Westerberg Ghost Town

Westerberg

This is the story of Westerberg, an abandoned small mining town close to the banks of the Orange River, situated between the towns of Prisca and Groblershoop in South Africa. we happened unexpectedly upon Westerberg during the Lion Lager Orange River Challenge. The first inflatable boat river race held in our country.

An interesting event that attracted a sizable entry of about eighteen different teams, each team consisting of three or four people as boat crew in their own inflatable boat with an outboard motor.

A back-up crew for each team would follow the race in their back-up vehicles on land to provide the necessary overnight camping gear as well as spare parts for the motors and repair kits for the inflatable boats.

The challenge was to see which team could manage the rigours of the river in the shortest time from the start of the race near the town of Douglas, close to where the Vaal and Orange River meet, all the way to Upington, some 760 Km down river.

Competitors would have to negotiate the sandbanks, rocks, rapids and weirs which would be encountered along the course of the river.

Just to complete the journey would be a challenge, each day would be timed and the team with the shortest overall time would be the winner.

I was in one of four teams of South African Airways flight deck crews, consisting of Pilots and Flight Engineers. Our four teams were sponsored by Zodiac inflatable boats with Johnson and Evinrude outboard motors. The entire event was sponsored by Lion Larger, a popular South African beer

There was initially a plentiful supply of the sponsored amber liquid which was readily and joyfully consumed the night before the start of the race and at every overnight camp. In addition, evening barbeque meals and fresh bottled water were provided, we were well looked after.

Following an extensive pre-race briefing by the organisers, the crews made their way to their respective inflatables on the bank of the Orange River and readied their equipment for the challenge that lay ahead.

Soon the race was under way and the eighteen boats roared down the river, jostling for position to get an early lead in the race.

Within the first couple of hours, the boats were strung out over a good number of miles, some stranded on sandbanks, others already on the side of the river with twisted and broken propellers.

The rocks in the river were mostly unseen, lurking just below the surface and ruthless in the way they could damage an outboard motor’s gearbox or propeller.

The deepest and fastest flowing water is on the outside of the bend in the river, that is where you can make the best time but that is also where the brutal rocks are, the inside of the bend is the shallow sandy side, there are also some rocks there but they are more obvious, mostly sticking out the water so you can see them, the going is much slower with the risk of getting stuck on a sandbank.

At the end of the first day’s racing, the exhausted crews arrived in dribs and drabs, but everyone made the first leg of the journey in one piece, some propellers only in pieces.

Spare propellers suddenly became a scarcity, more desirable even than food or beer!

The first night we stayed over near to the town of Prisca, an interesting camp site on the banks of the river, on a farmer’s property amongst the crops and sultana vineyards. Many of the crews chose to sleep in the open, the weather was that good, others slept in small two-man tents. Then, around midnight, the heavens opened with an unseasonal downpour of rain, followed by much yelling and expletives, scurrying around to find and erect tents, not ideal to get wet in the middle of the night when you’re tired!  

The race continued the next morning with a fair number of the crews haggard and grumpy at the morning pre-race briefing.

At the end of the second day’s racing, the camp site on the bank of the river stretched from under a good looking bridge over the river, extending for two or three hundred meters upstream, it was an interesting sight, all the boats haphazardly pulled up on the bank, the crews busy with preparing the boats and motors for the next day’s racing, a lot more tents than the first night being erected, I wonder why?

At the foot of each of the pillars supporting the bridge an impressive amount of driftwood had collected, washed up and piled together on the pillar supporting bases over the years. Nature had deposited the logs and branches of varying thicknesses in a randomly artistic arrangement that made an awesome picture, too bad these were pre-I-Phone days.

Having prepared our boat and motor, re-fuelled our flexible fuel tank, made camp, (with tents), and happily assisted in reducing the supply of the cool, tasty, sponsored brew, we set about exploring.

Walking up the road about half a kilometre we discovered the small town of Westerberg.

To say that this town was unexpected would be an understatement, it was not only unexpected, but it was completely deserted, a total ghost town.

