Rimer’s Creek vandals are stealing tourism ‘gold’
Up to now the visitors were very understanding as vandalism is regarded as a nationwide problem. The problem, however, is how to get the funds to fix what these vandals destroy every week.
Vandalism at Rimer’s Creek has reached an all-time high. According to Andrea Botha of Friends of the Barberton Daisy (CSI of Barberton Mines’ tourism development) there is only one word to describe her feelings about the state of affairs – mortified.
“It has become the norm as this occurs almost every week. It’s like a knife stab every time I get there with tourists – having to explain it away. It’s embarrassing to say the least,” Botha said.
Over the weekend vandals destroyed the gate which served as the entrance to the city of Grahamstown at Rimer’s Creek. It provided entrance to the mine. Because this is a tourist attraction, props were also used to portray the miners. These dolls were fully dressed in mine gear while holding equipment like drill machines to make it as realistic as possible. These were also destroyed and the mine gear had been stolen along with historical artefacts which added to the whole ambience. These very expensive props were all donated to Friends of the Barberton Daisy and currently it didn’t have the funds to replace them. They were smashed to pieces, poles that were planted had been kicked out and the benches had been broken.
This is not only the case at Rimer’s Creek, but at Kellar Park as well.
“I am really disappointed in the narrow-mindedness of some of our locals who can’t see that tourism is perhaps the only future we have for this town. Around every corner we have to fix and clean, and on a Monday we spent the whole day just picking up litter. This is not what this project is about, but we do it for the love of our town and know that if the community does not appreciate it at least the tourists visiting our town do.”
Friends of the Barberton Daisy is a community project. The main aim is the development of our area for tourism. Botha said this was becoming an endless battle to open the communities’ eyes so they could see the progress or even notice the job opportunities that tourism could create in all sectors. “Tourists eat out, stay over, fill up at local garages and buy at our shops. We need our visitors to leave with a positive attitude so that they can refer people to our town as we don’t have a marketing budget and word of mouth is our primary marketing tool at the moment,” she said.
Up to now the visitors were very understanding as vandalism is regarded as a nationwide problem. The problem, however, is how to get the funds to fix what these vandals destroy every week.
Botha said tourism did not only mean international people or visitors from other provinces, but that it actually started with the locals. “If you are using Kellar Park, which is being maintained by Friends of the Barberton Daisy, you are a visitor. As such, have some form of respect and the decency, to at least clean up after yourself. I am sure your house does not look like a rubbish dump! Our parks are not rubbish dumps and there is no job creation in throwing your litter around. There is no one to pick it up other than residents of our town who actually do give a damn,” she said.
Botha asked anyone with information about the vandalism at Rimer’s Creek to come forward. “We don’t need your identity and even if we have it, it will be kept a secret.” Please contact Andrea Botha on 079-180-1488.
