Memories of Mooi River
I can still hear my father saying, "People say that Water Affairs are looking for a spot to build a dam, but it takes 40 years before it realizes"
Editor
I grew up in Mooi River where my father “Swanie” Swanepoel was a cheese maker at the NCD and my mother Minnie worked in the Magistrates Court. In 1968 he bought a small-holding in Rosetta, where we enjoyed country life. Our property was next to the Mooi River, where my father invented his own waterwheel to pump water to the top of the hill into a tank for domestic use.
During 1971-1973 we often saw a helicopter and sometimes it came down so low, that we thought it might land near our house. I can still hear my father saying, “People say that Water Affairs are looking for a spot to build a dam, but it takes 40 years before it realizes.”
In 1988 my father sold the property. In 2001 both my parents passed away within seven days of each other.
In 2013 the Spring Grove Dam was completed and the wall was exactly on the same place where the waterwheel was pumping water 40 years before.I still think back with lots of wonderful memories to those words of my father.
If only he knew…
Leda Grungling (nee Swanepoel)
Newcastle
