Slow living in Wakkerstroom

Wakkerstroom has an identity crisis. Everyone knows it as Wakkerstroom, but if you buy property in the village, the title deeds will indicate Marthinus Wesselstroom, its earlier incarnation.

Your electricity bill will reflect his name too. “Wakker” comes from the isiZulu word Uthaka, referring to the lively river running through it. But Marthinus’ ghost still lingers, at least in the deeds and Eskom offices.

And who was Wessel? He was actually Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, son of Great Trek leader Andries. In 1857 he was elected president of the republic, and the following year the president of the Orange Free State. These presidencies qualified him to have a village named after him (he named Pretoria after his father).

This Mpumalanga village was laid out on Dirk Cornelius Uys’ farm in 1859. He measured the stands using long riempies of eland hide. He is buried in the local cemetery, as are the dead British and Boers stationed in the town in the two Anglo-Boer Wars. They are also remembered in the shape of a large wagon and “1838-1938” in white stones on the koppie overlooking the village.

I went to the village in mid-March for the Wakkerstroom Music Festival, an annual event held for the past 13 years. It’s a classical music extravaganza, with up to 48 concerts over four days. Concerts included items like Bach to Bernstein; Beat it! The Jazz and Klezmer Trio; and Padkos and Polyphony.

Organiser Linette van der Merwe says: “We have so many fantastic world-class musicians in SA.” About 3,500 tickets were sold this year. “It was a successful, wonderful festival.” 

What is surprising about a village of this size is that people from all over make it their home — there are Germans, Canadians, Zimbabweans, Scots and Zambians.  

Wakkerstroom seems to bring out the best in them — maybe it’s the -15ºC winters, or the wetlands, or the clear air. Take entrepreneurs Paul and Julia Lessing. Paul is a chemical engineer and  former air force pilot. We started chatting on the veranda of the Wakkerstroom Hotel. He started a brewery called the Bindura Brewing Company (he grew up in Bindura in Zimbabwe), producing ales and lagers. His wife Julia, a ceramicist for the past 20 years, produces colourful pottery that is exported nationally and internationally, as are her bearded irises.  

Paul says: “I love Wakkerstroom, it’s the oddest place, with a diverse collection of eccentrics.” Five years ago they bought a house in Wakkerstroom, and while visiting, lockdown happened, so they stayed.

David Nkosi is another entrepreneur, of the birder kind. He took me out to the 700ha wetlands, and his fine ear soon picked up bird songs. He’s one of several bird experts from the township. He spoke of the cranes, harriers, moorhens and black ducks which nest in the wetlands. The grasslands beyond are home to the yellow breasted pipit, Rudd’s lark and the eastern long-billed lark, among others.  

“I take tours to Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique, and the whole of SA,” he says. Visitors to the wetlands come from the UK, the US, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Taiwan, Madagascar and China, and make up 40% of the total visitors to the village.  

“I grew up a herdboy, and while my brothers played football, I would walk in the veld. I heard the chicks calling and I would flush birds from the grass. I would see adults carrying food and grass and follow them. My interest started there.” He didn’t have a bird book to guide him, and only got one and binoculars later.

He has participated in the Botha’s lark project, a bird that is on the critically endangered list. “The bird was thought to be extinct. We were given six months to find them, and on the fourth day I found them in the wetlands, breeding in a different area. There are now 29 birds, and I don’t take tourists to the location, to protect them.” 

The village, with two tar roads and no traffic lights, took a knock during Covid, and from 10 restaurants it’s now down to three, with several coffee shops. There’s a village bakery, locally made cheeses in the cheese shop, veggie shop, petrol station, grocery store, a butchery (Vleiland Dop & Tjop) and a mosque.

I met Rupert Lawlor, the local trail and walking guide, outside The Bioscope, which used to show 16mm movies, but is now the info centre. He took me walking around the village. We went to the 1904 St Joseph’s Catholic Church down a dirt road, a charming white-plastered church, now with a congregation of about 10.

We walked a block or two down Hoog Street, to admire the oldest house in the village, built in 1862. Originally the house of the landdrost, Anthony O’Reilly, his widow ran it as a boarding house, and one of its guests was Henry Rider Haggard, author of King Solomon’s Mines.  

Next up was the sandstone magistrate’s court building, with two handsome columns over the entrance. It is one of three national monuments in the village, and sits every Tuesday. From there we walked to the 1890 St Mark’s Anglican Church, a tiny stone building with steep red-pitched roof, and a beautiful stained glass window, also a national monument.  

The third national monument is the 1897 Paul Kruger Bridge. The story goes that Paul Kruger visited the village, and his wagon got stuck in the wetlands on his way north. The villagers then appealed to him for funds to build a bridge, which were duly supplied.

On the way back to the main street we passed another incongruous building — Harvey Greenacres, a Durban departmental store I remember well from growing up in that city. It now belongs to a person living in the Netherlands, and I got special entry. Its ground floor could easily marvel a grand palace entrance hall, with tall ceilings, gracious chandeliers, a grand piano, Persian rugs, luxurious drapes and imitation Rembrandts on the walls (who knows, they might have been genuine, I didn’t look that closely). There are seven en suite bedrooms on the top floor. 

A final turn took us past the old Standard Bank building, now a gallery, with Tuesday movie nights. “After the movie we have tea out of beautiful cups,” says Rita Wiessemann, a local of 14 years. Originally from the Netherlands, she lives in an old house behind the now defunct railway station — the last train stopped there in 1993. “I have a house where each room has a view, and wonderful neighbours — people care for each other. This is slow living in a smallish town,” she says, “there is a strong sense of community here.”

And plenty to do — ballet, Pilates, judo, a book club, walking groups. While the music festival is the main drawcard, in April there’s the Vleifees music concert; in June there’s the 14th mountain challenge race, with a 21km and 10km run or walk, a 16km trail run or walk, and a 5km fun run.  In September there’s an arts and crafts fair, and in November there’s the 5km open-water swim in the local dam.

That slow living means that at times you’ll have to wait for geese, goats or cattle wandering across the roads. They have right of way, of course.   

Travel notes:

Wakkerstroom is three-an-a-half hours from Johannesburg. I stayed at the Wetlands Country House & Sheds, 1km out of town, which has nine rooms, including a two-bedroomed house, and three self-catering rooms.

Bird guide: David Nkosi 083 922 3733.

Trail and walking guide: Rupert Lawlor 083 227 9020