The Battlefields Tour

Update: During our last tour to Namibia we found the original grave plaque, with a museum identification tag as being the first grave stone (we assume of that era). A picture of this can be found here.

In the wild, remote and harsh expanse of southern Namibia one can experience piercing silence and absolute solitude, space is limitless, the soul is free to wander. This luxury is afforded by the inhospitable environment...life out here is tough and water and food hard to come by. Yet mankind has left his mark and there is a fascinating history to be told.

The beginning of last century saw a number of battles take place between the German colonial forces (Schutztruppe) and the Nama, the local people of southern Namibia. We would like to take you on a tour into history, accompanied by an expert in German colonialism. Together with this historian and a professional film crew we will visit the various fortifications and battlefields and try to piece together what happened here a hundred years ago. The mentioned film crew will be there to cover the events as well as the history of the battles. We hope to create a professional film documentary of the history between the Nama and the Germans.

On the 10th of September 2006 the tour starts in Johannesburg, South Africa and runs till the 20th of September. The following are some of the highlights:

• A historian will join us on the tour to explain what exactly happened and how battles were fought.

• We will make excursions to the old battlefields of Hartebeesmund, Sperlingspütz, Umeis, Warmbad, Ramansdrift, Sandfontein and Norechab, to mention a few. At these sites one will find many fortifications which gave the Schutztruppe the tactical advantage over the Nama.

• A ceremony to commemorate those that fell at the Battle of Norechab. 

• A professional film crew will accompany the tour to capture the events and history on film, with the hope of making a TV documentary.

• We will spend a night in Upington, a tranquil town next to the Orange River in South Africa.

• For the main part of the tour we will be accomodated in luxury chalets at Sandfontein Lodge, Namibia. This lodge sits on a massive farm of over 100,000 hectares, teaming with wildlife such as Gemsbok, Ostrich, Kudu, Springbok and even Leopard.

• The farm is also fronted by the Orange River, the border to South Africa, which makes for a wonderful place to relax and take in the surroundings.

A major aim of this project is to piece together as much as we can about the battles in the area and those that died (both German and Nama).
We hope that this project will help to further boost interest and tourism in southern Namibia.