A Trip Back in Time (Pilgrims Rest)
On our recent trip with Afri-can International we visited the town of Pilgrims Rest located in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa.
The town was founded in 1873 as a scattering of tents and rudementary shacks which soon grew to a population of 1,500 as a result of Pilgrims Creek gold rush which brought prospectors from all over the country. The story goes that the gold was first discovered by prospector Alec Patterson. He kept it a secret and panned the area alone until his fellow prospector William Trafford registered his claim with the Gold Commissioner and so, as news got out, a Gold rush began.
The town was kept very much the same and in 1970 it became a provincial heritage site.
With the all the gold eventually depleted, the locals have turned to forestry. The Village, however, has been painstakingly preservered as a "living museum"