We were astounded to find just about everything intact, the church still had pews in it and in the front of the church, next to the pulpit, the numbers of the hymns for the day were still in the holder.

We made our way over to the sports club, the soccer pitch still with goal posts but the grass needed attention:), the swimming pool empty.

Peering through an open window in the sports clubhouse building, we noticed a billiard table, with ques and balls all intact, without hesitation, we climbed in through the open window and played a few games of pool, the bar dusty and undisturbed but no service :) fortunately we had taken our own refreshments with us :)

The exploration continued, a building which we assumed would have been the town hall, stood hauntingly empty, still with all the furniture resting dustily inside, the houses too were eerily deserted, windows unbroken and the odd door half open, swinging loosely on the hinges, allowing a glimpse inside at the tattered cobwebbed furniture.

This was the most surreal experience I had ever had. I could not fathom why the town had been deserted in such an obvious hurry. (I later discovered that Westerberg had been an asbestos mining town and when the carcinogenic properties of asbestos dust were confirmed, the town was immediately evacuated, nothing was touched or taken for fear of asbestos dust contamination)

Having had our fun at and looked around the ghost town of Westerberg, oblivious to the danger of asbestos contamination, we made our way back to the campsite, lured ever closer by the delicious aroma of the barbeque wafting through the air, the smoke from the cooking fire drifting lazily over the river.

After a fulfilling and tasty evening meal, washed down with a little more of the bottomless foamy larger, we stood around socializing with the rest of the crews, the back-up crews and some of the organizing personnel.

The conversation stopped suddenly, and we all looked on in disbelief as one when we heard a bang and a whoosh! Someone had fired an incendiary red flare, trailing smoke and sparks as it flew like a rocket directly towards the woodpile at the bottom of the nearest pillar! When the flare hit the woodpile, there was a loud whoomph! and an instant fire broke out! We later discovered that someone had poured a few litres of their outboard motor fuel onto the logs from the bridge above, hence the instant fire.

The bone-dry sun-bleached pile of timber was perfect fuel and soon there was a raging fire, lighting up and warming the whole campsite and surrounding area. The fire raged on for a few hours, crackling and popping, shooting out sparks, the flames initially licking high up above the level of the bridge and reflecting impressively in the river. Occasionally, small pieces of concrete popped off the pillar, trapped moisture in the concrete expanding rapidly due to the heat of the flames, but did not appear to pose any risk to the structure.

Then we noticed that one of the bigger logs was crunching its way down, crushing the now almost burned-out thinner branches underneath, soon the log slid into the water, still burning, with the burning side up, shortly followed by two more big logs, also still on fire, glowing a bright orange in contrast to the darkness of the river as the current carried them downstream. Once again, an I-Phone would have come in handy for a video or at least a great picture! I still have the picture in my mind, hard to forget!

Then it occurred to us that a new threat now existed. The river in these parts was bounded on both sides by crops and sultana vineyards that often reached almost to the water’s edge, the risk of a crop fire was concerning. Some of the back-up crews and the organizers set off hastily down the farm roads in their back-up vehicles to try and contact the farmers and warn them of the floating fire-logs! As it turned out, luckily none of the crops or vines ever caught on fire. Whew!

The best entertainment around a campfire I had experienced ever!

We set off again the next day after the morning race briefing, at which time the events of the previous evening were explained, the whole exercise was done in good spirit, and the necessary apologies were made and accepted.

The Westerberg bridge remained unharmed apart from a few small superficial holes in the concrete of the pillar and the soot decorating one side of the bridge, which would soon be washed off in the next seasonal rains.

The farmers were not affected at all, apart from being woken up in the middle of the night to watch the spectacle of burning logs floating down the river, something, they admitted, they did not see every day:)

The town of Westerberg is still there, as is the bridge, I checked it on Google earth. I often wonder if it is still as intact as it was when we unexpectedly visited it way back in the 80’s. I have my doubts:)

Guiton Alonzo Blackburn

August 4^th, 2023