The Boerwar 1899 to 1902 South Africa weekend of hunting

Africa

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Apr 27, 2008
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Queenstown South Africa
This past weekend here in South Africa we have just had a three day weekend of holidays, today Monday was a public holiday (do not ask me what it was I do not care, only that I did not have to work today :o) however on Friday two friends and myself went up to a town called Zastron, we stayed at Willems friends house, Tarbo who is a collector of Boer/ British War stuff, he has been collecting for many years, I am sure that he has dug many holes into the ground over the past 20 odd years, his collection of stuff is very interesting, Saturday morning we left early at 6am in his truck we went to Wepener and visited an old battlefield where many people have been before, we had three machines running, as well as three men to help us dig, the one guy was a Bushman and the other two were from Lesotho which is just across the border.

Walking up and down hills, slopes, using a machine all day long is a very tiring hobbie, however with the help of these men, it did make things easy as they did most of the digging, we use old car spring blades to dig with as well as a spade and a variety of other digging tools as well.
Many old 303 doppies were found as well as shapnal from the 15 pond cannon and various other parts from the cannon head, I found part of a mouth organ, some Mauser bullet doppies these are very scarse, see my pic's to show you basically what I found, these items are been cleaned and then will be mounted in display cabnets that will hang against the wall in my office here at home, various cabnets will be from various places where I have found stuff.

I also found a very old fork, it was found between some rocks that were part of a wall of a stone fort that The Britsh used that overlooked Bushmanshoek just outside Sterkstroom, my Minelab picked up the fork, but I could not see it, I then managed to wedge my spade between the rocks and saw the fork lying inbetween the rocks, how it got there I have no idea.

I also found some more 303 doppies as well as many old nails, and a Martini Henry bullet doppie, these are also very scarse. While out walking through the veltd I also come across pieces of old glass that I also pick up and put in my bag, I also found while digging part of an old smoking pipe, it has the following written on it..... Gambler a Par something S might be the word "parts" ? The owner of the farm also found another part of a pipe a few years back, even the little metal cap that you close over the top.

Parts of a bayonet as well as the sights from an old 303 rifle were also found by him and various other bullets and stuff.

This first photo basically shows you where The Siedge of Wepener took place, The Boers ponded The British with their 15 ponder cannons from across the river towards the left side of the photo.
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This photo shows you some of the stuff that I found.
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Africa

Africa

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Apr 27, 2008
160
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Queenstown South Africa
Here we have Ben on the left using my Minelab GT and Tarbo on the right using his machine, you just also got to look where you are walking as well, there is so much stuff lying around on this battlefield that yo dig a lot.

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Here we have a dish of used 303 doppies, they were used in a Maxim machine gun, the doppies are made from brass, they must have wrecked much havoc towards The Boers during this fight.

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acevillav

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May 5, 2005
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Cool digs amigo. Sounds like you guys have been at it for a while and are never sure what you're going to come across @ there. It would be cool to find some medals or unifrom buttons. Thanks for the post it's always cool to see what people in far away places are doing. if you ever @ central Ohio USA The first round is on me. There is a budwiser brewery about 30 min from my place ;D.

Acevillav
 

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Africa

Africa

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Apr 27, 2008
160
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Queenstown South Africa
Your invitation will be taken up one day, not sure when, but I have never left Africa and will one day like to visit America, I already have my full grown flag from The USA hanging in my workshop at home. Will take up your offer one day, you bet on it, Thankyou.

Yes we do have excellent places to visit, I have many pic's to share with you all, but
www.photobox.co.uk just takes so long to upload pic's to, do you have another web site that I can use that is quick to upload pic's to please.

Will chat again, all the best
simon
 

panzermeyer

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Wow !!! Cool finds. My country < Canada > also fought in the Boer war.I;d sure like to dig where they were camped or fought.Keep up the good work...HH..Panz
 

Mike Moutray

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Interesting finds! We have a local park here that was the site of the 1904 worlds fair, and they had Boer War reenactments in one certain spot. There are thousands of spent .303 shells in the ground everywhere, and I've always wondered if they were the same cartridges that were actually used in the war - they look identical to the ones in your photo. I also found uniform butons on that site, but never looked them up to see if they were authentic ones from the war period. Take care and HH, Mike.
 

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