War Diaries Len Abbott

28th June 1942

Jock and I got up at 6.45 this morning to go to Holy Communion. After that, we met John and Jim in town and caught our coach for the tour. Previous to that however, I met the R.O from one of Radcliffe’s old crates which had taken 3 ½ months via N. York, to reach here, carrying beer and whiskey for the Middle East! He wanted to leave as soon as possible, because he reckoned R’s were the worst company going!

Our trip to the “Valley of a 1,000 hills” proved to be a great success. The total round trip was 100 miles and we climbed to 3,000 feet in the first 25 miles! We had lunch at the Valley of the 1,000 hills hotel, and then continued to the Zulu Reserve and Umgeni waterworks. The trip went something like this:-

Leaving the outskirts of the city we came across ranges of hills known as the Berea Hills, which contain the greatest and best part of Durban’s residential district. From there we continued along a steep, winding road which lead through Westville, Sarima Valley and Pinetown, respectively. It was along this stretch that we first noticed some rather tall, slender, light silvery colour barked trees which  we learned from the driver were Blue Gum trees, imported from Australia. In many ways they resembled the Birch.

Our next small town went by the peculiar name of Kloof and it was there that we first saw bunches of Hibiscus (or some such name) a very pretty red flower.

Along the road to Botha, our next town, we passed Richard Tauber’s 2^nd wife’s house, and a peculiar set of tea rooms built in the shape of little pepper pots and called the “Pepper Pot Tea Rooms”.

“Botha” was named after S. Africa’s first Prime Minister, who came into power in 1911. At this point we were 25 miles from Durban, and 3,000 ft up.

Soon after leaving Botha, our attention was called to a bunch of trees growing down a deep valley. Apparently these trees are known as Wattle trees; their barks are used for tanning and their trunks for props in the “Joburg” mines. To grow them, the seeds are first burned in acid. In this way a plant is formed in 3 weeks instead of 3 years, as is the case if the seeds are not treated.

From these strange trees we had magnificent uninterrupted panoramic views of the Valley of the 1,000 hills, until we finally reached the hotel of that name, where we had lunch.

The V. of 1,000 hills proper, is a Zulu Reserve measuring 74 miles long and 45 miles wide, given to the Zulu’s by Queen Victoria. 2,000 natives live there.

It was into this valley that we descended after lunch.

We passed many native men and women for the most part naked; some wearing loin cloths in the case of men, and a fancy cloth skirt fastened round the waist in the case of women.

Quite a few men carried a shield, spear and club – all highly ornamented.

The mud huts which they lived in took us back to a bygone age.

Our final destination was just beyond this valley and was known as the Umgeni waterworks. A project is apparently in progress whereby it is intended to dam up the Umgeni River, which by the way, is 200 miles long and runs into the Indian Ocean, and thus supply Durban with 15 million gallons of water per day. It will take 5 years to complete.

So from there we returned back to town after a very wonderful and interesting trip. To say the tremendous stretches of turbulent and bumpy hills were beautiful would hardly be correct, and yet they did possess an air of magnificence and a beauty entirely of their own. It is impossible to compare any tropical or sub-tropical scenery with that of England or Scotland, because there just is no comparison owing to the different shrubs, trees and wildflowers, to say nothing of the dryness.

3 ships were sunk in the Mozambique channel yesterday.