15th of December

The Unique setting.

" The 40m-tall granite monument houses the Hall of Heroes that retraces the journey of the Voortrekkers from the time they left the Cape Colony in their columns of ox-wagons.  In the monument is one of the world's longest historical marble friezes, the tribulations of the Voortrekkers are depicted."

The Cenotaph Hall, houses a tapestry of more than three million stitches, it depicts the story of the Great Trek.  The lighting was not very good inside, this is a glimpse of the hall and the tapestries on the one wall.

 A close up of one of the tapestries.  There is a quilt draped over the back of the chair. The women wearing bonnets, to protect their skin against the hot African sun.  These bonnets was hand quilted,  Boutis style.  A reflection to the French Huguenots.

 Colour chart of the wool , which was used in the tapestries, only a few colours was used.

The tapestries was done in panels, nine women worked for eight years to complete the fifteen scenes from the Great Trek, the tapestries contain 3,3 million stitches!

 A photograph, of the women, with some of the wool left over from the project.

Just an idea of the kind of terrain that they had to navigate inland with the ox-wagons.

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