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The Titanic Trail

(Bushman Valley, Prince Albert, Southern Cape, South Africa).

 

What has Prince Albert to do with the Titanic?

Prince Albert’s eldest grandson, George V, was on the throne when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on 15 April, 1912. Due to an inadequate number of lifeboats 1 517 people perished while 705 were saved. The centenary commemorations will be held worldwide. It is also the year of Prince Albert’s 250^th celebration.

In honour of the double-event Bushman Valley has named their Oukloof mountain hike ‘The Titanic Trail’, not only because it is lengthy and awesome but also because of an iceberg-like rock along it’s crest, with two large rocks like the wreck beneath it on the mountain slope. It takes 2.5 hours to reach the ‘Ysberg’, which is about the length of time it took the ship to sink. The pathway then meanders down past the ‘wreck’ rocks and its ‘debris field’.

Two years ago Ian and Barbara Uys of Bushman Valley founded a Titanic Room in the maritime museum of Knysna, which is very popular. Barbara is distantly related to the Titanic’s captain, Edward J Smith, while Ian has a website www.titanicresearch.com which may yet be published as an e-book. A Titanic Centenary dinner is being held in Cape Town on the 14^th April 2012 to commemorate the sinking.

Among those who perished was a former Worcester hotelkeeper. His daughter, Edith Brown, 16, recalled that  he told his family as they were leaving on a lifeboat that he would see them in New York, knowing well  that he wouldn’t.