#10: Second Sample Map

SEE BELOW FOR NEW MAP SHOWING DIFFERENT WAYS OF INDICATING DISTANCES

This second sample “bit of map” shows some Cederberg high country, and the proposed mapping style for the high peaks above the shale band.  It’s ready and awaiting your critical inputs, and for that reason I have included a couple of features that some might rather not see included. If you feel that way, please tell. I’m not wedded to any specific info that might appear off the established paths. The “Cederberggrot” is in the wrong place and if I don’t get any further info I will leave it out. “Laurie se Hel should move down a bit, more or less in line with “Eselbank”.


Some explanations:


 The map-sample is a condensed jpg file, so do not expect all the linework and lettering to be as sharp as the final printed product [black lines might appear a hazy grey, for example];
 colours may not be 100% true, depending upon your monitor settings;
 the original is approx. 1:50 000 scale. To reproduce this you need to print or view the map-sample at max. width of 200 mm;
 there is no key to the sample [there will be one, of course, on the complete map] so there may be some new symbols that are unfamiliar.  Green dots on yellow are the standard paths within the Wilderness; green dashes are ditto jeep-tracks. Broken brown, green or red dotted lines on pale yellow are various classes of “ways to go”, where there may not be an actual path. If there is anything else you don’t understand please contact me via http://www.slingsbymaps.com/contactus.aspx or my email if you have it.
 A name in red means we have not located it accurately yet;
 there is only a long/lat grid on the map at this stage; there are requests for a UTM grid as well but I’m still working on how to do this without crowding the map too much.


Please send all and any comments to me via the web address above [or my email if you have it]; the map will remain online UNTIL 31 JULY 2012 ONLY, so this is your chance to have your ideas considered and maybe incorporated, too! Just remember, please, that like the first sample this is a tiny fraction of Side One of the map, which will be A1 in size when printed.


I will shortly be publishing another sample piece, this time to show two different ways of indicating distances on the map, for your comment.

You can also simply click on this image to enlarge it

View and/or download the new map-sample from
http://www.slingsbymaps.com/images/sample-cederberg2.jpg 

Two ways of showing distances; 
PLEASE comment on which method you prefer.
1. Purple arrow: a small panel that shows distance between path junctions and an approximate time [cf our Silvermine map], or
2. Red arrow: distance to the next junction shown in small red numbers at the intersection; no times shown [cf our old Drakensberg series]. Times are difficult to show with any accuracy, especially for uphill/downhill, etc etc.
Click on the map to enlarge it

Explanations of Some Names:

Vuilpoortjie from the nek below Tafelberg – a daunting sight for a 6-year old who has just climbed up from Welbedacht!

Some of the names on this sample have interesting stories. “Vuilpoortjie” east of Shadow Peak is the route that was used by school children from Eikeboom, Driehoek, Welbedacht, etc. on their way to weekly-boarding school at Eselbank [the Dwarsrivier/Kromrivier kids used Gabriël’s Pass]. Welbedacht Cave and the now largely-unused Cederberggrot were the only significant shelters along the route. 

Vuilpoortjie [about 1690m] from the shaleband on the Eselbank side. Fancy trying that on a Friday afternoon in February?

Next time you’re toiling up a long uphill slog somewhere in the mountains think of those kids, aged 6 to perhaps 13 ... every Friday afternoon and every Sunday morning they walked that route, forty school weeks a year for six or seven years.

Lucky contemporary boarders at Eselbank – they [sometimes] get fetched and carried by bakkie or donkey-cart ...

Eselbank is a name with a variety of suggested origins. The most common seems to be that somewhere there is a trough-shaped rock that was used to hold the donkeys’ feed. Strangely enough, no one knows where that trough is any more. I prefer the origin offered by Alex Basson, as told to him by the Eselbankers themselves, and so probably true. “Bank” can also mean “ledge” or “overhang” [in the Baviaanskloof “bank” has become “bak”]. 

Eselbank cottage

One day an elderly woodcutter went with his donkeys to collect cedar wood in the rocky jungle known as Laurie’s Hell [or Laurie se Hel – the Lauries are an old Eselbank family]. While sawing timber a heavy tree fell the wrong way and broke the old man’s leg. In great pain he managed to drag himself under an overhang, but was then unable to move any further. No one knew exactly where he was, and his chances of being found in that maze of boulders were zero. But his oldest donkey, a faithful old beast that had been with him for many years, found him there. The donkey set up a braying and a neighing such as only a donkey can, and kept this up all afternoon, all night and into the next day. Alerted by the ceaseless hee-haws the old man’s neighbours sent out a  search party, and brought him home to safety. The tiny cluster of houses became known as “De Eselbank” or “Eselbank” as a result.

Eselbank, with Laurie se Hel behind; Tafelberg peeping out, top left.

Inputs already acknowledged: Rudolf Andrag, Quinton Martins, Ronnie Hazell, Charles Merry, Ezan Wilson, Wim Morris, Alex Basson, Graham Bellairs, Julyan Symons, Galeo Saintz, Paul la Grange, Laurence Elton, Mike Scott, Peter Hart, Justin Lawson, Paul la Grange, David Donald, Johann Lanz, Cisca Nieuwoudt, Torben Wiborg, Sandy MacDonald, Trevor Rennison, Hendrico Burger, Nicky Lombard, Jeroen Kant, Patrick Lane, Ingar Valentyn, Pip Nieuwoudt, Eugene Moll, Greg Moseley, Tony Heher, Andrea and Moritz Connrad, Hennie van der Westhuizen, Isak Koopman, Kerneels Filander, Kellie of Grasvlei, Barry Ockhuis, Joey Ockhuis, Gert Theron, Mary Anne Zimri, Louis Conradie, Haffie Strauss


Let the comments come rolling in ... don’t be shy.
Kaartman, 3 July 2012