Hidden among the rocks lies the town of Kaapsche Hoop!

Early Days

Much of the gold mining in this region of the old Transvaal , was undertaken by a mining company who had purchased land and concessions. It was connected to Rand Mines of the modern era. Places like Barberton and Pilgrims Rest were therefore comparatively orderly as against the systematic mayhem experienced in Kaapschehoop; a later but real wildcat gold strike

Accordingly, Paul Kruger, the Transvaal President appointed a Gold Commissioner to tame the then Duiwel’s Kantoor (Devil's Office). He was Scottish, much in the President’s favour, and apparently the right man for the job. His first action upon arrival here was to beat off diggers with a whip to keep them away from his wife and daughters.

His quarters, built from stone, still stand, as does the ruins of the jail. Attempts have been made to register the building as a National monument were fed into the slow wheels of the monuments commission, and it seems these wheels turn as slowly as the village history. 

At about this time the town became Kaapschehoop but the 50-odd drinking holes continued to do a roaring trade with their tough contingent of attendant ‘ladies’.     

There were some harsh laws. Illegal claim jumping, for example, was punishable by lashes and if the guilty man survived he could still be tarred and feathered before being chased out of the area.

This Gold Commissioner also recorded in his memoirs that the Transvaal State gold-holdings had already been secreted out before Paul Kruger made his hurried departure through Mocambique and onwards to Holland. His escape route passed close bye Kaapscehoop, where the railway line to the coast comes down the escarpment and along  the Elands valley. This was at the very beginning of the 20th Century and end of the Anglo-boer war.

It is quite possible therefore, that the fabled Kruger millions was never hurriedly put back underground where it came from, as always believed, but shipped out previously in an orderly manner.

Digging for the Kruger millions has continued unabated near towns like Waterval Boven, Waterval Onder, Machadadorp and along the way towards Ermelo.