Many rivers to cross – costing a pretty pound, too
You had the option of either coughing up and continuing on your way, or remaining there, bogged down to the gunwales.
The Dundee area is full of unusual anecdotes if you take the time to go on a journey of discovery. And you do not have to go far…
Go out of Dundee on the Nquthu road. Just before you get to iLanga Ranch and just past the coal-mine-that-never-was, with a plentiful supply of tyres guarding the entrance, you will come across a river with a bush-fire-ravaged signpost where someone in the Roads Department has made a total hash of the spelling. The name should read “iPondo ne hlanu” or “One Pound and Five Shillings” River.
It apparently derives its name from the fee charged by the local farmer to send his oxen team down to pull your bogged vehicle out of the old drift.
At the time (early 1900s), it was a considerable amount of money.
These days, it would be about R25. You had the option of either coughing up and continuing on your way, or remaining there, bogged down to the gunwales.
The Zulus were so impressed by this “highway robbery” that they named the river after it.
Read more:
Rains have Buffalo River in full flow
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