Simplon (Namibia)
Coordinates: 26 ° 49 ′ 30 ″ S , 17 ° 20 ′ 57.5 ″ E
Position of Simplon |
Simplon is a farm in southern Namibia on the edge of the Namib , 13 km east of the village of Goageb . Part of the farm area is now connected to the neighboring farm, Sandverhaar .
geography
Simplon is located south of the B4 national road leading from Keetmanshoop via Seeheim and Aus to Lüderitz at the junction of the D462 district road.
Like large parts of southern Namibia, Simplon has an arid climate with little rainfall. The main rainy season is in summer from November to March. Exceptionally, Simplon can also get winter rain in connection with a strong low pressure system over the Cape. The Gurieb - Rivier , which rises on the Schwarzrand on the breadth of Bethanie , flows through the farm Simplon from north to south. The river later flows into the Konkiep . Under the river bed there are pools of water that enable trees with deep roots to survive even in the dry season. An acacia forest meanders along the river bed, which provides food for many animals.
history
The farm founders
Georg Köttker bought the property after 1907 from the German conservation area administration of South West Africa and named the newly founded farm Simplon because his wife, Frida Köttker-Müller, was Swiss. The Simplon Tunnel, which was completed in 1905 and inaugurated in 1906, was well known at the time as the longest tunnel in the world, and this is how the farm got its name in reference to the Simplon Tunnel and the Simplon Pass . Georg Köttker died on July 8, 1959 and Frieda Köttker died on June 3, 1963. The two graves have been preserved in the Lüderitz cemetery to this day (2017).
Old lime kilns
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Lime was burned on the Simplon farm and on the neighboring Sandverhaar farm for a long time. The lime kiln on Sandverhaar was built before 1900. The younger lime kiln, which is located on the Lüderitz – Seeheim railway line , was built in 1906 and was in operation until 1972. The burnt lime was first transported by ox wagon and later by train from Simplon to Lüderitzbucht or Keetmanshoop . Many of the walls of the abandoned town of Kolmanskop were probably built with Simplon cement. An undated newspaper clipping from probably 1910 shows how Georg Köttker sells lime and camel thorn wood from Sandverhaar.
To burn lime, you needed limestone and wood. Both were abundant in Simplon and Sandverhaar. Large parts of the two farms are on limestone ground. Camel thorn tree wood , which has a very high calorific value, it was along the Gurieb reap -Flusses. Even today, along the river bed, there are many branches of trees that are over a hundred years old , the wood of which was used to burn lime. The two lime kilns are probably the oldest in Namibia.
traffic
In 1906 and 1907 the Lüderitz – Seeheim railway line was built through the farm area. At Farm Simplon, however, a train station was only built after 1914, where cattle and lime were also loaded. The train station is out of order.
The dirt road and the former ox-wagon path ran partly parallel to the railway from east to west through the farm. A car garage and a gas station were in operation near the farm buildings and the Simplon train station. The latter was rebuilt by the current farm owner as a historical relic. Later the national road B4 , which was moved 2 km to the north from the farm buildings and the train station, was paved. Here, at the northwest corner of the farm, is the junction of the D462.
Until 1972, the then farmer maintained an airfield on Simplon with three crossed slopes. The airfield was entered on the international air map and (with "abandoned" German left ), respectively. The runway was also listed in the Airfields Directory for Southern Africa until 2014. The slope can still be seen on Google Earth today. On Monday, March 20, 1972, the 43-year-old farmer had an accident with his Cessna C182 34 km east of Lüderitz. He, his wife and a couple of friends died. Since then, the slope on Simplon has not been used; and since that day the lime kiln at the train station has also stood still.
Heliograph station
During the German colonial era , the protection forces operated a heliograph station on the site of today's Sandverhaar-Simplon farm on a hill on the Schwarzrand . The ruins of the station's walls can still be seen today. Among other things, telegrams could be transmitted from here to the neighboring heliograph station more than 100 km away on the 1231 meter high Spiegelberg , which bears his name because of the heliograph station operated there.
present
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Today there is a lodge on the Simplon Farm with the significant name Alte Kalköfen Lodge . Since 2010 there is a new airfield, which is 2 km east of the farm buildings and the current lodge. The former garage was converted into a residential building. The most extensive lithoparium in Namibia is located in the Simplon farm . The TransNamib -Bahngesellschaft plans to renew the tracks through the farm in the near future, because the previous tracks only allow a maximum speed of 20 km / h.
In the middle of the lodge area there is a small restored chapel in which today weddings take place. Up to 80 guests can be catered for and there is overnight accommodation for 24 people. There are also 3 camping sites in the immediate vicinity.
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Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Namibia Travel Map , Kunth-Verlag, Munich, ISBN 9783955045784
- ↑ Often the name is also written Gurib .
- ↑ Church and civil weddings, Church book Bethanien, September 22, 1913.
- ↑ a b c The story behind Alte Kalköfen
- ↑ In the marriage certificate, the name is written as "Frida" and on the tombstone as "Frieda".
- ↑ Uwe Albert: Yesterday and today. On the tracks of the railways in German South West Africa. Glanz & Gloria Verlag, Windhoek 2016, ISBN 978-99916-909-1-9 , p. 166.
- ^ Beat H. Schweizer: Railways in Namibia. 110 years of the rail transport system in the former German Southwest Africa. TrevorB Editions, Somerset West / Cape Town 2007, ISBN 978-3-907579-99-2 , p. 47.
- ↑ ICAO flight map ONC Q-4 Edition 4, 1: 1,000,000, Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center, Missouri, revised 1984.
- ^ Airfields Directory for Southern Africa. 5th edition. Aviation.Direct cc South Africa, ISBN 0-620-48088-2 , p. 412.
- ↑ Four dead in plane crash. The farmer couple Wilhelm Schneider and the teacher couple Gernot Gessert perished in the Namib. In: Allgemeine Zeitung. Volume 57, Windhoek, March 21, 1972.
- ↑ Alte Kalköfen Lodge
- ^ Airfields Directory for Southern Africa. 6th edition. Aviation.Direct cc South Africa. ISBN 978-0-620-67376-1 .
- ↑ See the French website cole-lithoparium
- ↑ Alte Kalköfen Lodge: Weddings , accessed on November 19, 2018.