Not far from Graskop lies Pilgrim’s Rest, a living museum of a gold digger’s village, which was founded in 1873, when gold was discovered in the Pilgrim’s Creek.
News of the discovery of gold led to the first major gold rush in South Africa, and by the end of the same year there were some 1500 diggers working 4000 claims in and around Pilgrim’s Rest. By 1895 a mining company took over until 1972, when the last mine ceased to operate.
A couple of houses are open as a museum, which you all can visit with one ticket. Other places are shops, restaurants or can be booked as accommodation.
We especially loved the shop with all the old products. We recongized many brands you still can buy in South Africa.
This historic village was for sure worth the visit. We continued a little further south to Dullstroom that day, which is a more modern village with so many lovely restaurants and shops, a place where you could spend a lot of time.
We stayed at the Dullstroom Dam campsite, where we could watch a fire on the hill opposite the dam. Reminded us a lot of the fire when we lived in Spain, just that here only grass was burning and nobody cared.
After a breakfast, a visit to the filling station and some shopping we left Dullstroom and travelled south to Utrecht. Why Utrecht you may ask, it is not mentioned in any travel guide. As our son studies in Utrecht/Netherlands, we had to visit its namesake in South Africa.
