Diamonds And Dust: 57 -The Ancient Riverbed
Malcolm Bertoni tells of the area around Affenrucken where he worked in the world's biggest diamond mine.
To read earlier chapters of Malcolm's vivid account of diamond mining in Namibia please visit http://www.openwriting.com/archives/diamonds_and_dust/
To obtain a copy of his book click on http://www.equilibriumbooks.com/diamonds.htm
The ancient riverbed where Affenrucken was located was quite fascinating. It meandered north west for about 1˝ kms and then headed almost due west for about 3 or 4 kms before splitting up into tributaries that disappeared in the desert. Evidently the Orange River had a much larger estuary that extended over thousand of square kilometres north and south of the existing estuary. Some of us explored this riverbed for about 10-15 kms just for the hell of it, but it seemed to just peter out into the landscape.
There was a small freshwater spring about 1˝ to 2 kms up the old riverbed at Affenrucken. There always seemed to be water seeping out of the ground and it was just drinkable although not very palatable. I guess if you were dying of thirst and there was nothing else it would have helped, but only just.
It can be seen with Google Earth as a damp smudge in the meandering and dry riverbed.
Uubvlei was where CDM had its big workshops for the earthmoving machinery. There was a large single quarters for the Ovambos and there must have been a few hundred that lived and worked there, about 50 kms from town. Vlei means pan or swamp in Afrikaans. I’m not sure what Uub means, but there was a big white pan north of the workshops which we explored, but there was not much there to see. It always seemed to be very windy there.
There was an old railway siding near Uubvlei called Mooimeisiesfontein (“Pretty Girl Spring”). This was from the old days when CDM had a narrow gauge railway line that carried all the ore from the old screening plants to No 4 process plant. This was before all the other process plants were built in the 60s and 70s and before the screening plants were all demolished. I could never find out where the name came from.
I believe that in the old days that there was a narrow gauge railway line that ran from Luderitz to the old mining towns of Elizabeth Bay, Kolmanskop and Pomona in the northern areas. The line was pulled up in the Second World War.
