DEAR Editor;
I saw in the latest online Herald, the article about the boat found in the Mzimkhulu River recently.
My mind tells me that it is a barge that was used for transporting lime from the lime works upriver to the south wharf below the present Shoprite complex.
Before roads were built, the lime company would load these barges and link them one behind the other and tow them downstream with a small motorised boat to the railway yard.
They would return the same way to the lime works, sometimes carrying material for the building of the water corporation’s pump station at St Helen’s Rock above the sugar mill.
My Dad worked for the Lower South Coast Water Supply Corporation at the time in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
This barge could have fallen victim to one of the numerous floods at that time.
I have seen a picture of about four of these barges being towed by the motor boat in the old Port Shepstone Library, also where Shoprite now stands, but have no idea where the picture is now.
WALLY ARCHER
Perth
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like the South Coast Herald’s Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
