Africa, to own or rent and drive a car that will enable you to visit the site — the least that can be done is to offer them a com­pens­a­tion for their hardships.

   Perhaps what can be done to "rec­tify the situ­ation" is to drop the unbe­com­ing sense of enti­tle­ment that you wear unquestioningly.

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